Do you review to style?

Someone is lying on this poll, if nearly 75% of people rated to style, the top 250 wouldn't be nearly all Imperial Stouts and IPA's.

 

Not necessarily. So far, only 25 people have voted in the poll. There are a smidge more members than that who rate/review beers.

 

I think that the skew that people manage to give all lagers lower scores for example proves in some way that I cannot yet iterate, that this style of beer is expected to be good by most people. Even when it's great it's still "good" and that standard is expected to be maintained. You would never call any lager perfect because then they might get a BMC type mentality.

I'll work on this idea as I realize I said it poorly.

 

I always try to rate to style, or at least whatever the brewer claims to be attempting if it is vague.

Comparing Pliny to Founders Breakfast Stout, or Bourbon County Barleywine to Ayinger Marzen is kind of useless to me. Sure, in the grand scheme I can make a list of my favorite beers, but the closest my ratings come to doing that is the "overall" score. It is a major variable.

 

Of course not! It's all about me! Everybody is interested in MY tastes, thats why they look up beer reviews...

 

I disagree. This site is not (as far as I can tell) intended to be viewed as a beer competition with strict guidelines for "judging". There seems to be some inherent utility in at least partially rating to overall enjoyment, as many consumers come here to see what they might like. Overall enjoyment is important in that sense. That being said, if someone rates a beer extremely low just because they don't like that style, that is counterproductive. If the Top 250 included a couple dozen macro brands because they are "excellent" examples of their style, I don't see how that would be helpful. I make a concerted effort to keep style in mind when rating a given beer, but my scores will also reflect how much I actually enjoy that beer.

My bigger question is, with today's myriad experimentations and endless variations, what does it even mean to "rate to style" anymore? Certainly, you can distinguish the distinct characteristics of an English barleywine vs. a Czech pilsner. But within a given style--be it IPA, brown ale, stout, etc.--there are so many interpretations that it is nearly impossible to hold all beers to the same style standards.

Your hyperbole is clear, but you're actually more right than you realize. While there are undoubtedly a fair amount of well-schooled BA's who enjoy strict style-based ratings, I'd venture to bet there are just as many, if not more, "novices" who are more interested in what people do like.

 

I rate the beer on a scale to 1 to 5, 5 being the highest tastiness, 1 being the lowest tastiness. If I did within the style, nothing would even come close to BA Big Sound in the Wee Heavy department.

 

That's exactly what I thought when I saw the results [so far]. The bias in BA's ratings to certain styles is painfully obvious.

I voted "other" because I do try to rate to style, but I know I have biases and I'm not an expert at judging all styles, so some degree of personal taste is going to play into my reviews. At least I'm somewhat aware of my biases, unlike many of the people who responded that they vote to style. At least I can say that I don't think I am contributing to the over-rating of RIS/Imp stouts and DIPAs, because I'm not a big fan of those styles.

FWIW, I do most of my rating of UnTappd for my own purposes and to discuss beers with friends. Occasionally I'll do a review here on BA for a beer that leaves a big impression [good or bad] and I feel deserves more representation around here.

 

BA Beer 101: Keep Style in Mind: Pro Tips:
Don't review styles that you know you don't like. Your opinion will be tainted, and it's not fair to the brewery. A beery characteristic that you might not like could be due to style and shouldn't be deemed a flaw.

Definitely counterproductive. It should also stress: If you don't understand a style, don't immediately label it as bad. It's for both of these reasons that I usually stay away from reviewing sour styles.

This is quite true and I tend not to review these styles, except for my own record. I think I've had 5 different Imperial Pilsners and they've all tasted different.

 

It's about as reliable as the current presidential polls

 

I don't review beers if I preface the review with, "I don't really like this style, so...". I've started forum's on this in the past. If you aren't going to review a proper representation, or if you have distain for the style, why review it? To boost your review numbers? It leads to misconstrued numbers for otherwise good beers.

 

Better trademark that fast!

 

To style, plus I'll make allowances for age - provided the brewer used bottle dating.

 

I think I see what you're saying, but I could offer the counterpoint that if your biggest concern is seeing how beers within a certain style stack up against one another, simply filter by that style and check out the highest rated options. The ability to filter by style is useful whether you're rating to style or not. The fact that so many stouts rate higher than any kolsch illustrates the fact that more people enjoy that style more. I don't know if that's good, bad, or otherwise. It just illustrates the preferences over an extremely large sample.

 

This is it for me. Really I find style almost irrelevant. It's a beer, I rate it against other beers. It's only at the fine edges where I consider others of the style. If a barrel aged imperial stout isn't as good as BCBS, I'll stop short of giving it a 5. But the best pilsner or saison in the world isn't likely to get better than a 4 from me. If I review those beers, I will make note of that for clarity, but generally I won't review them at all, except for myself on Untappd.

 

I'm not going to compare a stout to an IPA, but sometimes I must view the overall joy it brings me in comparison to other related beers (i.e. pilsner to an American pale wheat). In general, I stay within the class though.

 

It drives me nuts to see people rate some beers highly solely because of the style. To use the ones you've pointed out, I'll see a review in which someone states that an imperial stout is "too sweet and boozy for the ABV%" and "lacks any roasted or other flavors beyond sweetness; cloying and would not get again"...and then gives it a 4.3/5!!! Meanwhile, there's some truly excellent kolsches out there (not going to name it here but there is one I've rated which I believe is a top-50 caliber beer) where reviewers will say it's essentially perfect with all the characteristics of the style and proceed to give it a 3.5/5.
A great beer is a great beer - if you don't feel like you can accurately review it to style, then just mark it as a "Had" and move on. The site's founders explicitly state that you should review to style in order to provide an accurate look at each style of beer.

 

No, some styles simply taste better than others, and the ratings for the beers in the less tasty categories should reflect that. Styles should simply serve as a guide to tell the consumer generally what to expect when they pour and sip. They're otherwise useless.