Obsession with BA ratings

I am guilty of doing this.... But only because I just got the technology to do it!! But I find it is nice to be able to read the reviews, opposed to just being guided by the numerical rating.

 

I'm relatively new to beer (just turned 21), so I'll look up stuff I haven't heard of on my phone, but I'm not a slave to the numbers. I'll try anything around 80 and above because I just don't have the money to buy a lot of beer (being the cheap college student I am), but if it's a brewery I like or a local beer I've been curious about, I'll try it without bothering with the ratings. Distinguishing between "only" 88 and 90+ is incredibly stupid, though.

 

I never used BA scores to influence my beer purchases. I have a rule that I'll always try a beer once or twice before dismissing it completely.

 

I find the dickbag walking around the beer shop with his ipad to be more annoying than what he's doing with it.

 

My view on this is much like my views on other things to be appreciated in life... if you start working your way up from the bottom, ie, deciding to go beyond the macro's, trying whatever beers you get your hands on in your local stores, I find this is the best way to start getting an idea for yourself what you like and what quality tastes like and forming your own opinions. Much like wine, if you're 18 years old and never had a bottle of wine, would you be able to tell the difference between a 9$ bottle of Australian Shiraz and a 500$ bottle of a 2000 Bordeaux? Same with Champagne, Scotch, cigars, cars, women.... I started to get into European/Belgium beers about 5 years ago, craft beers about 3 years ago and only now am starting to feel confident on writing reviews for beers that I try, and only starting to seek out 90+ rated beers, or paying over 15$ for a bottle.... but I feel I actually appreciate a +90 bottle of beer much more than if I just went straight from a Coors Light to a (.....) and I also agree with the people so far that say a rating shouldn't be the end all of what to drink.... there are many many amazing beers out there that have had under 10 reviews, and I think like buying something on Amazon, it'd be pretty hard to base buying preferences based on just a few random people's reviews (which are so often just based on person preferences...) and you can often find some real gems that not many people have tried that you can then share with others....if we only drank the beer from Breweries that made 90+ brews, then we'd basically just have a bunch of macro breweries again....

 

Interesting analogy. Buying only New York Times bestselling novels would also be pretty dreadful.

 

I do this all the time when I'm looking for a new beer to try. Started doing it after I wasted $4.99 on a bottle of bayhawk chocolate porter. I LOVE porters. It's my favorite style, but if I'd looked at the review I would not have wasted my time. That money could have been spent on a taddy!

 

one of my all time favorites only got an 84. I must drink swill!!

 

If Im at a bottle shop and am not looking for something special, local, etc I almost always look at BA reviews. I dont have a specific cutoff, but if its lowly rated I usually wont get it. I dont see whats wrong with that. There are how many IPAs at any given bottle show, 50? 100? If Im going to pick one up that Ive never tried before, wouldnt looking at its rating be the logical thing? Sure I might not agree with the rating after Ive had it, but if the BA community gives one IPA a 90 rating, and the other a 70 rating, odds are the former is better than the latter. Why leave it to chance when you can be an informed consumer?

 

for popular styles like IPA and imperial stouts, yes, the scores are inflated. for certain classic styles like pilsner and pale ale, i'd say the scores are often heavily depressed. even some of my own reviews have reflected this disparity. we get excited by bold flavors, it's only natural.

 

Naa! But I'd gladly slap your face if you told me it should be in the 90's!

 

Who cares?

 

Agreed. And people don't really rate to style, but instead rate in comparison to other beers theyve had, no matter the style, myself included. And I don't think Ive ever had a pilsner as good as any decent IPA or IS. There's a reason certain styles are rated higher than others.

 

i actually have gradually moderated myself to try and rate more to style. it's a big reason why i still have pilsner urquell and augustiner edelstoff helles in my top 25 scores.

 

By only trying the "good" or "highest rated" beers, one is missing out on a more rounded experience that will help to appreciate the good ones you do have. I would not argue that a BA needs to drink a PBR or Miller High Life from time to time to keep the palate grounded. However, only drinking the best beers in the world will necessarily skew one's perspective.

I never check reviews before I buy. But I do have a list of beers that I want to try based on recommendations, ratings, breweries I like, forum discussions, etc. Regardless, I have up with plenty of rather poor beers but the experience of not enjoying a beer is still a valuable, and important, one.

 

I have said before I try not to look at BA until after I drink a new beer. Everyone's taste varies to some extent and I prefer to make an uninfluenced (unless I have had a few too many) personal decision on a new brew. I've had a lot of beers in the 80's that where amazing to me and quite a few in the 70's that I thought would be much rated much higher as well. I've also had some that I thought to be fairly bad but where ranked pretty high.

To each his own.

 

I don't drink beer with other peoples palates, not going to start buying beer based on other peoples opinions.

 

When I first started this site, most of the beers I loved were in the 80s, and the ones in the 90s were like holy grails to me.

 

Someone is an android fan

 

I find BA ratings for the most part extremely accurate so long as there's 200+ reviews for said beer. I'm not "that" guy with the I-pad in the store, I use my I-phone...