What Exactly Is A 5.0 Beer Rating?

Wow! Like that this thread has 6 pages of traction that I admittedly have not read, yet.

So, I quoted this to say:

I am the opposite. I was critical of beers in the sense that I hadn't had enough that I could give a 5.0 - think "how can the Olympic judges give the first skater a perfect score if they haven't seen the others?"

Then I realized I was so narrow, I couldn't tell from my own ratings (in larger growing ticker numbers) which beers I liked better and should re-buy. At that point, my rating average was probably in the 3.7-3.75 range. Side note: thanks to BA, I now know my avg is 3.88 (and is actually up .01 from when the feature was originally added).

So, I started spreading my ratings (including of beers previously rated and decidedly favorites of mine) with the "experience" I had attained.

Even then, I agree with (at least the first) posters who indicate they might have their personal "5.0s" without thinking they are the epitome of a style. I do think a 5.0 is unattainable based on my rating process for a variety of reasons (many have already been expressed), and I don't think that is a bad thing.

 

I have rated .005% of my beers as a 5.0 and I stand by them.

 

I agree totally with @nc41 on this. Folks can let stuff warm, we can't chill at the table/bar. Bars can't afford, either financially or in floor space, to have multiple coolers for kegs at different temps.

Most of my friends prefer beer at the temps you do, and I love 'em cold. At shares we've reached a detente of whoever is opening the beer pours it at their preferred temp, and we don't bitch (much) about it. I'll finish a pour, crack one of my bottles, and pour mine. The others let it sit.

 

I do a disagree. How can the majority of a thing be the average? Because, that's what the majority is: average. It's rare that all 5 aspects are nailed in the same brew.

Shrug.

 

Exactly a 5 will be a rarity and a perfect beer is a pretty high standard. I’m not so sure you can apply a bell curve to beer ratings. Palates and styles are just too diverse.

From where I come from I’ve never heard anyone bitch about the beer being too cold or frosted mugs. I happen to like frosted mugs as well, probably my age and time when AALs was all there was in any bar you’d care to grab a beer in. There were no craft beers bars, didn’t exist, high end beers were Michelob, Heineken, Lowenbrau when it was brewed in Germany. We’re products of our habits and our environment, if you walked into a bar in 1980 and complained about the mugs and the beers were too cold they tell you to get the hell out. Most places advertised coldest been in town, or Frosted Mugs, it was their calling card. The local corner bar set their cooler to 34 degrees, and they were proud of that, and it was expected.

 

Most lighter bodied beers I do prefer cold, the exception is Stouts and such, those I find seem a bit rough if they’re too cold, and a bit bitter. But if it’s an AAL or a Pils there a good chance it’s going from fridge to freezer for maybe 10 minutes. I keep my gin in the freezer and my bourbon in the refrigerator, I like my whiskey cool , but I don’t like ice.

 

Seriously there’s far more to just temp for me, sure it starts there, and we like beer because we simply like it, we like it the way we like it. I’m in the vast minority I suppose that likes cold beers, but I’ve had Pliny and Blind Pig on tap at Monks, was very disappointed, it was too warm on tap for my liking. It certainly wasn’t more flavorful, there was no bright citrus notes, it didn’t exist. If it worked I’d be all in, it doesn’t for me I found it distracting and it didn’t enhance a thing. But that’s only my take there. The 5 Pliny is at my main reefer temp, what that is I don’t really know, in the 30s somewhere, but the fruit, the bright citrus notes were all there, just a tremendous beer by any and all standards, from start to finish. I can’t explain that beer, I just can’t, maybe it was just super fresh, a better than whatever batch that Vinnie nailed. Now I’ve had other Pliny’s too taken the same way out if the same fridge in the same glass and they didn’t register like that. Why? Not a clue it was just so. Enjoy, hopefully no snow this week.

 

Check my recent reviews, I'm following through!

This is an important point to remember. Its not like there's an even distribution of all.beers from terrible to great. Most beers I've encountered are at least OK, a truly shitty beer is pretty rare in my experience. So we shouldn't be surprised if any group of beer ratings skews toward the good end of the curve

 

NOOOO. NO GOD PLEASE NO! NO! NOOOOO!

As you can tell usually even if I disagree I say to each there own, but this time my friend, you have gone too far!

But seriously putting liquor in the freezer is terrible and completely changes it’s profiles.

 

To be clear I was commenting on bars/restaurants, I wasn’t commenting on tasting groups. With tasting groups I like what you do, whoever is opening the bottle chooses the temp.

That being said I still this it’s asinine to expect a bar/brewery to serve a product at the wrong temp to accommodate those who prefer the beer at the wrong temp, just because all others can “let it warm” as these please.

 

Wait a second, are you know proposing that new style guidelines should be adapted to account for otherwise imperfect beers? Are you on a mission to declare every beer perfect?

You win, Most Optimistic BeerAdvocate 2021!

