Top 100 NE beers made by only 13 breweries?!?

What list are you referring to?

 

I'm guessing the regional top 100 list here on BA:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/lists/new-england/

 

Really big 3...I’m counting 30 TH, 25 Trill and 24 HF in the top 100. These are three breweries making incredible beers and smartly marketing a rediculous number of beers and varients which helps their count. Compare to Foundation or MBCO or even Bissell who have a more limited line up. For me the biggest disappointment is Edward at 98. That’s criminal....

 

I’d be interested when analyzing those ratings how many reviews for the big 2 breweries come from folks outside NE?

I’d give more credit to local NE reviewers, who I think for the <slightly> most part are experienced, thoughtful beer drinkers. I don’t think the daily lines @ TH & crowds at Trill Boston should put a hard stamp on what New Englanders like to drink - at all.

 

Hype seems to always play a part in polls.
I often wonder who many breweries were not sampled by the voters and why. I'd bet mostly because they are small, unknown or not big into social media.
Social media really plays a part for many folks these days, perhaps to much.

 

Unfortunately, the value of BA's style and regional Top Rated lists has been gutted over the last several years because of this domination by essentially non-distributing breweries.

Combine that with the mass misidentification of NEIPA's into the American IPA category, and you have a critical problem in the long term usability of your database.

As an example, Double Dry-Hopped Sungazer by Charles Towne Fermentory (a NEIPA) is listed as a Top Rated American IPA, with 14 ratings and a score of 4.51. Go ahead and suggest the edit for style, and it'll quickly be changed; however, it will also be immediately replaced on the list by some other incorrectly categorized NEIPA.

I know the staff is aware of this, and I'm not criticizing without contributing - a few months back I submitted hundreds of edit suggestions to re-classify NEIPA's, and they were promptly moved. But, they were quickly replaced by other incorrect NEIPA's in the American IPA Top Rated list. This could take years to work through the system, unless a moderator-gate is required for new beer entries, and an automated program is written to correct existing style designation errors.

Sorry to derail the thread, but I see both problems as being linked, in that they effectively diminish the value and usability of the BA beer databases, which I think are unique and immensely valuable.

 

I take zero stock in these ratings. The first non-IPA or barrel-aged beer is Everett at #58. I don't know a lot about anything, but I do know that Everett is better than probably 53 of the beers ahead of it, if not 57.

It's a list of 100 great beers in New England but there's exactly one beer from Maine Beer (Dinner, of course, because of ... well you know why) and Allagash (Coolship Red ... not even their best Coolship, imo), and ZERO from Jack's Abby, Notch, Oxbow, Night Shift, Mystic, Proclamation, OEC.

You can't convince me that none of these breweries don't produce at least a couple "top 100" beers in New England.

 

It should actually be 101.

 

Its best to not take that list seriously because it is terrible. Its a bunch of hop heads giving 5.0 to any interchangeable hazy IPA from a hyped brewery. Having only one Allagash on the list is another clue that you should ignore it.

 

Even setting aside the issues regarding "hype", the idea of a top 100 made a lot more sense before it was commonplace for breweries to make 30 different beers that are all actually the same beer.

 

Ugh, what on Earth are you talking about? Do you have no palate?

The first release was 30% mosaic, 40% galaxy, and 30% citra; The next beer was 40% mosaic, 40% citra, and 20 % galaxy. F'n totally different beer bro.

 

I don't think the difference was the hop blend. It was the fermentation and the timing of the second dry hop that was the clear distinction. Plus, I felt a little different pouring it from a blue versus a yellow can. The yellow was a little matchy-matchy with the beer. I prefer a contrast. Nevertheless the two beers are completely different.

 

Wouldn't a simple solution be to filter by region and style?

 

Huh? You’ve got some HF Saisons and Aaron - a Barleywine - in the top 20. What list are you looking at ?

 

I agree with your sentiments, but there are a bunch (8) of Tree House milk stouts/sweet stouts (non-BA) prior to Everett on the list.

 

Aaron is BA, he said non IPA or BA. It looks like the HF "saisons" you mention are BA brews too (wine barrel).

 

My bad ... But the overall point kind of still stands. It's not like I overlooked House Lager at #12 or Oxbow FPA at #19.

Does a milk stout from any other brewery crack the top 20? No. I get who makes them matter, but let's be honest. They're in the top 20 because of who they are, especially the TH stouts. I'll buy the farmstead ales and BW from HF in the top 20. Good places for them.

 

Whether or not any of us like this practice is kind of besides the point though. For better or worse, breweries ARE operating this way, and it largely obviates the usefulness of a top-100 NE beers list.

Twenty years ago, it meant something to say "[blank] is the best show on television". You could look at the half dozen best shows, make that argument in a reasonable way, and have that argument be convincing to a significant percentage of the population. Now, you can't make an argument for your favorite show to be in anyone else's top twenty. There's not enough hours in the day to watch everything you would need to watch to even start to guess at what the "best" show is now. No one can even claim to be able to know what the best show is, never mind claim to actually know.

This is basically how I feel about a NE top 100 beers list. It was a useful sorting mechanism when it was conceived, it isn't now.