Posting reviews without text to back it up

I've been pretty diligent about posting reviews over the years. However, as of late, I have started to feel less and less compelled to do so. It helped a ton early on to help develop an understanding of my palate and what it prefers, and how to judge beers based on a standard set of metrics.

Now, I am feeling that people aren't getting as much out of my reviews as they used to, and overall engagement in that part of the site has been steadily declining (just my perception). And when I want to pick up/trade for a beer, it's much more often than not that I look it up on here and I'm able to count the number of ratings (not reviews, but ratings) on one hand- with zero reviews. It feels like an uphill battle in contributing reviews, at least mentally. Having ratings is better than nothing, though, don't get me wrong. But even locally, people don't even update beers for local breweries/blenderies.

It's getting harder to contribute knowing that I'm getting less and less out of it (from other members) as the years go along. Even Untappd, with its massively flawed rating system and methodologies, has far more data points that I can use to get an idea of what a beer is like, and I can see which of my friends/trading partners have had it so I can text them and start that discussion about whether it's worth it or not.

Shrug. It seems to be the reality nowadays in our app-based digital life. Maybe I'll keep going until I hit 4000 reviews and call it a day after that. Hobbies evolve, this is no different.

 

May I suggest, based on my own reading of some of your reviews, that your perception is wrong?

As for the problem of beers with few ratings or zero ratings the larger the number of reviews you have completed the harder it will/should be to find beers that haven't already been reviewed and the easier it will be to find lack of updating. This is the type of place where your level of expertise is actually most needed. I'd rather find one quality review on a new beer by someone who has experience with reviewing that a dozen ratings without any comments.

 

Well, I can't figure out how to tell what a beer is like from numbers alone. Hopefully you'll be able to figure out what my response is from this
https://www.beeradvocate.com/commun...-number-was-chosen.610046/page-3#post-6450652

 

Numbers and reviews serve different, but related, purposes for me and I hope both reviewers and raters will continue what they do.

I use a beer's score (primarily derived from ratings) to determine whether or not a new beer is even worth trying. When the score is high enough I read the reviews to see what to expect.

A bunch of 4's tells me the beer is probably worth the price, while scattered reviews tell me if I'm likely to enjoy it.

 

I understand you don't feel there's a helpful use for you. But you asked if people on this site find a use for them. My answer is yes. It's not a fair response to say "but I don't". You're switching from 3rd person to 1st, and it completely changes the context. Just because something isn't useful or used by you personally, or me, or person XYZ - doesn't mean it isn't useful to others.

 

I guess that a rating without a review is a tiny bit better than just walking in to a store and picking out a pretty label.

I think my problem with ratings without reviews is I am looking for a way to find out specific characteristics of a beer, and ratings without reviews only tells me how much somebody I never met thinks a beer stacked up against his/her experience that I have no idea what that experience is, or what characteristics the person enjoys or dislikes. I guess this is because I am not wealthy, otherwise if I had a ton of money I wouldn't care. Heck, I'd probably stop doing any research, and just start buying at one end of the store and go to the other if I had bucks ahoy. Any losers get drain poured, and on to the next. I need to remind myself more often I am at the low end of the wealth spectrum of folks on this site, and most others here couldn't care less about finding out a beer's characteristics before buying, and no harm done to pick a loser. Oh well. Cheers!

 

Wow there's a lot to unpack here.

I can read a label to get the brewery's description of their own beer so that covers the "characteristics" of the beer for me, just fine. Some of the shorter reviews used to be helpful, but when I start seeing some dude's page-long review referring to an entire laundry list of flavors that in no way sound like they'd go well together, my eyes start to glaze over. Clearly, your mileage varies. I get it.

Your whole premise that numbers don't mean anything without context is silly, though. I love BA for the forums (mostly) but when I want to find out a beer's score, I go to Untappd. It's so fast and easy and the beer is almost always there. If I want to find out what my friends thought of it, that's a click away. I can see any tasting notes they chose to share. Easy. But honestly, I'm usually just looking at the beer's description and the average score. 4.0 or higher and I'm buying. Less than 4.0, I rarely buy. I know this sounds crazy to you, but it rarely let's me down. I end up drinking a lot of great beer and I miss out on most of the duds. It works for me, but then again, I'm just an idiot.

The part about "ratings without reviews tells me how much somebody I never met thinks a beer stacked up against his/her experience that I have no idea what that experience is, or what characteristics the person enjoys or dislikes" gave me a chuckle. To me, reading a review from somebody I never met that lists off every flavor known to man isn't any more helpful to me. I'm no super taster and I'm not going to taste those flavors anyway and sometimes I wonder if that dude really did to begin with.

 

That's a false dilemma fallacy.

 

Only if it was intentional.

 

I assume every rating without a review is written by some idiot who lists every flavor known to man. Or someone who started drinking beer yesterday. Or someone who thinks IPA sucks because it's bitter and he/she hates bitter beers. There is no way to tell how much of a jack off the guy was who left that number. The difference is that with reviews you read it and you know the guy is an idiot, and disregard that idiot, or is someone who has experience, is similar to me, and the description he gives on other beers I have tried syncs up with my experience. So the choice is not knowing if the asshole who left that number started drinking beer yesterday, or finding a reviewer who gives good descriptions that I can use to buy beer I am likely to enjoy, because going in I have an actual idea what the beer is like. Sorry if this is too hard a concept for you to understand, but there it is. Cheers!

 

To each his own. Cheers!

 

In fact, that was my point. If you think conditions are such that a review is unfair, then so is a rating.

 

I wasn't suggesting a review was more fair. I was suggesting that if the conditions are such that a review is unfair, then so is a rating, so, in fact, nothing at all should be posted.

 

The averaged score on a beer rated by many people has a fairly obvious use. I would think that we could all agree that a beer that has a score above 4 after hundreds of ratings will be of reliably higher quality than a beer closer to 3. If a beer hasn't been rated many times or is of an extremely diverse style that I may be more picky about (for me this would be things like wild/sour and saison) then a rating only won't be nearly as useful as a review(s).
But pretending that the amalgamated number score has no use seems just contrarian

 

If be willing to bet that the majority of ratings and reviews are done on a phone or other mobile device; the text blocks on BA's website aren't exactly mobile friendly to start with (maybe that'll change with the app). It's difficult to write a review, in a dimly lit bar, on your phone screen, stone cold sober; let alone trying to do so after you've finished one or two beers. If people are required to submit written reviews you will end up with most written by folks sitting home alone .

Do you really want to force a written review from someone who just finished their third 120 Minute IPA?

 

I agree, but that is a different issue, call it "social acceptability" to "fuss over" a beer and write a review. That's different from circumstances preventing giving the beer a fair tasting due to food, atmosphere, attention elsewhere, etc.