Are beer ratings biased?

Guilty.

It would have to be ambrosia freshly brewed by the hand of God to get a perfect 5 (or the nearest feasible simulacrum).

In all seriousness, though, I rarely deal in absolutes. Nothing's pure 5 awesome. Nothing's pure 1 filth. For one reason, I have not and never will be able to try everything, therefore I cannot conclusively grant the distinction of perfect 5, but rather the slightly less prestigious "Best I've had to date". After all, once the perfect 5 is found, why would one ever drink something else?
That being said, can something approach the theoretical max of 5, sure, but it's kinda like a hyperbolic curve: it never quite gets there.

 

Yes - not a good idea to paint yourself into a corner by giving a 5 rating, only to have something better come along. I am a TaeKwondo instructor and tournament judge (hence my BA name) and they advise us that when we're judging at a tournament to avoid awarding a perfect score, because inevitably a better competitor would come along. At least on BA we can go back and adjust scores should that happen. I'd have irate competitors and parents if I tried to adjust tournament scores after the fact.

 

My ratings are totally subjective, with only a nod to style points. I can compare beers where I have had several samples within the style, but generally I just rate upon how much I enjoy the beer. An AAL that hits all it's checkmarks won't get a higher rating from me over, for example a Gose that I really enjoy, but does not perfectly represent the specific style. A blah beer gets a blah rating, a great beer gets a great rating, etc..

 

There's also people like me (assuming I'm not alone) who are inclined to participate in ratings more on beers with not many ratings: (1a) local breweries who have made a GOOD beer but don't have enough reviews to get a BA SCORE, of (1b) one-off/draft only/new stuff with few scores, that I feel like I might help someone in this community decide to get, or decide not to order.

I'm not decreasing the amount of statistical bias on this site at all. But I personally won't typically write up a review on nationwide distro stuff with thousands of reviews, or local stuff that's forgettable and/or already established average/below average score. Unless something really sucks, than I might!

I guess you could say I like my reviews to matter, actually influence someone to buy or not buy, not just be part of 5,000+ aggregate review on Two Hearted or BCBS. It's good to have the beers of Fame list of course, I personally don't feel like I need to participate in scoring stuff like that anymore in 2017

 

Yeah, I get that the "decent" beer is a bit tongue in cheek, but all the same I think that there's a niche that those beers fulfill- more of a non-challenging, everyday quaffer. And I find that that niche does have poor examples and superior examples. And sometimes a brewer will believe that the extra effort or ingredient cost won't make enough of an impact on their bottom line to go through with it all, so even though their intention is to make something mediocre that's not what I'm getting at. I'd approach it as though they made something that falls within that niche, and how did they do? In this case, probably not so well in my eyes. We're still here to evaluate and pass judgement, after all .

The citra-hopped Pilsner is exactly the kind of thing I would take the time to get to know, approaching it as a newfangled Pilsner at first. And all the while I would be asking myself "is this an improvement" "does it even work at all, or is it too much of one, not enough of another?" or even "is it tasty?". In the end I might eventually agree that at its heart it's a good Pilsner, or maybe that it's better if you approach it as an IPL, or even that it doesn't work on any level. It all depends on the beer.

Ultimately, though, I'd say you're better off going into these things as if there is no "ideal" standard to live up to; there's more of a core foundation of qualities. Get the word "perfect" out of your head: the top score in a category is for the best of the best. And they do exist!

 

My rating is based on style, I only compare beers of same style, but to give a 5 I have to believe it's the best flavor for this type of style. For instance I may rate a Camo a 5 as I find it to be the best malt liquor beer yet I may rate a Bells Mars a 2.5 and still rather have a Bells Mars as it is a better beer but compared to other DIPA's it doesn't compare.

 

I'm justa' dumb ass.
When I have a new beer I take a few notes, and enjoy the beer because it's beer.
I won't rate a beer until I've had five a of that particular style, I do that that so I have some idea on how to judge it against its peers.
I might, or have given NC's Old Rasputin a 4.75 score and Founders All Day IPA the same score. That doesn't make them equal. If you're buying I'm always taking "Raspy", but I think All Day IPA is a damn good sessionable beer.

