So I walked up to the bartender and asked for a beer.
In doing so I noticed there were no refrigerators in the tavern. But there were many dark bottles on several shelves behind the bartender. I felt perplexed as I saw nothing that I knew to be familiar with in the ordinary light amber or transparent bottles I was accustomed to.
The gentleman then slams one of the dark bottles down on the bar and says, “Try this boy!”
The bottle was room temperature. In fact is almost seemed warm. I thought “You’ve GOT to be kidding!” I took a drink and almost wretched in horror. It was a stout Guinness. It tasted like cough syrup.
Dear reader, have you guessed where I was? It was London and the year was 1970. I was a newly minted Chico State College graduate and had only sampled your basic larger beers at frat keggers etc. In England however, there was obviously a different culture around beer. I found out later that many English pubs actually had beer warmers. This was not Kansas anymore!
One of the first things I learned in naturopathic school and repeated in my Ayurvedic studies in that optimal health is first created by optimal digestion, And strong digestive fire is essential to break down food for absorption. If the gut (which is slightly warmer than 98.6 degrees due to all the churning of digestion and enzymes) compromised with the inclusion or cold food or beverages then the digestive process is undermined. Remember, cold depresses movement and may shock the system. Food that is not fully digested may ferment, rot and putrify in the gut. This may become the first stage of the disease process!.
Back to our discussion about the English pub. Though knowledge of how to create strong digestion may be lacking in English pubs, the tradition is still alive from historic times when this simple knowledge was passed from the Asian traditions such as Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine.
