As a barman I've never heard of putting ice in beer, cider occasionally (although its a rule of thumb with me that cider comes with ice, just a personal preference I guess)

As for beer being served colder, over here in the UK we get quite a few brands of lager (Tennents, Carling, Carlsberg) that offer more than one version of their standard pint. Typically the lager itself and an ice cold version of it. All that means is that the beer is passed through a flash cooler usually located under the bar - this reduced the temperature of the beer by a few degrees C. The reason behind this and the reason many people prefer the ice cold version of some lagers is that the reduction in temperature actually partially numbs the tongues taste buds so u don't really taste the beer - perfect for crappy lagers i recon.

Dunno if you get this across the water