 

That doesn't make sense to me. Seems like you enjoy the Mars more than the Camo. Why would your ratings not reflect that. Rating to style is a bunch of bs imho.

 

Because you don't rate a DIPA with a malt liquor. And when it comes to DIPA's Bells Mars is nowhere close to any Stone DIPA, Hopslam, or New Holland Hopnotix so makes perfect sense just like I wouldn't compare any of these to Oktoberfests, lagers, stouts, porters, or pilsners. And I didn't like Mars all that well but still better than Camo yet Camo is better than Steel Reserve or Mickeys or Magnum Or Colt

 

The way I feel is it's all beer, and should be rated as such, despite what the BA style says it is.

 

I guess I'm not sure what rating a beer is worth (at least to anyone else) if it's completely subjective.

 

The way I see it if it's a DIPA my tongue should be numb at the end, doesn't happen with Mars. But I can only compare style to style and if I didn't just about all IPA's I rate would be given a 5.

 

My ratings are 100% biased, I admit it. If I like it, it gets a good score (above a 4), no matter if it's Mickeys or Fremont BBA Dark Star.

 

The problem is you are rating with predetermined expectations. Another problem that could arise is, what if the style on BA is incorrect? After all, it is us users that add information on this website, it doesn't always come from the legitimate appropriate sources. What if a beer is labeled on here as a Russian Imperial Stout but really the brewery doesn't call it that. Then you look for certain things that are typically in a big RIS, but not always found in a regular American Stout or something like that. I had 2 dry-hopped sours last night, and on BA one is labeled a Berliner Weisse and the other says Saison/Farmhouse Ale. If I rated the saison as a saison it would be really low because it was a hoppy sour ale with Citra and Nelson hops. It is absurd to rate a malt liquor higher than a DIPA that you like better, just because the malt liquor is a good representation of the style, in your opinion. How do you even know what a 5 is then? How can you say that one particular beer is the best representation of the style and a 5? What if a beer gets made that is even better than that one? Beers within the same style can vary as well. Your 5 is still subjective even if it's rated to style. You can rate however you want, and people do that, I just don't think it's right.

 

Not incorrect I only believe in comparing style to style, 2nd Mars says DIPA on bottle and I always go by what's on the bottle not what's listed on BA. And 3rd I'll rate anyway I want I love beer and like to give 5'S to those who create a beer the best to that style's ability and 1 when it's a bad beer or 3 when it's average, 4 when it's almost perfect. And when it comes to DIPA's my mouth better be numb. I have different standards based on the style and you saying based on BA label I never do that only base things on what the brewery labels it.

 

Everyone has their own way of rating, so it's all good. Between all the high ratings and low ratings a beer gets they usually even out to a pretty fair avg score.

 

Very true, cheers to that!

 

@StoutElk_92

When you guys do happen to come across a beer that is miscategorized on BA, you might also want to take the step of filing a change request. The more documentation (e.g., brewer's web page where the beer is described, etc.) the quicker that problem can be fixed. There aren't enough mods to catch all the problems so we can help out a bit by giving them a pointer. Also helps eliminate some of the problems you've been chatting about.

 

That is an interesting little snippet, thought I would try to answer. I jumped forward to make sure no one else did, and it looks like the thread deteriorated into a "What is a 5?" debate...

Appearance doesn't have a huge overall affect on rating. It contributes 6% to the entirety of it if I remember correctly(and no I'm not going to double check, so someone let me know if I am wrong). If you are interested with the affect, take a beer you've rated, then change the rating to a 1, then to a 5. It doesn't change all that much. Hope that helped.

 

I've done this a couple of times, but not just for style, but also for ABV, etc. But, I only do this if the listing conflicts with what the brewer says about the beer. IOW, if I "report" an error in style, it won't be because I think the style is wrong, but it will be because the brewer says it is a particular style different from what the listing says (even if I think the brewer is fudging a bit).

Whoever looks over the "reports" usually addresses errors quickly. You do this through the "Report an Update" link under the "Tools" section on the left side of the beer listing page.