Highly Rated Beers: Truth or Fiction?

The biggest problem on this site is reviewers checking reviews before reviewing themselves; at that point they have a biased review and are then swept up into the hype. The herd mentality on this site is pervasive and makes the reviews and the forums a bore many times.

 

As long as being different than most people doesn't bother you, your not doing anything wrong.

 

Overall I rate higher than most due to my positive outlook and understanding on almost all styles; but I nearly always rate lower than the average on hyped beers. I use the rating vs percentage in mind most of the time.

 

Going forward, only rate beers blind. Problem solved, right? I served Nelson to a couple guests the other day and they rated it lower than Furious and Knuckle Sandwich when served side by side. There's nothing wrong with either of those beers and it speaks to the subjective nature of each individual's palate, but once they learned it was Nelson, they started "liking" it a bit more. Interesting...

 

I think people tend to review less like "3 is average" and more like "3 is barely passing" which would make more sense if it went from 0-5 and 3 was a 60%. You can either do as the Romans do, or stick with what you're doing. It's not the end of the world either way.

My scale:
4.5+ I would love to have more of this and will travel out of my way if I hear it's available.
4-4.25 I would order this without hesitation
3.5-3.75 I would order this if in the mood and be happy to have it
2.75 - 3.25 I would drink this if it was the best thing available
< 2.5 I don't like this and wouldn't want to drink it

I feel this way about both Enjoy By and DirtWolf. Especially DirtWolf.

 

I think they tend to be skewed higher because the majority of beers on the site are beers that BAs found worthy of adding. There are exceptions, such as the AALs and malt liquors. But I think the majority being craft beers in general already places these beers in our realm of interest.

 

The "new" grading system has really screwed up a lot of my ratings. I've gone back and changed some; some I've not. My problem is that a lot of beers that I used to give a 4, I now give a 3.5. 3.5 is good; 3.75 is really good and, according to the grading scale, 4 = "outstanding." Well, at least to me, "outstanding" means "outstanding." 4 used to mean "very good."
I have stopped using 4 with any frequency since I can really like a beer but not consider it "outstanding."

As another point of reference, I happen to be a Kansas City BBQ Society Certified Judge. When we judge BBQ at a competition, there is no score of "10." The highest score any entry can earn is a "9" since by definition nothing is perfect!
I like that! A score of "9" is considered "exceptional." 6=average; 7=above average; 8 very good; 9=exceptional. This scoring system works in BBQ judging and seems reasonable and realistic. I sort of use the numbers here, on this site, in the same fashion. I've given a few 5s; I admit it. However, those 5s were beers that, for me, were the best examples of the style I'd ever had.

Just my opinion.

 

Yep, beers are only rated the way they are because of a "herd mentality". It couldn't possibly be due to the fact that your opinion is simply different from the majority of raters on *some* beers.

Come on man. What's the point of this thread other than to question the validity of other peoples' ratings?

 

Well, a lot of the responses you've garnered have actually emphasized the subjective nature of beer. By my interpretation, acknowledging the subjective nature of beer is sort of a contradiction to your implied meaning--that there is some "truth" to how a beer should be rated and that too many people are missing that truth by following the herd and overrating beers.

As far as I'm concerned, ratings and reviews should be taken at face value--as collective opinions of individuals' experience with beers they've had. And if you recognize the ratings for what they are, there's no need to worry about how your own opinion deviates from the majority opinion. It just seems mildly insulting to suggest that people aren't being "individual" about their beer ratings simply because you rated several popular beers lower than the group average.

I'm here because I disagree with your premise.

 

Just because everything is above three doesn't mean they aren't normally distributed. I'm way too lazy to plot the data, but I'd bet it does make a bell curve, just not one centered around 2.5.