Is all fives a cardinal sin here?

when your understanding of something like all 5s entails that all 5s is impossible, the natural approach is to rethink your original understanding.

for one, couldn't your objection be raised against a 5 in any category? if you need to drink all beers to know that beer X cannot be surpassed in any category, why would you not need to drink all beers to know that beer X is insurpassable only in taste?

now assume that you can't know it's a 5 (ie insurpassable) only in taste. how could you know it's a 4.5? is that not in comparison to 5.0, the maximum? surely it's not just an addition onto 3 (AKA average), because if so you could end up adding on 2 to 3, and end up with 5--but we've already proven that getting a 5 is impossible. so we mustn't be able to add (or subtract) from 3.

and how would we even get the 3? needn't we drink every beer to truly know if beer X is average in a given category?

conclusion: it's impossible to confer any rating.

real conclusion: this whole line of reasoning was flawed to begin with. 5 doesn't mean insurpassable, 3 doesn't mean "literal average," etc. 1 is terrible. 2 is pretty bad. 3 is average (meaning decent, alright, etc). 4 is really good. 5 is great, maybe the best you've had. you have no complaints about 5.

don't overthink it all the way into falsity / meaninglessness.

 

I don't know anyone that really cares about someone elses reviews anyway... Have fun with it and review how you like. I only half read most reviews. Most are very samey and not very creative. "Good flavor" is my fast pass to going onto the next review. LOL!

 

All 5's is not a sin, it just shows that you are relatively new to the reviewing process. Every category is scored relative to other beers you have had. So if you have had mediocre beers, the first good beer might seem like a 5 across the board. However after trying a few more good beers, then maybe that first 5 was more like a 4. I have had excellent beers, but only very, very rarely does a beer reach such a level of perfection. Rochefort 10 might be the only one that comes to mind, due to the fact it is readily available and the batch variability is slim to none.

 

what does batch variation have to do with it?

 

I feel like any brewer can get lucky once and make a fantastic beer. But if they can't do it again then what's the point? If an excellent beer tastes excellent from batch to batch, it's more worthy of a 5 than a one off hit.

 

doesn't that undermine the point of even rating one-off beers?

 

Absolutely. There is no practical use for rating a beer that will never be brewed again. It's great to know what you thought of the beer, but it is of no use to me because I probably will never get to taste it. Now reviewing a beer that is more available is actually helpful to other consumers. But I understand the fun of rating in and of itself.

 

i've read reviews of dozens of 1-offs (maybe even hundreds) before drinking them... i think your logic a bit flawed.

also, while you may never drink the retired 1-off, its review can serve as evidence of a brewers' capabilities.

regardless, it seems weird to taste consistency in a given example of a beer; it's as weird as tasting rarity. i'm not saying you shouldn't incorporate it in your reviews (within the guidelines of reviews i think people should weigh whatever is important to them), but to me it seems to be judging things external to the appearance / smell / taste / mouthfeel / overall.

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edit: heh, and to confuse the issue more, something i think "about beer" but not "about reviewing" is that you're more likely to get a 5 beer from something perfected like duvel or j.w. lees or rochefort 10 than some brewery's 1-off, but that's just to do with the nature of craftsmanship, not of reviewing. if i taste a beer brewed by some hack trying to cash in on the craft beer craze and i think it tastes better than duvel, honesty dictates that i review it accordingly (shrug).

 

It definitely should be a rare occurrence, and as such it has become an unwritten rule to not award many (if any) 5's amongst most reviewers.

I think I have only ever given one 5 myself. That said, I think more ought to be issued where they're due. It's just that the current form of reviewing (each characteristic individually) makes it tough even in the best beers. A still lambic - not matter how amazing - is tough to justify a "5" for appearance.

 

This I agree with. However, what is greater evidence of a brewer's capabilities than consistency of his/her product?

 

Three perfect scores for me: Surly Darkness '07, Great Lakes Barrel Aged Blackout Stout, & Lawson's Maple Barrel Aged Fayston's Imperial Stout.

Doesn't matter to me what others think of these beers. To me they were perfect, & I'd have them any time, any where, for any reason.