Poll: Why I Don't Review Beers.

I really do not care what other people think of a particular beer and doubt very much that anyone would care about mine.

 

I like the idea of reviews and enjoy reading them but for taste and smell I have a tough time. It's like wine I go to the winery to do a tasting they say do you taste the over rippenend kiwis, with an earthy taste of late October on a rainy day and shell fish. Ok I am joking but the taste they describe is so specific. I either think something tastes good or does not and that is why I don't write a lot of reviews as my taste buds run from good to bad I don't pick out a lot of individual flavors.

 

Beer for me is meant to be enjoyed, I personally don't want to really worry or think about writing down the mouthfeel etc for every beer. Plus, honestly if I did start doing reviews the fact is I probably would end up just reviewing the great world class beers I've had or the god awful shitty beers. So adding the 1,238th review for Supplication and saying it's incredible really is pointless

 

Based on my own personal experience I'd suggest that you do pick up many if not all of those flavors but its like any other activity it takes practice. Those winery descriptions are written by pros for the benefit of other pros.

So if you can tell by taste the difference between a beer with mostly malt flavors and a beer with mostly hop flavors you are at least half way there already. If you can eat a hamburger and tell when it is burnt, well cooked, or rare, then you are more than half way there already. Most of the reviews on here are written by us amatures just trying to describe what we see/smell/taste when drinking the beer.

 

I chose "Already plenty of reviews, why should I add mine?"

Generally I review beers when either 1.) There are very few reviews to begin with so mine will make a difference in the rAvg and potentially to others who read my review, or 2.) I have a strong opinion and feel a sense of duty to let others know my experience...not that I actually expect others to care.

 

I don't know if it makes me sad, everyone enjoys things in their own way...

However a lot of the arguing, vitrol and posting about opinions seems to often come from a lot of people who have something to say, but don't really add bother to put those opinions into reviews to the site which I find a bit confounding at times...

 

I just started and I have only put my opinion up on here for one beer. Although it's not a positive or a very well thought out I still feel that I need to put it up. Why? because I find that reviews are very helpful and go back and refer to them often. I don't really like to get into details like the smell, look, and feel. I just drink mostly for taste so that is what I comment on but I can understand why others would, maybe in the future I will do the same. The only reason why I would not post a review would be if I was buying this beer at a brewery which I haven't done yet and the people who work there where extremely nice to me then I would think twice in giving the beer a thumbs down but I guess that should not matter since it's suppose to be about the beer and not the people who make it. Overall I think everyone should take the time to at least rate the beer since IMO it helps others make a better choice in what to spend your money on. Although there are people who don't agree with the ratings (and I don't always do) it's a good indicator on what you may also like but I know that there will be beer drinkers out there who will never look at reviews or will only review on not be on the forum but those I think will never get the full experience. So please review even if you just rate it's not necessary to be Steven King when you are just giving your opinion.

 

Ironically, I've been reviewing more beers since I replied to this thread.

 

(Didn't vote)

I previously wouldn't write reviews because I wasn't confident in my palate and writing. I decided to give it a go once the BA going back to their roots thing happened. I'm still not all that confident in my reviews but I really don't care what others think, it's only the Internet. I'm only about 15 reviews deep but it does seem to get easier and easier as I go along.

The only time I won't review is if I'm out with friends. Usually my reviews are done while sitting down watching a game so lack of time definitely isn't an issue.

 

While I agree that this is an interesting poll, I think you are jumping to a preconceived conclusion. I would not call 28% either obvious or overwhelming.

 

I don't use/read reviews if they're not my own and I very rarely look at what a beer's rating is on the 100 point scale, but even when I do I still don't let that have an effect on what I think about it. Besides the rating aspect, I can get enough words in 140 characters on Untappd to remind myself what I thought about a beer the first couple of times I had it.

 

Because I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.

As soon as I taste mango, yall taste pineapple.

You folks write about tasting all sorts of things from the plant/fruit/horse-riding equipment world that I just cant pick up. "hmmmm subtle notes of bum's ass."

I long for the day when I can write about these things.

 

Already plenty of reviews...

I've reviewed a few here and there, but I generally don't drink stuff that is rare, so adding another review to a beer that has hundreds, if not thousands, doesn't seem to be worth the effort.

However, if my opinion varies greatly from the general consensus or if a brew only has a small number of reviews, then I'll take the time to review something.

 

I wanted to pick a combination of "I don't have time" and "it will destroy my enjoyment of beer"...which is the option I chose.

Sometime I drink many different beers in a short period of time and just don't have the time to stop and review each one. It's much easier and enjoyable to just assign a numerical rating and be done with it. I love BA for the forums, trading, and beer talk, but when it comes to rating beers I currently check-in most of beers on UNTAPPD. If BA had a quicker system to check-in/rate beers, I might change my method and opinion.

It seems there are so many folks that take beer too seriously. I have seen posts on here that make me feel like the ratings should be professional with thorough details. Reminds me of book reports in grade school and I hated those. I really don't have time to review like that. I would rather just assign a value to it without having to explain. The rating itself should be enough.

One category for reviewing that I really don't care for is "look." I really don't care how my beer looks. I've had beers that looked murky and cloudy and made my eyes turn big as saucers...but it tasted great and was a great beer so I rated it as such. If you drink from a can or bottle, the appearance is irrelevant. I'm not going to showcase it in a beer aquarium...right!?!? Although a swimming pool would be better...new category..."body feel."

 

It *did* take away from (destroy is too harsh a word) my enjoyment of beers when I had to try to find 250 characters of something interesting to say about them.

 

I don't feel that I do a good job at describing what I taste. I struggle writing reviews and they never end up being very good in my opinion.

 

wow the second most popular response was "i don't think i write well enough:?? people need to be less self conscious about their literary prowesses its Beeradvocate not the Wall Street Journal

 

I usually always review but it's getting too time consuming. I'm starting to simply enjoy the beer and give it a ' rate ' after finished without taking the type to type anything up.

Or maybe I'm becoming an alcoholic and just want to drink it without other worries