Does BA Australia deserve a top beers list

Flip response: now someone's been good enough to code it, having it doesn't really cost anything.

Next:
1. Both lists are useful because of the robustness of the Bayesian "it takes a bit to drag a score away from default" systems employed by both sites.
2. Yes, distribution matters, but many differences are due to rating to style or not and differences in the geographic makeup of the fairly small pools of reviewers (more WA and NSW influence here, I think).
3. I don't know why there is more talk here and more rating there. I know you review/ rate on both places, but I started there and haven't bothered here.
4. The scoring system may be robust, but the very small pool of reviewers means that beers getting good scores don't appear on lists and don't come to people's attention. Obvious example, Wig & Pen.
5. Interesting that the top 'strayan beer on Ratebeer has only been drunk by foreigners.
6. "almost all of these beers stay in Australia??" Not sure why this might be a problem.
7. Batch 18 was very good.

 

That was discussed initially wasn't it (a combined aus / NZ list)? I think it would certainly add value to the list for all the reasons stated, but its BA, you take the good with the less than good.

To answer the q, I think we do deserve a list. But maybe it hasn't boosted user reviews as much as anticipated. And tbh, I don't review much anymore either.

 

Maybe its too hard ... can you go onto BA like you can uptapped and press stuff ... like no expectation of writing and putting time into the review?

Just asking, not saying one is better than the other ... one is perhaps just a lazier pursuit?

 

My answer is yes, yes, yes....

Not simply because I love lists or whatever, but because of the power that any given 'top' list has in throwing up a beer I have not heard of.
A current example being the 'SQL error' Pale Ale from the Undefined Brewery in the Taphouse Top 100 2014 of course.

However, a more serious note, given the difference between RB and BA.... are there any folks on here who know their statistics really well? ie at what point - how many reviews - would it take the two sites to converge on a 'best beer'? 100, 1000, a Million, more ???? I genuinely do not understand how the top beers can be so different, there are some underlying rules at play.

 

Differences in geography and thus beer accessibility of reviewers, differences in hype/subjectivity influencing reviews, different scoring system with different weightings, different categorisation of style/weighting based on style, different mentality of reviewers on each site; are just some of the reasons.

 

As a non-rater on either site, I can concur with mulder1010 with the way I use the sites differ. Ratebeer is used for checking scoring and research. BA is pretty much for forums, discussion, beer fly etc.

I can't bring myself to start 'officially' raring beers on either site or untapped due to the many missed from previous drinking, and rather dislike forcing a dissection of a beer at times...