Do you rate individually or based on how other beers taste?

Do what makes sense to you. Taste as well as style should be taken into account; so should context. How much weight we all give them in relation to one another is just a quirk of the system that not everyone will agree on. So, as long as you think you made a solid effort, I wouldn't sweat it much past that.

 

I try to rate each beer individually, trying to maintain consistency is the real challange

 

I think that everyone rates comparatively to some extent, particularly as a person's number of beers rated increases over the course of time.

For example, after rating 10 stouts, how could one rate stout #11 without considering the first 10 as context.

The real trick is trying to compensate for cloudy memories ; i.e. how much do I really remember about a beer I rated two years ago and how it stacks up with the beer I just had today that is fresh in my memory.

 

We try to always keep style in mind when rating. It isn't fair to compare a bourbon barrel aged stout vs a Japanese rice lager, however good or bad either is. While we might like one style better inherently, it is important to remind yourself that each is its own ballgame. Within the same style, however, as echoed above, it is much more reasonable and appropriate to do so.

 

This is a tough one. I think the key to giving fair ratings is to try to maintain consistency in your own system...whatever system that may be.

And, like the others have said, try to keep it within the specific style so that you don't compare a stout to an IPA to a quad, etc.

 

I rate them based on how they compare with style guidelines and others of the same style I have had. I do agree with @TongoRad though, do what makes sense to you. It is only beer after all.

 

I try to rate beers with a global scale in mind. That's the only way I can get a real sense of the 1 to 5 scale. There are some really bad beers out there that fall below a 3, and there are a huge amount that are average, which would be a 3. In my mind, even the worst American made beers are usually in the 2.5 to 3 range because they're almost always at least made well.

Then I rate according to style, which is getting harder these days are brewers are branching out. So it depends on the beer. If, for example, a beer is listed as a smoked porter and it barely has any smoke to it, even if the beer is good it won't score as well in "smell" and "taste" because it's lacking.

 

I try to focus on both the beer itself and on the particular style. Comparisons across styles can be very misleading, e.g., the foam on top of a 7% IPA should be very different in more than one way from the foam on top of an 11% RIS. As my experience has grown within particular styles my reviews and ratings have stabilized and my feel for what represents a strong or weak example within the style has improved, e.g., I have a much better sense of what the foam on top of an IPA should do, how it should look, the amount and type of lacing it should have. So basically if I went back and re did some of my earliest reviews I think I'm probably being more critical and more consistent now.

 

I've mostly been rating based on how much I liked the beer, both in general and in comparison to other beers I've had. My mind just does not assign numbers to things unless I absolutely force it to--numerical rating of non-number-based qualities just does not come naturally to me at all--so when I'm coming up with numbers I'll usually go like "okay, this tasted good, but was it as good as [insert beer here]?"... if so, it gets a similar rating... if not then lower... and if there's anything I disliked about it (not just something I found "less good" than others, but something I truly disliked) then that takes off some points, of course.

I still have a tough time assigning numbers to things even with that system, but it's easier that way (or by converting the numbers to descriptive terms -- like how a 4 is "outstanding," a 3.5 "very good," and so on by the site's system) than trying to directly convert my opinions into numbers.

I haven't really had enough experience with different styles of beer to consider "does this fit the style" sorts of issues (aside from the basic obvious stuff--like if I bought an IPA/pale ale/some other hoppy beer and couldn't taste any hop flavors in it, or if I had a porter/stout/some other darker beer and it came out of the bottle looking like Bud Light, I'd know something was wrong!), though I imagine that will get easier to consider when rating as I try a wider variety of beer, and something that's drastically off for its style will probably stand out even to someone who only has a vague idea of what to expect. It's easier with the appearance score, of course, since there's not a lot that's subjective about what color something is, or whether it's clear vs. cloudy, pale vs. dark, foamy head vs. little or none, bubbly vs. still, and so on.