What Exactly Is A 5.0 Beer Rating?

I’ll def give your martini a try. I don’t typically drink gin martinis (I do love a good Negroni though) , and I despise olives but am willing to even include those since your recipe is very specific. what type of bitters do you use, just regular aromatic?

 

You can use gin too, skip the olives if you don’t like them it’ll ruin it if you hate a component. I use Angostura but id prefer Peychaud, but I use so little. Use good gin or vodka after all it’s pulling the cart there’s just the splash of bitter to help there. Curious to the thoughts cold no ice vs cold and stirred. Don’t shake, too much water. Good luck it’s super easy too and I’m lazy.

 

Perhaps you experienced their beer after Greg Hall took over? Because his father... and the original beer... I would not recommend. And quite frankly, neither would the rest of Chicago, because prior to Greg's involvement, they were on the fringe of insolvency.

(I've been part-owner of a Wrigleyville bar since 1990)

 

I was in the pub the first year they opened (and many times thereafter) -- enjoyed it immensely. I'm pretty sure John & Greg both ran things all along. There were many different brewers at the pub, but I don't think John ever brewed (could be wrong).

I really don't remember them near to closing until very recently, but mostly because of the building landlord. Do you know what year that may have been?

I attended a beer dinner hosted by Greg around 2006, had a great opportunity to chat a lot with him.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160303193745/http://www.chicago-copywriter.com/clybourn.htm

Greg was brewing at the pub as assistant in 1988 when they opened. He graduated from the Siebel Institute a year later.

 

A 23 year-old running your brand-new craft brewery in still-to-be-gentrified near north side before Cabrini Green was bullbozed?

Don't forget the times... and the place. The place was the basement of a rehabbed warehouse on Goose Island - surrounded by light industrial buildings. One night I drove through the area and had to pull to the side of the street while some kind of industrial vehicle passed me carrying a red-hot pillar of iron from one side of the street to the other. You could feel the heat through the closed car windows

I guess you might be more adventurous than I was. They bet on development on the near north side... and were about 20 years before their time. The only thing that saved them, in my opinion, is when they switched from offering run-of-the-mill craft brews and went all in on Bourbon barrel recipes. That was 100% Greg... and why AB bought them. What has Greg done since 2011? Perhaps he doesn't care... since his dad landed 30+ million from AB. But the true test of any brewer or businessman is not their first success... but their second.

 

Hah -- it wasn't *that* close to the Green, but yeah -- I sure remember that neighborhood being pretty desolate for a long time.

As to "running" the place, I'm pretty sure that was mostly John -- Greg was in the crawlspace brewery.

 

He started Virtue Cider in Fennville, MI, which was eventually acquired by AB (partly in 2015, fully in 2017). AFAIK, he’s still with them. Still doing the barrel-aging, with pretty decent results.

 

That contest was definitely rigged and not by me. It's hard to imagine something I'd be less qualified to win.

That would be one's subjective opinion. That's the opposite of how styles work objectively though.


It seems like I'm still being totally misinterpreted. I'm not actually saying that a majority of beers are "perfect." Personally, I don't even think in those terms when it comes to drinking beer. I'm going to give it a rest though. I'm sure I've gone beyond the threshold of being annoying at this point. Cheers.

 

I believe I only rated one beer 5. And that was the one and only Vanilla Imperial stout from Dogfish head. It was was a ridiculous ABV like 18 - 20 %. It was luscious and delicious with a copious amount of real Vanilla bean used. They only made it one year. They continued to make an Imperial stout,the Vanilla was by far the best in my opinion- Maybe it was not cost effective because Madagascar vanilla is quite expensive-

 

For the record, after only reading the responses I think I understood where you were coming from. But maybe not, and I'm just in a mood to throw shit out there...

Styles indicate aspects a beer should have. What dictates the success of a beer meeting them?
Is it binary? Yes, it has it - 5! No, it doesn't - 0!!
Is it a scale? Yes, it has it, but it's not strong - 3. This one has it more, like 50% more... 4.5!

Now we have to consider there isn't one aspect - there's 3 or 4 or 10. Do we average all the aspects, or are some more important (weighted average)?

And, finally to maybe, possibly get to @zid's original point (probably not) - do we consider the judger? What is bitter to me might not be bitter to someone who grew up on bitter IPAs or bitter to me 5 years ago. There has to be some subjectivity involved, no matter what.

If not, wouldn't the same beer win every style-based competition it entered if it won any of them? At least it would never lose to another beer it beat out in any other competition, right?

So, all of that leads to the guideline on this site to "consider style" when doing a review as well as your enjoyment. Why do I feel I just brought to mind the pirate's code in Pirates of the Caribbean?

