Ice Cream & Beer??
Do you like ice cream? You probably do. Ice cream is one of the world’s most popular sweet treats, but it’s typically over loaded with sugar and other flavours. This overloading is to compensate for the freezing effect it has on your taste buds. Cold foods and drinks numb your taste buds, which can be great if those foods and drinks don’t taste so good in the first place. If you try chugging a pint of thawed ice cream, (we’re not recommending it), but if you do, you’ll probably find in cloyingly sweet. You are also not going to find it nearly as refreshing as it’s frozen counterpart!
Macro beers are generally brewed down to a price, not up to a standard. They are usually served cold, very cold, for exactly the same reason. A little icy anaesthetic often helps to make them palatable, or at least masks the bits you’re better off not tasting. But save the frosted glasses and double chilled taps for the kinds of beers you can get anywhere and everywhere. Great beer tastes great, so there’s no need to chill it down to tongue numbing temperatures.
No, you don’t want ice with that!!
Savour your glass of Black Donkey beer, and enjoy it at an optimal serving temperature of between 8 and 10°C. Stronger and maltier brews like Underworld Rua or Sgt Jimmy can be enjoyed up to 14°C. If you are ever offered ice with your craft beer, politely decline. For quality control, we store random samples of every batch of beer at ambient temperature. From time to time we sample them at temps as high as 20°C. At these elevated temperatures the beers are not as refreshing as they are at their intended serving temps, but any flaws in them will become immediately obvious, so we’re happy to take one for the team, so to speak.
Ultimately though, whatever way you chose to serve and consume your Black Donkey beer, we hope you enjoy it. And we thank you for supporting a small, independent, local business.