 

You make a lot of good points. I am guilty of this myself, as my average rating is right around 4 with a fairly normally distributed bell curve (at least on initial glance). And I also agree that there is a sampling bias, why drink 2.0 beers when there’s so many readily available 4.0 beers. I also think that many (?most) BAs start rating craft when their baseline comparison is AALs, or at least other massively produced lower quality beers. So once you start rating beers your baseline “average” comparator is actually a below average beer. So if Bud light is a 3.0, than any average IPA is obviously better than BL, so let’s give it a 4, that seems right/logical. Thus the standard is set for your future ratings.

 

BULLSHIT!!!!!!!

If one keeps the booze in the freezer, it doesn't need rocks to cool it down, thus is less watered.

Ya want shit warm? Just drink Nyquil.

 

Lol, ha I even put my martini glass in the freezer. But truly adding room temp gin to ice and stirring and shaking it with ice is insane, it waters the gin down so much, it’s just shitty. Then add a bit of bitters to that drop in salty olives and the gin is long gone, that profile has definitely changed too. The logical solution to watered down martinis is into the freezer. Bitters to glass, swirl and pour out and shake , add gin, rinse off two Manzetta olives under the tap shake them off and drop them in. The less olive liquid the better, whoever developed dirty martinis should be shot. I promise you it’ll be the best martini you ever had because as it warms a bit the botanicals really shine thru, and I end up with a beautifully chilled martini that a pleasure. Yes the first two sips are cold as hell, but as a sipping drink you can see it develop over time and at the end your last sip isn't piss warm and watered down, Buy an airplane bottle and try it, as I described, only cost a few bucks, humor me. I’m partial to Juniper bombs like Tanqrery or Bombay East, to a lesser extent Beefeaters, I don’t like the boutique gins with flowers like lavender in it.

 

LOL, I have beaten this position to death, but I will guarantee you on a blind taste panel Budweiser would beat many craft beers.

I happen to be a Chicago native and remember when Goose Island first opened. They used to brew crappy beer. Without getting into the brewery history, over time the quality of their product improved because they changed their vision of what kind of brewery they wanted to be. Eventually they caught the eye of AB InBev, and they are now owned by - you guessed it - the people who make Budweiser. I'm pretty sure they don't even brew their beer on Goose Island any more.

So does the make Goose Island not a craft beer? Or does it make Budweiser a high-volume craft beer?

Just like there are good and bad mass market beers, there are good and bad craft beers. Perhaps the best craft beers beat the best mass market beers... but let me guarantee you that there are many, many craft beers out there that are crap, and that would not beat a cold Bud And I don't particularly like Budweiser... I just use it as an example of a decent mass market beer that I consider an "average" - but dependable - fall-back.

 

I like my whiskey cool who doesn’t, neat and 50 is perfect. It’s a shame buying a $100 bottle of bourbon and dropping in ice cubes, might as well buy shit whiskey because that whiskey it not the same with water in it. You can’t convince me chilled booze is worse for it than adding water, you shake that martini you might get 30% water content, where did the martini go? Better to stir, but still too much water, imo water alters the gin far more than the temp. Because I can let it slowly develop.

If he tried my martini he’d like it, it would taste like a martini and not a watered down briney mess. It would take a bit of getting used to up front , but I don’t like watering down my drinks, well martinis and neat bourbon anyway, I like G&Ts in the summer as much as anyone.

 

I don’t disagree with you in the fact that there are many not very good craft breweries who make not very good beers. But I also think that most people who take the time to fully review and rate beers probably put some effort into selecting good craft even from an early phase in their craft drinking game so to speak. And if you want to swap out BL with whatever other macro AAL if you think Bud is well above average, just do that in your mind. I think the sentiment still very much holds true, reviewing and rating at its earliest stages often the comparison is not very good marco adjunct lagers cause those are still the most popular and most consumed beers. So if you go from an average macro AAL then start drinking even an average IPAs (pick whatever widely available IPA you think is average for this thought experiment) it’s probably going to be notably better than the Natty Lights you used to play beer pong with in college or whatever. So I do think that precedent of comparison sets the stage for your standard of ratings and contributes to the “Beer Advocate Average” of 4.0 when in reality a 1-5 scale should have an average of 3.0 as mentioned. Of course other things contribute like selection bias.

 

Sort of off topic, but I'm a Chicago-area native too, and was drinking Goose Island before there was a packaging brewery and thought their beer was terrific.

I also thought the beer was great from their big brewery, but think it's slowly fallen off since A-B took over. I think they actually lost site of what made them so good.

But point being, they still brew at the pub on Goose Island proper, but that establishment remained separate from the A-B buyout of the large brewery (at least early on) on the west side (which is also still brewing, pretty sure it's where Bourbon County comes from).

Back to topic.

 

I’m kinda surprised the people who are so appalled by the consistency of warm beer aren’t bothered by the viscosity changes that occur with liquor when it’s stored at freezer temps.....

 

But it's a viscosity they like, so it's "okay." I imagine Nyquil from the freezer might just change their opinions too.