Pittsburgh - New Beers & Local Breweries

I don't think this speaks to the reviewer as much as it does the beer.

 

I don't think anyone needs to push the ratings higher. For one, it's well known that Voodoo does a great job with barrel aged stouts. Two, if it gets pushed higher, you can bet every neckbeard in the Midwest, northeast, and some of the south is going to be thinking about coming to the next release. It's for your own benefit that the hype stays low.

 

It doesn't count towards the rating at all if you just rate it and not review it.

 

I guess that's one advantage of the way they did the GNVP release. The lead time is so minimal that people from outside of the region wouldn't have time to plan a trip into the area just for that.

 

Thought the bros recently changed it where the ratings do count in some undisclosed fashion.

 

One of my buddies sent me this last week:

"A friend of mine from tampa was at the tasting where they had Apple Brandy Vanilla Zhukov and he said The Voodoo beer was the best beer that night. thats what he said, they had all the mexican cake variants and Fundamental Observation that night as well."


Take that how you will. Honestly I Preferred the AB version more, but I was sort of in a rush that day so didn't really take the time for it to warm and open up.

 

That was the first time I was ever there, so I was in a rush too.. I would have liked to had another glass, as I thought it was a little too "peppery", but I didn't let it warm up a lot either.

Will it ever show up on draft again?

 

If they do another event during PCBW I would assume it would be on.

 

This is correct. Reviews count to a greater degree than ratings but ratings are still factored in.

 

If you take the fifteen ratings (there are 48 hads) and average them, you come up with 4.87; though the average is listed as 4.82. But that's taking the average of the overall scores, and not breaking down the individual and weighted components and then averaging them separately before totaling them as they are weighted.

The Bros. do mention that the: weighted average is "an average that takes into account the proportional relevance of each component, rather than treating each component equally." We don't disclose the exact methods used to calculate the Avg, however, we can say that each user's rating history is now included in criteria. The Avg range is 1-5 with a two decimal range for accuracy.

So, they may take into account rating sans reviews or the difference could be the result of the users' rating histories. But I think you guys are taking about the BA Overall Score (BOS), and not the weighted average.

Edit: thought I read something along what you guys are mentioning, but I can't recall where--must've be an update somewhere.

 

Had a bunch of beers this past weekend from around here, thought I'd mention my thoughts, cause that's what we do here...

Juju - at first was a little underwhelming compared to previous incarnations...but definitely got better as it warmed up. Still nowhere close to either IBUsive or HH in my opinion. (4 on the Stigs scale)

Persica - a solid beer, though nothing special...crushable, clear, all that stuff...(3 on the Stigs scale)
Turbid Nightmare - loved this. Dare I say if this were in cans, you dudes could trade for all the other desirable hazy cans out there that get insane love (4.5 on the Stigs scale)
General Braddock's - similar impression to that of Persica above, but hazier. I would definitely vote Good Vibes over this one in the bracket challenge thingey. (3 on the Stigs scale)
Skeuomorph - I actually liked this quite a bit. I wasn't as blown away by the AB stuff as others seem to be...and I'm not sure I got a ton of barrel character in general. But this would easily be the most impressive BA bottle I've had from them. (4 on the Stigs scale)

Reclamation "Carey Me Home" DIPA - pretty bad. Not really a DIPA. Nothing distinguishing about it. Overly malty. Tasted like pretty average to below average homebrew. (2 on the Stigs scale)

Full Pint HOPism - another super average beer from Full Pint. Certainly not bad. Nose was okay, but really lacks the flavor of even a solid DIPA. (3 on the Stigs scale)

(still have a growler of Mammoth that I'm hoping to get to soon)

First time for me at BG believe it or not. I was pretty impressed overall with the place. Not my typical style establishment and not sure I'd spend a lot of my time there (can honestly say I prefer Fat Head's atmosphere - maybe just out of familiarity??)...but damn, they have their ducks in a row that's for sure...

 

On the list of Top New Brews it's only listed as a 4.51

 

Weird.

 

# of reviews factor in. It's weighted somehow.

 

You'd think, however it's weighted, it would be the same number irrespective of its location on the site though.

 

All of the scores and rankings around here are so damn arbitrary and/or convoluted, I can't take them seriously anymore.

 

On a side note: I was just down at Voodoo to pick up some beer for my father in law's upcoming visit and had a delicious nitro cold brew coffee. So good.

 

The number on the beer's page is it's raw average which factors in scores on reviews and scores on ratings to give the beer an overall score. The scores on the rankings page are weighted based on # of reviews otherwise you'd have a flavor of the week sitting at #1 on the top 250 every other month. GNVP's raw average is currently 4.82. Good Morning's is 4.77 but we're talking 900 ticks and 200 reviews vs. 50 and 15. KBBS is a 4.81 but 481 ticks and 76 reviews. This is why # of reviews is factored in. Otherwise, the top lists would be one massive clusterfuck.

 

I drank a Ommegang Biere De Mars last night from 2008. Really tasty, like an amber brett champagne or something, faintest hint of sweet maltiness, didn't pick up any stale flavors at all. The brett wasn't overpowering to my taste either. Super duper sweet surprise from a friend that was cleaning out his basement. If you see one of these floating around i'd recommend picking it up or letting me know so i can. Cheers yall

 

Man, I remember that beer, one I'd gotten fairly easily from the shelves & saved for a special occasion. Makes me wistful for a time when shelfies were still a thing to treasure.