Regional rating bias

No offense, but I would consider Michigan to be one of the great homes of quality craft beer. In Ohio there are fantastic breweries brewing world class ales, Thirsty Dog, Great Lakes, and Jackie O's to be more specific. I snub no beer from any area. East, west, who cares...as long as it is quality. I DO judge a beer harsher from my own area compared to others though. Some have blown me away while others I won't bother rating or mentioning.

 

That's a fantastic point but it's one that is negated by folks like me and the op who have traveled solely for beer and experienced a wide variety. I have noticed hidden gems but not the consistent quality we have in the NW. I won't lump your region into the equation but it's hard to imagine it measures up across the board being so far behind as far as laws go.

Lastly I'll say travel to some place like Portland or Seattle before you assume you're in league with regions that have a culture so much more established than your own. Sure you have a handful of good breweries no one knows of, but we have dozens. And no one cares. And that's the point.

 

I don't rate as well as I should, or want to.

However- I will say, that as a whole the SE region is growing. We might be behind the rest of the country in some areas, but the SE as a whole, is really starting to have more than a handful of breweries get known.

I rate them all harsher than I would a beer I'm dying to try. I think most people around me would do the same, we are begging for great, not good, but great beer locally.

I know the ATL area is starting to pass a simmer and is getting boiling with some amazing stuff. I see many, and many ISO's coming from ATL breweries in the next year or so.

I think the laws also have an effect as well. If we were able to sell from the breweries here in GA, you'd have more releases, more special things that people seek out, and more people who would easily hone in on a brewery and rate/comment on it. With that said- people simply just go to a bottle shop and "hope" to find the gems.

 

I am confused. All of the IPA winners in the Midwest? There is a Milwaukie Oregon. It is Milwaukee IL.

 

This seems to be one of those places where quantifiable, empirical statistics collide with personal preference. Not sure what we would see other than certain people from certain places seem to favor certain profiles.

If it grows together, it goes together (so said some food and wine book). The favored beers will reflect the regional cuisine preferences. East Coast: balance and tradition. Midwest: grains and beef. PNW: well, it rains a lot so play with your food since you are stuck inside all day (bacon-donut beer). SF: wine country and college kids and lots of money... great beers were inevitable. San Diego: warm weather and nothing that is "ours." We found out hops go well with our stuff.

Perhaps East Coasters are harsher in rating West Coast beers because the WC beers work against the balance the EC's prefer. Perhaps West Coasters rate their own beers harsher because there are so many tasty offerings that we don't want grade inflation, gotta bring it to get the 5.

 

I think there is a bias. Being proud of your own and what not. That said, freshness is key. And if it's fresh, I'll put up a lot of East Coast IPAs against their Midwest and West Coast counterparts. Example: I love Enjoy By, Green Flash Imperial, Hopslam and Heady, but I prefer The Boy King over all of them. And it's probably In some part because I can have it a day or two after kegging/bottling.

 

lulz! GABF as a bar for what's good!

 

I tend to agree, but it's better than looking at the Top 250 on a rating website.

 

Isn't there just more breweries in the west than in the east period?

 

Uh -- Jess, Daylight Saving ended on Sunday... hope you didn't move the clocks the wrong way!

 

Let's break this down in a semi-quantifiable way....I first want to address the claim that “better beers come out of the west coast”, which is different than “more good beers come out of the west coast”. My gut reaction was to agree and say that west coast probably does output overall higher quality beer; however there is a factor that must be taken into account. Currently the western seaboard (California, Washington State, and Oregon) make up 27% of the market share of breweries….that is significant. It has to be said that the likeliness of good beer being produced by a state has a strong correlation with the amount being produced. Therefore we likely see more good beers coming from these states because we are just more likely to see ANY beer from one of these states…..we simply focus in on the good stuff, while the rest remains in our peripheral - the “sharpshooter fallacy”. This is not to say that there is not an argument to be made for west coast producing a greater number of good brews per capita than other areas, but this is a point to not be ignored.

As for the central claim here, that west coast persons will be harsher critics of beer……I am not sure at all and honestly would hesitate to make a claim in either direction. I think this topic does tie nicely in with the “supporting local” thread we had recently, as there is strong data out there showing that (some) people’s ratings do tend to skew in favor of things they feel a closer relation to. I will say that I am in VA and I have not found many outstanding breweries here . . . there are a few good ones, but nothing that has blown me away yet. A similar example I run into is VA wine. I think it is obviously sub-par, but many in this area have a skewed view of what a good wine could or should be due to their exposure and loyalty to what is produced locally, thus they do have lower standards in that arena – maybe this is happening with beer too, but I am uncertain.

 

How does one doughnut beer define an entire region?

 

I think that there is something to be said for "coastal recognition" too. I may be wrong here, but when people talk about a California or Washington State beer they often immediately associate it with west coast, however it seems that the same does not apply to all the Eastern seaboard states which is interesting. There may just be too many states for people to keep track of and internally associate in that way on the fly. Plus we just aren't the most geography literate population anymore.

 

It depends on where you consider the west to begin. Some of the writers of American history say it is the 100th meridian which runs from the Dakotas to TX in the Great Plains. One can dry farm to the east of it, and it is dry to the west of it so that irrigation is needed to farm crops.

For states that have the 100th meridian running through it, they were included in the West column, though most of the population in those states would be in the eastern part of the state.

East= 1486
West= 1442

Pretty close according to the Brewers Association 2013 statistics. With a brewery or more opening per day, it would be good to see the trend today.

 

The Eastern seaboard is much more fragmented in terms of "regions" than the Pacific coast. Here are a few that come to mind, going north to south: New England; New York/New Jersey, Mid-Atlantic, South, and Florida. People do not consider (for example) South Carolina to be in the same region as Maine.

 

I absolutely agree, I live in Northern VA now but grew up in CT. When I sit down and drink Huanaphu (actually never been so lucky) or a Jai Alai for instance, I don't think "That is a damn good east coast brew." I think of Florida as a different category. Same goes for NY and so on. So I wonder if this has more to do with the conditioning in regards to how we feel about these regions than we realize.

 

A lot of Californians would not consider Bakersfield, or anything east of the 5, California.

 

Thats exactly how many PNW people feel about California, yet we get lumped in with Calif. all the time.