Appearance: What makes a 5 rating?

The branding doesn't really matter to me. I do prefer a tulip/snifter though. Shaker pints are for when you're too lazy to clean your proper glassware.

 

I like my IPAs murky/cloudy, they look weak when they're clear. I like my stouts pitch black, with a viscous fluid motion, but I have had beers that aren't as visually pleasing as they are good tasting.

 

So that makes me curious then as to why you'd bother with cleaning your proper glassware since the only thing affected by a less than clean glass is the appearance of the beer?

 

I happen to think a beer poured into the proper glassware, with a nice head and held up to the light, showcasing it's brilliance, is a thing of beauty. Very much a part of the experience. Not as important as taste, but pretty important nonetheless. 'Course I can drink beer from a Solo cup, a can or a Mason jar and be pretty dam happy too.

 

Huh, why did they start making you rate all attributes? Taste is 90% of the grade for me, the others would just be kind of arbitrary random judgments based on some whim.

And I've rarely seen ratings where there's more than a 0.75 discrepancy between any attribute and any other attribute. People aren't judging each attribute in isolation, they are haloing their general feelings about the beer, and making them mandatory will only increase that.

And if an ugly beer that tasted awesome was a look: 2, overall: 5 to me do I really want my low look rating to change my overall effect on the average? People know this and game the system.

For me I guess, BMC piss yellow is a 1, rich colors with nice foamy heads are 4.5+, and everything else is 4-ish?

 

To directly answer the title of this thread, appearance (just like all the other attributes) gets a 5 when I can't fathom that beer possibly looking any better for its style. Using IPAs as an example, the majority of them are some shade of orangish-amber, with head that varies from bright white to faded khaki. Those beers will get a 3.5-3.75 from me. They look typical, what I expected. Now, when one pours crystal clear, where when the light catches the rising bubbles and creates a stream of little prisms, forming a cap of head that has great retention that leads to rings of lacing? Those are 4.5-5 in the looks category. When one has more than a light haze, a thin head with low retention and lacing, those are 2.75-3.25 beers.

 

Appearance means nothing to me at least in beer. I also don't rate beers, so maybe that's part of it

 

Appearance is the least important attribute in my opinion. As others have predicted, I intend to give most beers a 4.0 to a 4.5, depending on the smell, taste and mouthfeel. I too do not know what a 5.0 appearance looks like. The only way a beer would get a downgrade from a 4 would be if the beer had no head at all, had things in the beer that did not belong there, or if the beer was one of the rare drain pours that required a downgrade just to get the overall score down near 1.

 

I'm in the boat that I don't care what a beer looks like.

 

I'm on the same page as you. I find the cloudier, murky IPAs are my favorite as well. Although I have tried to find similarities between them I can't. So it's a crapshoot when trying new ones.

 

Left Hand Milk Stout (non-nitro version) is a 5 for me. it depends on style and quite frankly, I think it's all very subjective. But I'm a sucker for massive sheets of lacing.

 

To me it's situational. For example, when I poured the beer pictured in my avatar I didn't think too much of it, obviously I liked the way it looked. After a little while I glanced over at it and thought, wow, that looks unreal. I need a picture. I've taken hundreds of pictures of beer since and am not sure I'll ever take one that appears any better than this. The only staging that I did was to turn the growler so that the logo was visible.

On a related note, I think that the King Sue pictured above looks like Tropicana. I like the look of hazy beers, but I don't like beers that glow.

 

For me a 5 for a big stout is oil black body with multi-finger tan/brown head with tiny bubbles that holds well and great lacing. Many stouts get 5's on appearance from me.

 

I acuta

This looks like my perfect beer.

 

Could be taste too. Your glass may be dirty from the last beer you had. But in most cases I'm not too lazy to clean the glass. Haven't used a shaker for a while actually.

 

I don't get why people even rate appearance to begin with. I'd sooner drink it out of a coffee mug than give a shit what the beer looks like.

 

While taste, closely followed by mouthfeel and smell, are unarguably the most important factors in the enjoyment of a beer, I'd be lying to myself if I didn't admit that the appearance alone makes me an enjoy a beer. How can a hophead not gaze upon a gorgeous hazy golden or orange IPA, topped by thick, sticky white head, and not have his or her mouth water in anticipation?

 

They should appear to style - so that your visual observations don't affect your smell/taste. The brain is powerful - look can have even a subconscious effect on your enjoyment.

 

Ahh, the "participation" trophy of reviews...............

The appearance attribute, to me anyway, seems like one of those either it's got it and really shines or it's at best mundane. So basically, like mid 3's for run o' the mill v. mid to high 4's for the "holy shit" moments. Makes me wonder though, how shitty does the appearance have to be in order to pull a 1? Literally has turds floating in it? (Please, no Brown Note references.....)