Why do people review beers when...

Got an authoritative / legal citation for that? There's no mention of a mandatory Three Tier System in the rather short 21st Amendment nor in post-Repeal's Federal Alcohol Administration Act (1935 - much amended, but still the primary Federal law on beverage alcohol). The FAA Act has an extensive section on the various illegal acts tha come under the "Tied House" prohibition - illegal connections between suppliers and retailers, but it makes no distinction between brewers and wholesale distributors, and does not legally prohibit ownership of, or other connections between, the two upper "supplier" tiers.

A decade after Repeal, only about half the beer in the country was distributed via a tiered brewer>wholesaler>retailer process - the rest was brewer>retailer and even via brewery-owned "branches". The term "Three Tier" to describe the alcoholic beverage distribution system doesn't even appear in any industry source until after WWII, when the first state TT laws were enacted.

According to attorney Marc Sorini (who's done extensive research on Three Tier and Franchise Law in the brewing industry), there is "...No evidence of separations between the upper two tiers..." in post-Repeal Federal law, and elsewhere is quoted "I have yet to find evidence of mandatory three tier systems in the 1930s".

If there was a Federal prohibition against, or barrelage limit for, self-distribution or brewery-owned distributors, then Anheuser-Busch couldn't own wholesale "branches" in something like 10 different states, Stone couldn't own an extensive wholesale subsidiary (distributing there own and other brewers' beers) in Southern California, Brooklyn Brewery couldn't have owned distributorships in both NY and MA (now sold off) and hundreds of craft brewers in the majority of states that allow some form of SD couldn't distribute their own brands to on- and off-premise accounts.

Somewhat ironically, it is both the Distributors (NBWA's, etc) and those brewers and consumers against the Three Tier System that continue to perpetuate the myth that the "Three Tier System" was a creation of Repeal laws, is mandatory, and remains unchanged and universal in all US states. One of the most obvious examples is that the "brewpub" as we know it today would not exist without changes in states' "Tied House" laws.

 

I've tried sours a few times until realizing that it just wasn't going to happen. I also rated those beers but carefully read over the style description as well as the reviews of other more experienced in the category reviewers and offered my review based on whether or not the beer met the characteristics of the style as described on here. Reading the reviews of others helps me "dial in" what to expect in beers I am not familiar with but for rating sake I stick to the parameters of the style description.

 

I actually say shame on nobody, but caution to the brewery that doesn't date. Let's say a person that buys undated beer is expecting to enjoy what is advertised on the label, for sake of argument a nice hop forward tropical flavors style IPA with just enough malt backbone to offer outstanding balance, so basically Two Hearted-ish. Buyer drinks beer and finds that it has lost most bite and the tropical nuance is overwhelmed by a more caramel-ish taste. Buyer hasn't a clue how old it is, but the brwery had the power to offer this information, yet they didn't' and now they have willfully accepted a situation where a person can maintain an opinion on their beer at any point during it's age. They (brewery) could have dated it, and could have stipulated to the distro that they needed to remove them at some point in their life cycle.

 

Bad bottle reports.

Stone can bottle a beer that just gets better after a year.

But we MUST Shame those who bottle the stuff that goes bad in a month.

 

I try to stick to the 3 beer rule. drink 3 and then review. IF possible, hard to do with rares. Which I tend to note them in my book and go on. then again:

But since A: its just a web site(about beer) B: its my review for ME C: the reviews are totally subjective. so and finally D: there is nothing you can do but delete them or bitch. of course you can just ignore them like I do.

Its why many do not review, and why many of us only do it for fun. Most of us are not so ego driven as to say look at me and see ALL MY REVIEWS I am important. not.

The rules are just guidelines that are not enforceable, so the ratings are and always will be inaccurate. They might be mathematically correct but humans input means its a true subjective result. in plain English its all hogwash....

seriously some detect 30 things in a beer, its funny...

 

You shouldn't be hard on a beer after its prime. That is unfair.
You should be hard on an infected beer. That's fair. Would you not dock a restaurant review if your steak had mold growing on it?

I try to review based on the style. Or at least keep it in mind.

 

Another reason it might be difficult to rate AALs fairly to style is the differences in taste, smell, or appearance between different AALs are typically very subtle. It's going to be even harder to rate fairly [without bias] when there's little to physically differentiate great, mediocre, or bad representations of a style.

Personally, when it comes to AALs I don't think too hard about the taste and I just favor the AAL that I have positive associations with, like homer pride or good memories from youth or vacations. Besides, I would bet that most people's preferences for one AAL over another are probably due to biases they aren't even aware of. I choose to embrace my bias. (Although I don't rate much on BA.)

 

This is the exact same thing I see on Amazon reviews all the time. Someone gives the item/seller a bad review because the UPS truck ran their package over 100 times. Like that is really the sellers fault.

 

An infection is a processing error resulting from poor sanitation and should be noted in a review. Likewise, gushing caused by malt infected with the fusarium fungus, indicates sloppy material selection and should be noted. Stale, cheesy or bad hops are also an issue of poor quality control and should be noted. Any other processing or quality control issue at the brewery is fair game. We are not reviewing the Platonic ideal beer that exists in the mind of the brewer, we are reviewing the actual beer in a glass in the hand of the consumer. It is the brewer's, distributor's and retailer's responsibility to get that ideal beer in our glass.

