...on the other hand, if I take tea and freeze it and use that to cool off my drink, THEN I have ice tea. (The cubes, that is, not the drink.)

It seemed like a no-brainer to me, until I see that 2 people say "ice tea."

Hogs Back T.E.A.

Beer is preferable, as Richard indicates, but the only way to drink tea is hot.

Icecream was iced cream. We are in a transitional ‘iced-to-ice’ period re: tea (and coffee, if the wind is steady), the likes of which (on individual merit) has never been seen before. Then again, which of you old stick-in-the-muds* still says iced cream?

beans

*sticks-in-the-mud or stick-in-the-muds; you decide! that is very yanky humoury. And that was british.

Ice Cream . . . Iced Tea . . . cold beer . . .

all sounds good to me!


OK - so you brits of great beer drinking fame . . . do you still take your beer at room temperature, even on sweltering hot days? I was just camping for 5 days and the temps didn't go below 75 the entire time, including at night. COLD BEER, DAMMIT! Of course, I drank gallons of water, cold or whatever, and only had one beer the whole time. I just want to know what you think.

quote:

do you still take your beer at room temperature, even on sweltering hot days?

Where did you get the idea that we drink our beer at room temperature? Cask-conditioned beer is drunk at cellar temperature, typically between 45 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

American chemical fizz beers are drunk at around 33 or 34 degrees - and this is more to disguise their foul taste than anything else. Let them warm up to 50 degrees and all the nasty chemical flavours come out. English beer needs to be drunk at cellar temperature so that all its wonderful nuances of flavour can be enjoyed.

I have found, as a rule, the poorer the drink the lower the temperature at which it is drunk.

Chardonnay, Mr. English? What about Budvar Budweiser and the Pilzner tradition beers? Surely they're not too awful?

beans

quote:

I have found, as a rule, the poorer the drink the lower the temperature at which it is drunk.

Ok - that makes sense. However, when it's over 100 degrees, I don't want a cellar temperature drink, regardless of it's nuances. I want very cold something. The problem with good beer, though, is that it would be wasteful to poor half of it down one's back. I was doing that with my iced water. :-)

I did learn from Richard that as beer warms a bit, you taste the full body of the beer. Many of the American beers, like Bud or Miller's, just taste like carbonated water so they taste better cold.

In Australia we brew in the Germanic tradition of full bodied, full strength beers. I have tried American beer, and it is just like making love in a canoe; fucking close to water. The alcohol content and, accordingly, flavour is almost absent. I drank it like it was soft-drink (soda); took no time at all to get thru a dozen. I got a terrible hang-over for it (not used to drinking quantity), but it's interesting to have experienced the difference.

As a broad rule, i agree once again with Mr. English in that alcoholic beverage is better liberated from its encapsulation at room temperature. Malt scotch, cab sav and dark ale to name a few.

Finitely, I like a properly chilled beer on a hot day. It's a tradition that extends into the past more so than winemaking, a most human event.

beans

quote:

Chardonnay, Mr. English? What about Budvar Budweiser and the Pilzner tradition beers? Surely they're not too awful?

Nothing wrong with REAL Budweiser - and it's not supposed to be drunk at 33 degrees, although it will be drunk cooller than would an ale.

Consider: vintage Champagne and cheap sparkling wine; Nuits St Georges and Valpolicella Classico; Anheuser Busch Budweiser and Fuller's 1845; cheap blended whisky and Laphroaig.

quote:

In Australia we brew in the Germanic tradition of full bodied, full strength beers.

I must have been unlucky, then. On my two visits I found only two beers that had any flavour. The first was made in Perth and was a steam beer, rather like an Anchor stem. I have not seen it recently and suspect the brewery's gone. The other was Cooper's - the first being their "Sparkling Ale". A flavoursome BCA with a heavy yeast sediment. On one memorable evening at the Red Ochre restaurant in Cairns I tried a pint of every one of their beers (apart from the non-alcoholic one). We can get Cooper's Sparkling in the UK but, since we have a choice of around 600 BCAs and maybe 1,500 cask conditioned beers, I don't buy it all that often. Nectar in Australia; just another good beer in the UK.

quote:

I got a terrible hang-over for it (not used to drinking quantity), but it's interesting to have experienced the difference.

I suspect it wasn't the quantity it was the quality. I get a headache after just a bottle of A-B Budweiser (or any of its clones like Fosters and Castlemaine) but I can drink many, many pints of good beer and have a completely clear head the next morning.

Incidentally, A-B Budweiser is said to be 5% abv - stronger than, say, Fosters - but I can't say I've ever drunk enough of it to appreciate any effect of the alcohol.

I write Iced Tea, and have only every seen that in print, however, when I say it, the 'd' is almost silent, so from listening, you probably couldn't tell it was there at all.

However, my old roommate would drink "Ice Coffee", which was coffee with ice added. I'm not sure what the menu at the coffee shops says, so it could be "Iced Coffee".