Do you think most BAs rate beers too high?

I do think most beers are rated too high.I'm on this site every day but I don't rate beers. I don't look at the ratings as much as what people say about beers, I have seen a few people that have a palate close to the same palate as me, so I go by their commets more than their ratings. There are styles that I don't like but that dosen't mean that I haven't had a beer from that style that I like. I like to try everything that I can get my hands on reguardless of how it's been rated, who knows I might like it.I drank a beer today that I read every review and no one came close to what I got out of the beer, which reallysuprised me, so I don't put much into ratings.

 

McRib = 5/5

 

Think about this: a brewery spends a lot of time and effort to put out what they believe to be an exceptional product. Because their reputation is at stake, they won't put out anything that they believe is sub-par. This is especially true of the craft beer industry. If they put out crap, then people would stop buying from them and they'd go out of business.

Now, compare the beer that a typical BA on this site drinks and compare to a mass marketed beer, something like Coors Light http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/306/837 or many of the BMC beers, and that's why you get high ratings.

YOU DRINK AND RATE QUALITY!

The end.

 

Anyone want to recommend me some American lagers as they are going to be fresher than European ones?

 

It all works itself out. There's a preponderance of people on here who are obssesive over barrels and big hoppy beers, but the fans of other styles are out there. You can't just lump everyone into the same reviewer category, but if you look closer you'll see things that stick out. More importantly you should take stock in your own feelings instead of others.

Interestingly enough the vast majority of stuff I've rated is quite positive more than negative, mostly cause there is just simply a lot of solid good beer out there (in my opinion of course). Lots of good beer. So you will see mostly positive reviews from myself.

 

I personally think that the issue of high ratings is that a lot of BAs purposefully seek out the beers with already high ratings. It's kind of a self-fulfilling cycle.

 

While I see your point, I don't think we're anywhere near that crossroads yet. There are currently ~50 non-retired beers w/ 100 rating. That really isn't much if you think about it! I think if it gets out of hand the scale can always be adjusted, since currently a beer w/ ~4.5/5 average w/ a good number of reviews is listed as 100. If it starts getting to the point where there are hundreds of beers rated 100, well then why not just slide the scale up to have 100 = 4.6+? You could keep doing this for quite some time if necessary. If it were ever to get to the point where there are hundreds of beers w/ an average of say 4.8-4.9 rating, then we might have a problem... Or we might just have an awesome time since that would likely mean there's a plethora of earth-shatteringly good beers available! =D

 

Most New Glarus beers.

 

Most reviewers on BA (including myself, to some extent) DO NOT rate to a 3 average. Average is around 3.6 for many reviewers, purely from my observations of reading review content and looking at scores.

Aside from that, I think a lot of newer reviewers tend to over-rate beers. I often see 4.9s or 5s with reviews saying "I haven't really tried much from this style yet, but this is AMAZING."

 

That argument could be made about any style really. Someone who only drinks BMC would probably rate Chocolate Rain at about a 1.5, given that it would just be way too much for them to even drink. I'm not even excluding myself from this; I'm not a huge fan of sours so I avoid reviewing many, but when I do review them I find that they are almost universally lower than average. Does that make me a dunce? Maybe, but I don't think anyone on this site truly enjoys every style to the same extent.

Dope

 

Yes, I guess I was going a bit overboard on the example there. Wasn't sure how the rating system worked out going between a scale to 5 and a scale to 100, so that definitely cleared that up for me as well. I'd love to see craft beer get to that point, where higher standards are needed just because of the sheer number of good beer.

Cheers!

 

My calculations have the current mean at 3.76, but that's just in my head. Feel free to double check my math.

 

Oh, and one other thing - if you think BAers rate beers too high, go check out ratebeer sometime. Every beer is a 100 and most of the reviews are just a couple sentences that say "This beer wuz good". I don't even bother looking at reviews over there anymore because they are generally useless. Although, I think it's a good thing to try to keep score inflation in check over here, as a result.

Dope

 

I know I don't. And apparently that means that I "hate beer".

 

these threads are recyclable. perhaps a viable solution would be for the originators to, instead of asking the very people who did the ratings -- if they feel like they rate too highly (like those people are going to admit - yeah i do that on purpose just to f things up or inflate my ego - anyway???) - it probably would be a better idea to first self reflect & ask self : "Do I take ratings too seriously".

 

"Do you think most BAs rate beers too high?"


I mean one could look at your ratings and assume the same things. Dark Lord? 4.5?

 

I probably don't rate beers with enough granularity. I only use the Hads, I only use whole numbers, and I use a simple scale:

5 - One of my favorite beers
4 - Enjoyed and would make an effort to drink again
3 - Enjoyed but wouldn't go out of my way to drink again
2 - Didn't enjoy but would try again later on
1 - Didn't enjoy and wouldn't ever drink again.

 

Yes, brewers that brew a style once and have it in the top 10. or beers that go from 3.59 to 4.49 when they are put in a wine barrel or beers with known flaws (carbination issues) that people still rate over 4.4 and froth at the mouth for.

.rar factor is always creating beers with higher ratings than they deserve.

 

I feel I must point out that ratings are entirely relative. A 4.8 rating means nothing intrinsically; only in its relation with other ratings does that become high or low. So, that being said, I don't think it is even possible for beers to be rated "too high on average". The point of comparison for good/bad is the average.