How Many Perfect 5s Have You Given?

5 out of 565:

Double Barrel Hunahpu
Pappy Black Magick
Paraguesia one
Chocolate rain (would probably not be 5 now)
Romulon

 

Different styles no? Even though a Sour and a Stout are both beer, its really like comparing apples to oranges, both fruit but entirely different.

 

None - I think the closest I have gotten is 4.75.

5 in my mind is a big commitment - meaning nothing in the style could be better than this one and with the number of beers out there now who knows! Giving a 5 is like picking a wife. I can pull a few 4.75's on a friday night (talking about beer here... get your mind out of the gutter) but the 5 only comes along once in a lifetime

 

Then I ask you, what's your favorite fruit? Gotta pick one above all the rest. It's the same with your perfect beer.

 

Based on my ratings, Barrel aged stouts and Sours. If I had a gun to my head, I'd go BA stout and Double Barrel Hunahpu would be my overall perfect 5 if I had to pick one.

 

Unless you do not judge a beer against all other beers, but as it stands by itself. This is the way I rate beer, as it stands, how much do I like it. Thus I end up with multiple 5's, as there are several beers that I consider the best because they are my favorites.

 

I've given two ratings of a 5...

Ayinger Brau Weisse as a hefeweizen blows me away completely as a paragon of the style and of personal enjoyment, and yes, I rate it higher than Weihenstephaner's. (Oddly, I also don't think their Celebrator is the best doppelbock on the planet, go figure. Maybe all of this is due to my never having been to Germany, and my palate preferring the way the Ayinger hefe ages in bottles/kegs as opposed to Weihenstephaner.)

Schneider Weisse Aventinus Weizen-Eisbock is the other, and I have it basically in a class of its own. I have yet to find any beer, of any style, ever, that I would honestly choose over that one if presented as an option. Any time I'm beer shopping at a store that carries it, I grab at least one bottle in addition to anything else I pick up. That being said, I've never so much as seen a Kuhnhenn bottle of anything anywhere ever in my life, so I do not have theirs as a reference point. (I am not a whale hunter, so if it's not readily available around my home or somewhere I travel frequently, I'm never going to have it. See also Westy 12 - wouldn't mind trying, won't put excessive effort towards acquiring.) I am curious how something based on a fruit flavor not normally found in a style comes to be considered the top rated exemplar-paragon of said style, however.

 

Two for me.

Bourbon County Barleywine and Heady Topper. I couldn't find any way I'd improve either one. BCBS is pretty darned close, but I think would be improved with a slightly lower abv.

That said, I don't think a 5 means its the beer you'd choose above all others. Sometimes you want something different, maybe lower abv, or more refreshing or sessionable. There is no perfect beer for all occasions.

 

None and i'm not sure i'll give one....i find myself a tougher critic these days!

 

I don't score beers with some theoretical perfect beer in mind. I score beers according to other beers that I've had. I've had five beers that I've given a 5 to. If I have a beer that is clearly better than those 5, I will downgrade the current lot.

 

0 for me...though I haven't rated nearly as many beers as some other members here, FWIW.

 

I struggle with deciding on a rating system. I mostly use Untappd for tracking ratings and will use BA when I have time to sit down and put a good effort into rating. I mainly struggle with deciding on how it fits it's style to how it tastes to me. I rarely rate a beer below 2.5 because it usually is a decent representation of the style although it may taste like crap to me. At the same time it may not fit the style perfectly but I could end up rating it 5. So I guess I use a completely unquantifiable rating system on untappd and more serious/by the rules rating on BA.

On Untappd I have the following ranked as 5 out of 600ish: Weihenstephaner Hefe, Cuvée de Jacobins, KBS, KBBS, Edmond Fitzgerald, NG Belgian red, Praire Noir, Agrestic sour, PsudeoSue.

 

Only Jessica Alba got a perfect 5.

 

2 out of 131

 

1 out of 245; Melange No. 3, which was almost an out of body experience for me.
a few in the 4.75-4.99 range, usually due to sight, scent or mouth feel.

 

But some things may be perfect for the consumer. Purly subjective as Heady is perfect for me.

 

I guess it all depends on an individuals idea of "perfection", and maybe I'll find a beer one day that is perfect, however there has been some room for improvement in every brew I've tried so far.

 

How can one recognize perfection if one has no benchmark

 

19... seems like a lot when I first look at it, but that's only 2.3% of the beers I have rated. If I went to the trouble of a complete review on each beer, they would probably sort out better, and fall in that range between 4.75 and 5, but I think I am too lazy...

 

As Goethe wrote, perfection is unattainable. (I am one of those "overly critical reviewers" that has given 0 perfect ratings)
That being said, I don't look at beer ratings as percentages. With all considered possible errors/mistakes/fluke accidents that goes into brewing, a beer that posts a 4 out of 5 is a great beer I'd like to have again and would recommend to people.
Percentage wise, that is only 80%, a B- or C+ depending on what high school you were in, and would seem to be only an "OK beer".
That is why I liked the one rating system on this website where, if I correctly remember, a 3 was good, 4 excellent and 5 outstanding or perfect.