Coming from America, the idea that beer would ever be serve in any way other than supercold seemed odd.  Now, it did seem strange to me when I saw the Thai putting ice in their beer, but I could understand the thinking behind it.  But warm beer?  Incomprehensible.  I remember hearing several jokes about Brits and their warm beer.  But of course it's not just beer that should be ice cold, but everything, even water - or so I thought.

In my years living in Japan, though, Ive changed.  It started with water.  I mainly drink water straight from the tap, and just got used to drinking it at whatever temp it came out.  It was too much work to cool it down.  Now I prefer it that way.

Then it was wine.  People say that white should be chilled, but with my small fridge, and my buy and eat on same day shopping habits, chilling wine properly was too much work.  Now I'm used to it, and find that when its chilled, its too hard to really taste, especially with the fruity and sweeter wines from South America that I usually drink.

Just recently I have come to appreciate barely cooled and lukewarm beer.  I first noticed it with Belgian ales, that they really tasted completely different when cold, vs cool.  Now I'll leave beers out, and drink them at room temperature.