Your Essential Guide to Drinking Beer – How Temperature Matters

With a myriad of styles and types of beers that exist in the world, the biggest question with respect to serving revolves around the temperature. In most cases, drinkers have their own preferences that may be varying. This is possible since there aren’t many stringent norms with respects to the ideal serving temperatures as experienced with wine.

Said that, this is a general guide on what is the universally accepted norm that is in no way an absolute truth.

Busting Common Myths

Before we venture into the science of serving beers at the right temperatures, it is important to address two myths –

1.    It is a common misconception that all beer needs to be served very cold. Most macro brewers encourage this idea because the sensation of feeling cold slows down the taste receptors on your tongue. Since taste is usually the week point of beer when compared with competition such as iced tea and soda, macro breweries need to position their products on features other than taste and hence it became important for them to find a way to neutralize taste. Good beer in fact should be as far from frozen as possible.

2.    Another common myth is that English beer needs to be served warm or at room temperature. It is actually served at cellar temperature which is between 12- 14 degrees Celsius.

Beer is best enjoyed in your pewter beer stein at a temperature that is between ice cold and room temperature. Also, color is a big determinant of what the temperature of your beer should be. Light colored beers are best served cold. The warmest beers you will have will be big and dark beers such as barley wines, imperial stouts and quadruples.

Beers to be served Very Cold

At 0 to 4 degrees Celsius, beers that you wouldn’t want to really taste are ideal. The Pale lager, Scandinavian style cider, Canadian style golden ale, cream ale, low alcohol and American and Canadian cider fall typically under this category.

Beers to Serve Cold

Hefeweizen, premium lager, classic German pilsner, fruit beer, kolsch, European strong lager, American dark lager, brew-pub style golden ale and sweetened fruit lambics are best consumed at temperatures between 4 and 7 degrees Celsius.
Cool Beers

The American pale ale, California common, Vienna schwarzbier, Irish ale, French or Spanish cider, English style golden ale, sweets stout and stout are usually served at temperatures between 8 and 12 degrees Celsius.

The right beer at the right temperature poured into a classic pewter beer stein is probably the best way to enjoy this beverage. In addition to the correct temperature, the correct glass also influences your drinking experience. Find the right beer steins for sale to make sure your drinking experience is authentic!

The Magical Essence of Pewter Beer Steins

One of the most popular materials used for making drinking and eating containers—pewter, has always been the preferred choice for steins. Because of it resistance to tarnish, breakage and rusting, it has been used as a primary material for the making of beer mugs and steins. Contrary to silver, iron and copper; pewter does not impart its unique taste or aroma to the drink served in containers made from the same. This makes it a material of choice for German pewter beer steins and heritage mugs.

In the 1500s, pewter beer stein figurines were engraved, hammered or cast to create hammered reliefs, sculptors and incisions. Their relatively thin handles were made of S-Shaped pieces of pewter. The motifs and depictions on a pewter beer stein usually depicted allegorical scenes connected with German culture, Regimental stories, Biblical anecdotes and other folk lures.

Copperplate engravers and other specialists in relief work created masterpieces in the regions of Nuremberg and Saxony– in the period 1500-1600 AD. Gilded pewter steins made their mark in the 1700s and competed with the ornate designs of glass steins, stoneware and colorful faience.

The magic of pewter steins

Produced in the Walzenkrug shape in the 1800s, these pewter steins contained engravings, tiny zigzag patterns and wiggle work. The neo-Renaissance designs in the form of masks, cartouches, fruit bundles, garlands and other classical designs abounded in the later part of the century. The pewter steins captured the essence of the designs of the Art Nouveau period in the twentieth century and are now branded as collectible items across the world.

Identification of shapes and origin

Pewter steins can be identified by their unique differences in shapes and location of origin. While the footed vases or “Rorken” find their roots in Northern Germany; the pear shaped ones hail from Hungary, Schlesien, Bohemia or southern Germany. The tapered and tall pewter pieces are from Austria. Switzerland and southern Germany.

Basic types of pewter steins

Depending on the materials and percentage of ingredients used, pewter steins come in three basic types. The most genuine of the lot (Lautere), has pale coloration and is manufactured from lead free tin along with small quantities of antimony, bismuth or copper.

Proved pewter, also referred as Probezinn, Reichsprobe, Probe or by other similar names; boasts of a ratio of 10: 1 of tin to lead. Low (Geringen) pewter has a ration of 6:1.

Watch out for…

Many reproductions of these early styles were manufactured during the Historicism period. Though not intended to be sold as fakes; they were devoid of the presence of the manufacturer’s names and were generally cast in plaster/gypsum molds or sand. A careful eye is required to study the purity mad marks of these replications. Black flaking disease/Powdering disease is other concerns which can lead to premature aging, breakage, weathering and creation of holes in the surface of pewter steins.

With a steady increase in the prices of pewter steins worldwide, contemporary collectors are advised to have a good insight into the history, production techniques, marks and identifications of pewter beer mugs and steins—to make their collection all the more priceless and unique.