Why can't I rate or "Got" this beer?

See the notes:
This beer is retired; no longer brewed.

 

Not sure why you shouldn't be able to 'got' a retired beer, even if the brewery goes under. If you have the beer you have the beer. All sorts of people collect beer from defunct breweries.

 

My guess would be due to the fact that even though some random person may have a given retired beer, once the brewery goes under, the chances of that beer ever coming back goes from a small percentage to absolutely zero. Whereas retired beers from still-functioning breweries could always be brewed again at some point in the future.

Of course, this idea depends on the principle that reviews exist to help people decide/learn about beers to consume in the future, so any beer that has zero chance of coming back doesn't need to provide said help. Obviously, there is a gap for people who want to rate it for bookkeeping purposes.

 

I'm not so much wondering about the review or "had" function so much as the "got" function. All the got function is for is to say "I have this beer." If, for some reason, BBC went under, I'd think those who still had Utopias would want to include it on their gots.

 

Is that something that could be changed/fixed?

I found tasting notes from ten years. I went to rate/review the beers but I could not because the brewery was defunct.

I would believe that thiis problem even more likely to occur in the futre considering all the more people drinking craft, more are interested in keep track and with so many more breweries, the potential for closings.

 

Yes, we've established that. The question is not one of current functionality.

 

Sure, I understand that. Like I said, there is a gap for those who may want to tick a given beer for bookkeeping purposes.

Edit: as dbrauneis notes, it's most likely because while some people use the "gots" in that manner, as a tracking method, it wasn't the intended purpose of the reviews and scoring.

 

How long ago?

I'd say so -- after all there will come a point when these beers are well beyond their prime (much as the Stooges beer probably is) so reviewing them would not be fair.

 

What, like you mean if they were bought out by some giant mega-conglomerate?

I don't see it happening.