Disclaimer: I have never made this recipe, nor have I cooked with beer.

Based on my experience with making dough, if you need it to be cold, it’s so that the dough stays firm, and usually that’s because you have butter that you want to avoid melting or softening.

In this recipe, you are adding warm-ish onions at the same stage as the beer, so I’m going to guess that keeping the dough cold is not a priority. There are no ingredients (like eggs) that would suffer from a clash of temperatures. So, I think it doesn’t matter whether the beer is cold or at room temperature, or somewhere in between.

Because of the melted butter and the fact that it is a ‘quick’ bread, I would use room temperature beer.

Perfect vehicle for Dorothy’s olive and egg salad.
:-)

I think cold so the beer still has its fizz which is what it’s purpose in the recipe is.

Warm beer still has fizz, @marinelife. lol
You can trust me here.

It won’t matter. There might be a slight increase in baking time to get the heat all the way into the core of the bread if the batter starts off cooler, but that would just mean that the exterior could be slightly crustier by the time the interior sets. But as for the properties of the batter itself, there’s nothing in there that would care.

@thorninmud is the expert here. Since in most UK countries, beer is served at room temperature, I’d be inclined to let the beer sit out a bit before adding it if your kitchen isn’t super hot.

BTW, the recipe looks great. Let us know how it comes out. I’d like to try it myself.

You’re not using yeast so I don’t think it would matter. As long as the beer isn’t flat, it should be fine.

Thanks everybody! I used the beer at room temperature. It turned out fantastic and it was a very easy recipe to make. I made 2 loaves and cut it into slices for my co-workers xmas gifts, along with some gingerbread and lemon shortbread cookies. I wanted to make more for my neighbors, but I ran out of time. I told them that I’d make it in January, so then they’ll have something to look forward to.

Thanks for reporting back!