(Before I begin, my apologies to readers in the southern hemisphere, who are just entering their winter season as we northerners rev up for summer. What can I say? I write from experience, and I live in Toronto ...)

     Okay, it's May and temperatures are warming up. Which means that for the next five months or so, depending on where you live, the joys of a cold beer are going to be only that much more acute. Think about it: The sun is high, the faint breeze is but a rustle of hot air, sweat pastes your shirt to your body, and some kind soul hands you a lovely, cold glass of quenching ale or lager.

     Sounds good, doesn't it?

     But like all good things, cold in beer can be taken too far, and is on an astonishingly regular basis in bars and restaurants across the United States and Canada. To wit:

     - Although it's yet to reach such epidemic proportions in Canada, it's almost impossible in the United States these days to be served a beer in a non-frosted glass. Even at many better beer establishments, I have to specifically request a room temperature glass and occasionally wait while the bartender tries to track one down;

     - Companies like Molson-Coors have taken cold beer to idiotic extremes, inventing such inane "innovations" as the draught tap that pours beer as a tongue-numbing sub-freezing temperature;

     - Higher alcohol ales, which should optimally be delivered to the customer at cellar temperature, are regularly served as cold as are the mass-market lagers stored in the fridge beside them.

     And so on. The problem with all this, of course, is that extreme cold kills the taste of beer. And if you're drinking for enjoyment, rather than for alcohol intake alone, it stands to figure that you'll want to be able to actually taste what it is you're paying good money for. This can be accomplished as cool temperatures, but as any fan of flavourful beer will know, the colder the beer becomes, the harder it is to taste.

     Inappropriate serving temperature is hardly a problem that's unique to beer - red wine is as regularly served too warm as white wine is too cold - but it is one which plagues the beer aficionado perhaps more than the oenophile or the whisky connoisseur. And damn it, it's time we put a stop to it!

     (Again, a quick word to readers in "the other" hemisphere, specifically my Australian friends: I have not yet visited your country, but I have been told that this epidemic of coldness in beer is as bad or worse Down Under as it is in these parts. So I call upon you, too, to step up and do your part for reasonably chilled beer!)

     Next time you're served a beer in a glass that has ice clinging to its side, send it back! When you're offered a frigid bottle or glass of Belgian abbey-style or similar ale, do something outrageous like asking the server to pop it in the microwave for thirty seconds. (It won't hurt the beer, and is a ridiculous request, but it's sure to get your point across.) And if you're drinking with a friend who won't give up the frosted glass, buy them a pint in a room temperature glass and see what they think about actually being able to taste their beer for a change.

     Depending on what brand they're drinking, you may not only make a point about the effect of ice-cold temperatures on beer, you may also win over a convert to more flavourful ale and lager.

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