Do your ratings skew higher or lower on average?

Generally higher. I think its because I've been drinking good beer for awhile and read enough about beer that when I do go on a run or order a beer I have a pretty good sense it's gonna be good stuff.

 

I have a lot of negative RDevs. My average beer tends to be in the 3.25 range. A beer in the 2.75 area probably isn't terrible, and anything over a 3.75 is probably an excellent beer.

 

My average rating is about 3.98. I'd say that's WAY above average.

Plus, good, new beers excite me. I'm sure that excitement impacts my ratings.

 

Lower since I don't cut local brewers any slack.

 

Not picking on you personally, but I have a hard time with this logic. You buy a beer because you know it's going to be good, so you score it highly because you knew it was good when you bought it? This is why I never look at the ratings. I try to approach each beer with a neutral view.

 

No, I buy a beer because I think it will be good. It simply turns out that many times that hunch is correct.

I try to rate my beers objectively and sometimes give beers a lower rating than others. But like everyone else I try to make sure the stuff I do spend my money on is better than if I were to grab at bottles blindly.

 

I am probably about even some higher and some lower. Probably a perfect bell shaped curve.

 

Lower.

If I don't like a beer with rave reviews I'm brutality honest.

 

I am only starting to be real critquey so maybe a bit higher.

 

But, do you think, even on some subconscious level, that your expectations are helping to form your opinions? I try to avoid that, and I know I'm not totally successful (I mean, I heard about the beer on a beer website, opinions are given, and what is heard can't be unheard), but I put conscious effort into being as neutral as possible. I sometimes look at scores after I review, and I'm often so far away from what the score is that it makes me wonder if I'm too harsh, or the majority is too soft.

 

I tend to be lower than the BA score on my ratings when I do them. I'm picky, plus I start tasting every beer compared to the 3.0 score as average, run-of-the-mill, uninspired beers. There has to be something extra in a beer to get me to budge off of that mind-set.

As an added comment on this topic, it would be interesting to see the subject question posed as a high/low poll to see if the results would be balanced, thus minimal effect on the correct score of the beers.

 

Higher. I think it will level off more as my palate develops and I am better able to discern the nuances in more complex beers.

 

Generally higher... What can I say, I like beer!

 

Higher for me as well. Definitely something I've noticed

 

Absolutely. I think this is the case with all of us who talk/read about beer and unfortunately it's hard to avoid. And to your point I definitely observe "groupthink" around hyped beers.

The best we can do is make a point to be objective as possible. I personally put my reviews in a Word doc so I don't have to be on BA and look at other reviews while I'm doing it, and I'll transfer them later.

For these reasons I'm also ambivalent about BA allowing ratings without written text. Obviously if I'm at a bar with friends I don't want to write a lengthy review, but doing so forces me to engage and critically think about each aspect of the beer. Otherwise it's very easy to be like "OMG, XXX hyped brewery finally made its way into my city and drinking it now for the first time it's awesome! 5's across the board"

 

I've got more beers in the 4+ range then the 2.5- range. My average is mid 3s and anything below a 3.2 isn't terrible, but so average I wont return. Under 2.3 are things I wouldn't drink if I was offered them, there really arn't many.

On a side note, take reviews with a grain of salt. Saw a guy earlier who gave labatt blue a 4.15 and some decent craft ipa's 3. somethings. It all comes down to ur personal taste buds in the end.

 

For individual beers, it seems that I rate a little lower than the average for that particular beer.

Is the average of all beer ratings on BA a 3? Personally I'm more inclined to rate a beer if I think it's 1) exceptional or 2) something I was excited to try. If that's the case for most people who review on BA, it will then make all beers seem above average.

 

Mostly above average, I usually seek out things I think I'll like, and I rate pretty generously.

 

of my 392 reviews/ratings:

212 have plus rDev
7 have 0.0% rDEV
173 have minus rDev

So I skew a little above average ... 54% of the time.