Do you rate your own beers? How?

Great beer man; I wouldn't change much of anything!
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I actually had this exact thing happen to me in high school. My art teaching was doing a critique on one of my drawings..."This is really great. A+ work...I'll go with a B."

 

But you have to pick the right people. I have lots of friends who praise my beer to the heavens as long as it's free and it keeps pouring. I had a pro brewer friend who gave me great unbiased, unflattering critiques of all my beers. She was almost a super taster, she could pick up tiny hints of DMS, funk or other off flavors. Unfortunately she moved away so now I just have my alkie friends heaping praise on me.

 

I agree. For one thing, saying your beer is "amazing" or that it "crushes" some much-respected commercial beer or whatever is just as annoying as any other kind of boasting. Seriously, people: do you like it when your brother in law starts talking about how his golf game (or his new car, or his chili recipe or whatever) is "awesome"? Or does it just make you annoyed and skeptical?

For another, these kinds of comments usually seem to come from people who follow practices that many of us would expect to produce less than awesome results (as Vikeman noted above). One problem with this is that it leads to an impression that anything goes in brewing. Whenever a new brewer asks "do I need to make a starter?" you're going to get at least one response that say "I never make starters and my beers come out awesome!" Or if you have a thread about lagers, somebody's going to say "I ferment my lagers at 65F and they come out awesome!" And so on. I mean, anything's possible, but let's just say I would have my doubts about the awesomeness of those beers.

 

I review all of my beers like I do when judging a comp or when I used to review on BA. I find that I can be a little hard on myself at times, which is good. I don't use the numbers, just info. I typically judge it based on what I intended to make when designing the recipe as well as to style (if I brew a "style" of beer). Sometimes the beer can be good, but I just don't like it, at this point, I judge look, aroma, flavor, mouthfeel as best as possible, and then comment in the overall what I don't like about it... ie, my Brett ISA that is kinda grassy, and needs some dankness to offset all the fruitiness going on, there is just something off with that beer, too much over-ripe peach, sweat, and the acid.

 

Same as I do. I keep the recipes that are worth re-brewing (I have yet to re-brew a beer). Delete recipes with little worth. Then I have a seperate folder for "works in progress" which do get re-attempted, but there is always changes made.

 

I "rate" my beers by comparing them to the versions I have consumed at the source and am trying to approximate. I am my own harshest critic, as I will always point out any flaws (or, more frequently, deficits) I find in my beers to those proclaiming them "awesome." That said, I also run my beers by another homebrewer who is pretty highly respected (made finals of the SA Longshot competition, etc.) for his feedback. He thinks that in the 3+ years I've been making beer that I have nailed two styles (a Classic Rauchbier and a Kolesch), while I think I have only truly nailed one (the Koelsch).

 

The best homebrewers, or pro-brewers, or pro-anythings are often like that. If you hold the bar impossibly high, even if you don't quite reach the goal, the result will be better than the results generated by folks that tell themselves "that's good enough." And if you do reach it, well then, look out. (to each his own, of course.)

 

Two basic categories are first considered, tasty beer verses drainpour ale. Most beers at least make it past tier one.

The second consideration is would I brew it again with the same recipe? This doesn't necessarily mean that I WILL for sure brew it again, or that the recipe might not change (sometimes hops on hand = what the recipe winds up being).

Third criteria is reaction of others to the brew. Taken with caveats of their general knowledge of beer, known taste preferences, and perceived willingness to criticize honestly if it's not good. Note that a compliment from someone who's a BMC only type of person is held in higher regard than that of a craft brew drinker who's unlikely to comment negatively if a beer is flawed.

Fourth is does the beer meet with my expectations, and if not, does it somehow wind up being a pleasant surprise anyway? Stumbling across something fantastic could happen if you missed your goal for whatever reason (supposedly something like this happened with arrogant bastard ale). Missed goals, missed goals with better results, missed goals with worse results, or met goals with ok/great/fantastic results etc etc are all considered.

Fifth is does it make the top five ever? This list may change over time, btw. Right now the most notable beers on it are the APA IPA and my PtE pseudo-clone, both of which were highly influenced by this forum. As I drink more of them, I am starting to think this Classic American Creme Ale (with 9 lbs 6-row / 3 lbs corn) perhaps belongs on it. It's not my most flavorful, aromatic beer, but it's not supposed to be either. It is however something I wouldn't even question if I found it in a commercial creme ale (but would comment on its being tasty).

I do not translate these into a numerical rating tho. Oh, I could probably come up with some complicated, convoluted rating system involving linear transformations, Reimann sums, improper double and triple integrals, Green's and Stoke's theorems, and could even go so far as to toss in Euler's formula... But that would just be stupid.

Over-thinking beer* makes beer start seeming more like wine, which implies an unacceptable trickling in of cries of "pinky out! pinky out!!" and other such nonsense.

*some comments about the BJCP seem to indicate a pathological degree of over thinking sometimes takes place when it comes to beer