So, why am I making you wait? Because beer tastes best when drank at the proper temperature. For lagers, that is 40-45º F (4-7º C), while for ales it is 50-55º F (10-13º C). This is not mere beer snobbery, a beer tastes totally different right out of the fridge than it does when drank at the right temperature - especially for ales. To put it another way, the last swallow of lager is the worst and the last swallow of an ale is the best. Although it depends on the quantity of beer in the glass and the temperature of the surrounding air, you can usually expect beer to warm up about 2º F (1.25º C) every 5 minutes. Ideally, you would wait until your bottle of beer had warmed to its proper temperature before opening it, but for the purposes of this workshop, I felt it best for everyone to open their beers at the same time. Feel free to take a sip of your beer every once in a while as you are waiting for it to warm up. This will give you an idea of how the taste improves as it approaches its drinking temperature as well.
Most people started drinking beer that was ice cold because that is what the major brewing companies say to do. They do that because for lagers drinking it cold masks any bitterness or funkiness. To truly appreciate whether your lager is any good, drink it at 40-45º F (4-7º C). If you still like it, then it's probably a decent beer. If not, then why are you drinking it? Piss probably tastes better ice cold than at 40-45º, but that doesn't mean I'm going to drink it.
For ales, is even more important, because the complex nature of ales only becomes evident when drank between 50-55º F (10-13º C). Before then, you may taste primarily bitterness (from the hops), a lot of alcohol, or not much of anything at all. As it reaches its proper temperature, the fruitiness and other interesting flavors the fermentation process does to the malts and hops burst forth.