Packaging in clear or green bottles as a marketing ploy that results in a higher percentage of skunky beer is obvious enough that it should be noted. If being stale is something that is characteristic of a particular brand - such as brands carried by certain importers who buy in mass quantities and then dole the beer out over a period of years - then staleness is fair game to comment on. When enough brands behave like Budweiser and Sierra Nevada and get religious about freshness, then freshness will be fair game as well.

Bad beer lines in a bar are out of the brewers hands.

 

While I understand the ideas you are suggesting, I'm much more of a hard liner. If its undated and I can't establish other reasons to believe its fresh, I generally don't buy it. (I do the same with Eggs, Milk, etc. but in some states (not all) dates on those are required by state law.)

Breweries that don't date generally don't get my business, and basically if I chooses to gamble and lose, especially knowing that freshness matters, it may indeed be because of something the brewery didn't do that I think they should do, but I knowingly chose to take the gamble and lost.

 

Because they're nihilists

 

I think its a fine line and not at all black and white. If someone rates an excellent sour a 2.5 because he doesn't like sours then he is essentially rating on a scale of 2.5 not 5 and that skews the data. But at the same time I don't think its unfair that I tend to rate IPA's with tropical flavors higher than ones with piney flavors out of preference, so where do you draw the line?

I recently tasted an IPA that I felt was off either due to a glass or line line that wasn't perfectly cleaned. I would withhold a rating at a bar, but it happened at the brewery. Should the brewer be responsible for beer at the brewery? If nothing else I think it should be noted even if not rated.

Cellartracker the wine site has NR/flawed as a rating, would be a nice option.

 

I completely agree with this, the only reason I can think of to review an infected bottle is if you try several different dates or vintages of a beer that all have the same problem, the only reason to review and infected beer would if it was emblematic of a larger problem, otherwise it is not fair to the brewer, it would be like reviewing the cuisine at a steakhouse out of their dumpster for zagat and not telling anyone, as for the after date issue, no excuse really

 

If it's infected, that the breweries fault. So I see no reason not to review it honestly.

I don't think that people should review past it's 'best by' date though.

 

I don't understand how reviewing an infected beer is

. It's more like giving the steakhouse a bad review after you got food poisoning there. It's reviewing a flawed product.

 

I find it very weird when people rate old ipas at all. I see some guy just gave BBB Swish like 1 star. This beer hasn't been brewed since April. He also lives in IL and the beer isn't distributed outside the brewery. So god knows what happened to that can between may in Maine and September in IL. Just seems odd someone would do that. "Hey, here's a five month old dipa that I think may have been tainted. Eveyone else thought it was amazing, but whatever, I'll give it a one."

 

There are a few things that I disagree with here. First, if I try a beer and it's clearly infected, there is little to no chance that I will buy that beer again so I won't be trying different dates or vintages. Second, how will people know that a beer is infected if nobody reviews the beer and says it's infected? Say there are 100 bottles of a beer and 50 are infected but nobody reviews the infected bottles and the other 50 all get great reviews, people will be buying that beer without hesitation and they may be seriously disappointed with zero warning. Not everyone that drinks beer reads these forums to see discussions about infected beers, some people just simply check the reviews. If 1 bottle out of 10 is infected, and the other 9 average a 4.5, that beer deserves a final score around 4.1 with that bad review added, you. You can't just drop every bad review because it's not the norm. If that's the case the they should remove the 5's from the locals who just want to boost the ratings If it's not a widespread problem and only a handful of bottles out of thousands are infected, that won't kill the rating anyway but if it lowers it from a 4.5 to a 4.45 that's totally justified. Your Zagat review analogy doesn't make sense. Why would purchasing beer at the source or a store be the same as eating food from the dumpster that is no longer intended to be ingested? Unless the brewery recalls the beer, if you're paying for the beer, it's your right to review it. If you bought an old beer, that's your fault and a difference situation but there's no way to prepare yourself for an infected bottle. If you're at at a restaurant 4 times and 2 of them were delicious meals and the other two were terrible, would you give the restaurant glowing reviews and just ignore the bad experiences? If I eat at a steakhouse and pay a premium for a cut of steak and it's terrible even once, that's my right to let other people know there's a possibility that the food may not be what they are hoping for and the same goes for beer.

 

Do they date stamp their cans? I don't believe they do, if I recall my encounter with Substance correctly. And if not, well, it's their own fault for not alerting the consumer. I won't review an old IPA if I know it's old, but if there's no bottling/canning/best by date, that's on the brewer.

Group-think isn't a virtue. I've disliked plenty of beers that everyone else seems to love, & vice versa. That's the beauty of individual palates.

 

Oh, I totally agree with your last part, but I think it's a bit different when you get think something is wrong with the beer.

They date the 4 pack holders, but obviously once those are broken up it's up to the trader to tell you. But it's only brewed during fall/winter, so it's easy enough to know it's old as old can be.