Good BA rating, poor Bros rating

Pabst Blue Ribbon 83 (Bro's) 69 (Not Bro's)

 

Nope, but unless you take a Consumer Reports model of ratings (taking zero advertising dollars) the editorial reviews will always be considered suspect to some users/subscribers. I'm not sure if there are any such "padded" ratings here on the site - I've long since stopped reading the editor ratings (and I only read users narrative ratings to see if any of them have picked up on beer facets that I have - chances are that they have not because I probably imagined them.)

As, per the OP - much like the site owners, I know that I have some beer ratings that likely are way off from the street - that happens and I suspect that will happen with all aficionados of stuff like beer. Do I think that a horrible "site owners say" rating is indicative of someone who didn't buy a block of space? The answer is "not necessarily, and probably not."

If it was Consumer Reports then I'd say "No".

By the way, I think Consumer Reports thinks that DeWalt power tools are way better than they really are.

 

Here's another one - Anchor Bock Beer:

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/28/23942/?ba=bros

 

Love when BAs integrity is questioned ... LOL.

 

Some people just can't handle it when other people don't agree with them.

 

Carling beer 60 reg 90 Bros
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/433/8295

 

Maybe they were rating it according to the style. A lot of reviews for certain beers are just stupid IMO. I.E. people that don't like sour beers rating them low because they don't like sours. If you cant judge a beer for what it is/supposed to be, maybe you shouldn't bother.

 

Doesn't that have a lot to do with putting your review in big font on the top of each page? No offense, but one doesn't become craft beer's Robert Parker without criticism.

 

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/35/111

 

They reviewed that in 1998!

 

couldn't agree more. same goes for restaurant reviews, and why i can't stand Yelp most of the time. i hate when someone goes to a Mexican restaurant and does a review based on Nachos. or people going to meat-centric places but complaining about the lack of vegi options and giving a negative review. gfy

 

Absolutely. I was just pointing out a specificity to your generality.... Damn semantics.

 

Smaller sample size with the Bros. vs. everyone else. They're bound to deviate from the average rating quite a bit every now & then.*

*cue statistician to back me up here

 

This is a common statistical concept and likely a valid contributing factor. And even when the Bros deviate from the average rating, the most extreme Bros' ratings are generally within one or two standard deviations from the community mean. (I know the math is trickier for skewed underlying distributions, but the general principle still roughly applies.)

Another consideration is selection bias. Many of the anecdotal examples listed here are being selected from the extreme ends of the Bros' ratings. Out of the 955 beers currently rated by Todd, Todd's rating for Bell's Two Hearted Ale has the 38th most extreme negative deviation from the average community rating. The vast majority of Todd's ratings have minimal deviations from the community means - so what may seem like big discrepancies between BA and the Bros are likely normal outliers due to Todd reviewing many beers.

Everyone has outliers in their reviews due to a variety of factors - such as old/off beers or subjective, personal influences. In fact, the top 38 of Todd's reviews with abnormally high negative deviations are all > 7 years old. This may or may not be a coincidence. On the other hand, it seems like Todd generally rated Flying Dog offerings lower than the community average. I personally love Raging Bitch (and most things Flying Dog), so there may or may not be a Flying Dog signature quality that polarizes opinions.

Rather than single out the Bros' -- really, any BA user with 1,000 reviews would make an equally suitable example (and I hope Todd doesn't mind me using his data) -- I think a more fundamental, and interesting, question is:

Do consensus reviews help converge on an "objective truth" (e.g. the Platonic Ideal, or The Wisdom of Crowds), do they follow flawed group-think, or do they do a bit of both? Better yet, do they help or hurt our beer journey and enjoyment?

My personal opinion is pretty wishy-washy and boring. Reviews can be a mixed bag - useful, entertaining, educational, and misleading - so they should be valued for what they are and not canonized.

...except for Raging Bitch - that beer is unfairly way underrated.

 

great post. i love math, gonzo imperial porter, and raging bitch.

For non math people, across thousands of beers obviously the bros are gonna deviate from the average, all things considered their reviews are closer to the mean than I would expect. I think part of this is due to people reviewing a beer after they have read the bros (and others) review of the beer.

If I were to review Westy 12 (havent had it) I highly doubt I would give it less than 4 in any category, just because of the precedent/hype.

 

So I am to pay no regard to what you say/review because your opinion is worth nothing in my mind

 

Reviews are one-shot views at a beer, and anybody who's tried hard to give a beer an honest shake knows that how a beer scores the first time might be different on a second or third shot. Right?

Anyway, I pay more attention to the average rating than either the BA or Bros. grades. The Bros.' take is very important to me because, if nothing else, they know more about beer than I'll ever know. And I'll scan through a few reviews from the patrons just as a general gauge.

Ultimately, though, what matters is what I think. I mean, if I like Bud Light Lime and you don't, so what?

 

As far as AAL goes, Batch 19 and Schlitz Gusto both get consistently good reviews, though not great ones. And 'Gansett has lots of loyal fans who love the stuff. I understand Grain Belt does as well.

 

I think it also has to do with the inconsistant nature of beer, and of your palate. The same beer can taste really different depending on what you just ate, how thirsty you are, etc. And, I think even really good beers have inconsistancies between batches and even bottles. This gets ironed out over time with the public ratings, but there aren't enough bros. to do that!