Beer Reviews Biased

It's definitely a thing. A 3.8 Pilsner is probably excellent. A 3.8 IPA? Pass. I try to rate to style, but I think the tricky thing is even a super clean, crisp, well-made Pils, for example, typically lacks a distinguishing "wow" factor.

I think Narragansett is the best AAL, but it's not a 4.5 beer experience, if that makes sense. Overall experience is a thing, regardless of style, and that's what relegates the less "impactful" beers to lower ratings.

 

This is a thoughtful response. The "wow factor" is an issue that reverberates through this industry and amongst beer lovers. Being wowed on occasion is very nice, but is certainly no requirement to appreciating very good beer everywhere.

 

I try to rate on how well that beer reflects the style the brewer calls it. I admit there are styles I don't care for and I'll try to take that into account; in fact I won't rate most IPA's because of that bias. Often I'll skip rating a beer if I haven't had enough of that style to know whether or not it's a good example.

For instance; I gave a fairly low rating to an Ommegang beer called Prost Cologne that was billed as a kölsch. It wasn't that the beer was bad in and of itself (hazy IPA guys would enjoy it), the score reflected that it wasn't a very good kölsch.

This is a good example of where reviews have an edge over ratings. I can give a lower taste score in the ratings then explain why in the review.

 

The problem with rating to style is that an exceedingly small number of reviewers would actually be competent to do it correctly. If you want style reviews, perhaps looking at the list of winners of GABF or other beer competitions would be the best bet.

The reviews on this or any site are best understood as a rating of “how enjoyable do most people find this beer?” With that in mind, you should always assume that ratings for IPAs, stouts, and in recent years, sours, are inflated, and everything else is deflated. Once you adjust your expectations accordingly, the ratings can still be fairly useful.

 

I rate according to how good it looks, smells and tastes. Not more complicated than that. My general "bias" is I appreciate NA beers. Or then the bias is many don't.

Btw I give lagers the credit they deserve (if they deserve )

 

There is this one longtime, Poo-Bah-level user here with thousands of reviews to his name that I will not name outright. Anyway, he fully acknowledges his distaste for most lagers, sours & IPA's but for some reason he reviews pretty much all of them anyway, giving them scathing reviews for being bitter and 'perfumy'. He seems to love pastry stouts though and gives them stellar scores just about every time.

Go ahead, review however you want. Obviously that is your prerogative. What I'll never understand though, is knowing that you don't like something and yet you continue to go out of your way to drink things you do not enjoy. For example, I do not like Sahti and Gruit-style beers but won't see me giving 20 word reviews for a beer that I know I am gong to give a 2/5. It literally adds nothing of value to the site or the review score (if anything it is detrimental to the site/review score IMO).

"Oh cool, the dude that hates hoppy beers and lambics just gave Carton Boat a 2/5 and Hanssens a 1/5. I am shocked. SHOCKED I tell you."

 

My favorites when I'm scrolling are those guys who signed up to make a one off.

" Something something neckbeards man this hoppy beer is nasty! something something Bud Ice 5/5 Drink real beer! "

By John Q. Public last online 3 years and 9 months ago with his one and only review.

 

Devil's advocate:
What if the problem is trying to put something that is multifaceted onto a 1-dimensional number scale? There are so many dimensions to a beer, so many possibilities, that putting them on a 1-5 scale on whether they liked it tells you little.

Think about it. Ignore the numbers, but focus on the flavors described. Horseblanket, tropical flavors, funk. Are these positive or negative terms? Neither, but they're a good directory for making decisions on whether or not you will like this beer. Tart, slightly salty, light-bodied. Do these things appeal to you? If not, stay away. Sweet, heavily-bodied, clove-like esters. Are you in a mood for those things?

Now here is my big unwieldy impractical idea... Have a two layer review system... In one, you choose flavors, not dissimilar to how https://www.whisky.com/ does their reviews (there are little icons for peat, toffee, vanilla, etc., and each can be scaled). Then, attach a number review on your personal preference for the beer. Then, weight the preference reviews based on people who rated high beers similar to the beers you've given good reviews. Sort of like a Netflix of beer. If you're a hop-head and love the dankest IPAs, you'll be able to see what the top suggestions are from your fellow hopheads, but won't be getting suggestions from the latest Allagash sour if you're not into those things.

I know, completely impractical to do in a preexisting site, but a man can dream, right?

 

It's not too difficult to pull up the BJCP guidelines when you're writing a review of a style you're unfamiliar with. A novice can drink 20 pilsners and still not know what to expect from a good one. With the guidelines in hand, a novice could have the information necessary to write a reasonably informed review right away.

 

What would you do if you tasted a better alt?

 

I too see this all the time. I don’t get why they even bother wasting time to sign up.

To be a shill for that particular brewery?

Originally intended to rate and review more beers, but forgot their login and password?

Just buzzed one night after a few hours of drinking and wanted to troll online?

 

I see a fair amount of trolling/abuse from out of staters. Give their home brewery 5's across the board but practically 1's to neighbor state breweries. Why? I mean, you're not even being sly about it as what you're doing is blatantly obvious.

 

Reviews biased. No way.

 

I rate on if it looks, smells, tastes, and feels good to ME. That’s what a personal rating should be.

 

Disagree. Best representation of one class does not always deserve the same grade as the best representation of another class. When you drink the best malt liquor does it deserve a 5 like the best Quad? Me thinks not.

 

I try to look at Beeradvocate ratings rather than untappd because in order to review on here you have to go on the site and there's a little more effort you have to put in. Untappd is basically social media at this point and contains way more bias in my opinion.
The other thing with Untappd (and correct me if I'm wrong) is you can't go back and edit a scoring of a beer. You have to score it again separately. On here I can try the beer again and simply edit my score. This is an issue because everyone starting out gives stuff wild ratings. I mean KBS is one of the first beers I scored on here and I had to go back and edit it after I realized it was ahead of Handjee and Chemtrailmix on my list and it's easily not better than those.

 

In my opinion a beer should be reviewed based on the style that it's trying to represent and the reviewer should be familiar enough with the style to look for specific details regarding it.

The reviewer by no means should never interject any biased opinions and should once again fall back on style-guild-lines for the beer in question and of course the brewers notes for any deviations.

All beer "Should" be reviewed this way.