Poll: Why I Don't Review Beers.

I'm also borderline obsessive about writing reviews and have found that I understand beer much more due to reading books like Tasting Beer, reading style guidelines, and then trying to deconstruct the beers I'm drinking. This has carried over to food and coffee and such in that, though I don't write reviews for these things, I find myself assessing appearance, texture, nuances of flavor and even attempting to guess different things I'm tasting. I really appreciate that and owe it to the beer world.

But I do feel also that writing reviews can be tedious, that my reviews can become monotonous (although the more buzzed I am, the more humorous and emboldened I get {to my thinking} in my reviews), and that I sometimes would rather just sit and carelessly and effortlessly drink a damn beer.

Going forward, I think I'll continue to review beers, but rather than review EVERY SINGLE beer that makes its way before me, I'll aim to review beers that are unique, or under-reviewed on here (ie. all New Mexico beers and beers from other small population states), or those beers for whose opinion mine differs from the rest of BA.

I think I'll always do New Beer Sunday, because I really love the folks in that forum.

 

In general I do review beers, but sometimes for a particular beer I don't do a review if I didn't like it. One reason is an ingrained adherence to Mom's famous adage, and another is that I wonder if I just don't like the particular style that the beer in question represents. If that is the case, a bad review is a disservice to other consumers.

 

I only review beers for two reasons now:

1. There aren't many/any reviews for it, so I think I can contribute something useful to the community.
2. The beer has off flavors/smells or appears to be infected, so again only to contribute useful info to the community.

If a beer doesn't fit either criteria then I don't know why/how other users could find my reiterated review of many others as any more useful.

On the contrary, for beers with excellent reviews by excellent reviewers; I think me adding my review only distracts and potentially buries more useful information. Why would anyone need 100+ reviews of the same beer saying mostly the same thing?

 

So...I took this as, "When I don't review a beer, why not?"
I review most new beer that I try when I'm at home, or in a situation where the beer can be the center of my attention. I don't review beers when I'm interacting with my family (if the kids are vegging out in front of a video, that fine, I can pay attention to the beer).

The primary reason I don't review a beer is that I don't want to do it without it receiving most or all of my attention, and I don't want to take my attention away from something else -- family, friends, surroundings.

 

While I do occasionally review a beer, the majority that I drink I will never review. I tell myself the reason I don't is because I don't have enough time, but to be honest if I'm drinking a beer I have enough time. It's really more because I'm lazy, and I just want to enjoy what I'm drinking without writing it all down. Sometimes it's also because I'm enjoying a beer with other people, or doing something else that keeps my full attention away from my beer.

 

I still feel under qualified. With the specifics that is in the BA guide for judging / reviewing a beer, I feel like it is a dealing into specifics I often don't think about. I really should sit down with the list and delve into it. But I feel almost under qualified. Like how to judge mouth feel. *shrugs. What the heck even is that. I know what it's supposed to be (I think?).

 

I used to review only the beers I justified has high, that normally weren't or I justified as low that normally weren't. Now I try to conscientiously review everything. My palette is new to this and the act of reviewing makes me concentrate on what I like and don't like about a beer. Reasons for doing this is when I am at a bar and there are a ton of taps that I have never tried I can quickly scan the reviews and read what others have said about them. Not the tic but the tasting notes. I have order 3.? beers over 4.? beers based on other common tasting notes. That said I only do this when I am out on a tasting run, i.e. out specifically to try new beer, I don't get this anal in a restaurant. Also I have been going back and re reviewing favorites that I have had but didn't give full reviews to (not from memory because my memory is shit, thus why I review/tic).

 

The review is about how you feel about the beer. Think of the review as something for yourself to go back and look at to determine why you liked it. I don't worry about that, I have only seen a few reviews called out in threads and they are normally due to someone being purposefully snarky/funny.

 

In many cases( unless it's the first review of a beer) I don't see the point. What I'm going to say has been hashed and rehashed 10's if not hundreds of times already.

 

I agree with you, but I still feel like I'd be giving an uneducated opinion.

 

I only review if it's a noteworthy beer with few reviews or most of the reviews I don't agree with. If a beer already has a ton of reviews similar to my thoughts, I'll pass

 

im a drinker not a writer. plus i just dont think my reviews would be all that helpful.

 

I voted "I don't think I write well enough", but it's a little more than that. When I first joined BA, I enjoyed the beers I drank just as much as an avid reviewer. I just didn't trust my senses of taste and smell to discern the nuances found within. As time went on, I feel these senses have developed enough to try. My reviews aren't the "end all, be all". I write it for myself, but it's great to share my discoveries with other BA's.
I am also going back and reviewing the beers I only scored in the past. When reviewing, I not only enjoy the beer; I savor it. Last night, I opened a bottle of Hairy Eyeball. I let that beer not just warm in the snifter, but bloom. Totally awesome beer experience.

 

I read reviews all the time, I also write a bunch of reviews as well. Beerfly was the best resource for me cause I traveled all the time for work many moons ago, and so I wanted to add to that and contribute. The new Places is pretty much the same. I felt the same about beer reviews, especially for local/regional breweries that don't have a large footprint or hype (I always love being the first to review a new place or beer). Simply because I reviewed a lot, and did not want to sound completely uninformed, that forced me to understand different styles, which gave me an affinity for the old guard and traditional styles (which I have had not just in beer, but music, movies, food) I learned to immediately love German, Belgian, and British styles.

On a side note, I don't have a smartphone, so I never understood the attraction of Untappd or any app really. Untappd specifically is pretty pathetic IMO. Unless all you want to use it for is as a social site to see what friends are drinking and where (which I guess is substantial). Though the scores, ridiculously short comments, and general lack of knowledge shown by pretty much everyone on that site is laughable. A perfect example of why just ticking alone is not useful, at least to me.

 

I didn't mean to imply that you needed clarify what your words meant. As you astutely point out, it's fairly obvious what you were saying in the OP. Instead, I was just pointing out that your premise for asking people who don't review beers why they don't is because according to people who do review beers, reviewing is fun. That's like me going up to a straight male and saying, "My straight female friends say having sex with men is a blast, so come you don't like it?"

But this is just an informal poll for entertainment, so I'm going to shut up with such nonsense and just contribute what I can. In response to what you said above, about no one responding that they don't like to share their thoughts, I actually think that is a good descriptor of me. Obviously I love to share my thoughts, ha. But on my perception of beer tastes, I don't really care to. I don't think I have the most fine-tuned palate, so I don't know if I feel adequate to describe it in terms other people will recognize. I can describe in terms I recognize, but those are for me and me alone. I don't see how others could really benefit from it. I certainly am not interested in their specific thoughts on it.

 

Satellite CRAPPY internet prevents me from doing my videos and such. What a drag!

 

I review basically every beer I drink, as long as I can get a solid enough pour to appreciate the beer.

However, sometimes reviewing does become a chore, and that's when I consider not doing it. So if I didn't review, my answer would be that writing reviews is time consuming. Unfortunately for readers of the reviews section, I do write reviews, however.

But I really do enjoy keeping a detailed log of all the beers I've tried. I like documenting things, and reviewing feels the most complete way to do it for me. I like writing reviews and rating beers and seeing where I stand against other reviewers I've read and respect.

 

I've met many people who always share exactly what they think, even if I don't want to hear it, so it doesn't surprise me