 

To me, a 5 can't really be properly explained. I've only recently started reviewing beers on BA, but in the 1,000+ beers I've logged on UT I only have 6 or 7 5/5s and all are rated for different reasons! I've had beers that were ostensibly flawless but didn't really excite me, and I have similarly had beers that were maybe flawed in some way but that brought me so much joy I felt they were a 5! For instance, Pliny the Younger is a "perfect" West Coast Triple IPA, yet to me, it falls shy of that elusive 5/5 because it doesn't bring me that same excitement as other beers of different styles.

 

Ok, so still feeling in a throwin' shit out there mood...

Regardless of who you are, let's say you have a favorite beer. For a concrete example to be used in this post, let's say it's something we all likely know - Stone IPA.

Let's say you rated it a 5 because you love it so.

Now let's that brewer releases another beer under a different style (e.g. Stone releases an Oktoberfest).

And let's say it tastes exactly like the beer you like (extending the example, Stone Oktoberfest tastes exactly like Stone IPA).

Is that beer a 5 because you love it so?

Or something less because it's not perfect for the style?


So yes, this technique is taking to extreme to accentuate a point - slippery slope in a way, but the concept is can you understand where on the continuum you fall? And can you accept others don't fall on that same line? And that we might just all balance each other out if we all participate? Cue Kumbaya, My Lord...

 

Curious if your tried this yet. If you prefer vodka I’d recommend Tito’s, you can’t find a smoother bottle. As to the viscosity change, true, but in a minute or two it’s starting to change, doesn't talk long. But there’s a difference in 80 proof vodka and 94 gin. The lower the proof the higher the viscosity, so if you opt for Vodka you might use the reefer not the freezer. But time cures that problem too, and watered down martinis and whiskey in a blight. Lots do the ice that’s fine I do too sometimes, but for me it’s not better. Preferences are just that.

 

Not yet but i will and when i do i will report back!

 

Ok, nothing ventured nothing gained, don’t use a spirit you don’t care for though that’s not the point, undiluted it’s obviously more intense. If you don’t like gin it won’t prove anything more than you really hate gin, if vodka is preferred go for it.

 

I don't do ratings. But if I did I would probably rate fresher beers higher. I also kinda like the old 1-100 scale better.

 

Who cares? Good beer is good beer, descriptions are an infinitely more useful metric and it's pretty clear that hype and anticipation plays a huge roll in determining how someone feels about a beer.

 

Nailed it. They're guidelines, not federal statutes:

"First, your return to shore was not part of our negotiations nor our agreement so I must do nothing. And secondly, you must be a pirate for the pirate's code to apply and you're not. And thirdly, the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules."

For the record, I don't have a "5.0" yet.

Also for the record, I've given some well-above 4.0's to things that weren't strictly to style. Dirty Bastard immediately comes to mind. Far too hoppy for the style, but tasty as hell.

 

The fact that BA does not show a BA score for a beer until several ratings are submitted is recognition that tastes and opinions among raters are different, and the extent to which raters follow guidelines for rating to a style are followed is inconsistent. All one has to do is look at reviews for NA beers to see that a LOT of people blow off the guidelines; rife with comments like "great NA beer but not as good as a "real" IPA so I give it a 3.25".

 

I'm still on Page 1 of the thread and reading, so there's a lot I haven't unpacked yet. But I want to address the above quote.

How can a 4.00 possibly be considered exceptional? It's an 80%. B-. The kind of report card that hardly wins you brownie points with your parents at home. By all accounts that is an average, unremarkable score. I just don't understand how anybody can rationalize this thinking. And it's not to single you out, anecdotally I see the vast majority of beer reviewers doing the exact same thing. For example, how many times do you see this:

"Truly world class beer. One of the best in its style that I have ever had. Will seek out at every possible opportunity. Score: 3.9/5"

You see it all the time. Where's the justification for heaping praise on a score that doesn't match the glowing review? I just do not get it. If the reasoning is that the full scale from 1 to 5 should be used, then there should be a true bell curve normally distributed around 2.5, but I am reasonably sure that is not the case. (Happy to be proven wrong on the last point)

As for myself, I have no issue whatsoever doling out 5.0s to beers that I think are truly outstanding. I want to give a great score to a beer that is deserving of a great score. 4.0 is merely a fine review to me. It represents a good beer, probably middle-upper of the pack for its style. Something I would probably even buy again if given the opportunity, but would never seek out. But that is partially because I think most beers being made today are pretty good at a minimum. Certainly drinkable and representative of their styles, for the most part.

Thanks for making it to the end of my wall of text. I might reply again later and update my thoughts after I finish reading through the rest of the thread.