properly reviewing beer?

I haven't been 'officially reviewing' beers for too long but personal taste and understanding in what the Official BJCP guidelines or Brewers Association guidelines are for each specific style take their balance in how you rate a beer. You should always try to judge a beer's success as a style if you're trying to do something official, but if you have a preference to a certain characteristic you will always enjoy those more. Either way, I sounds like you're trying new beers and styles, which will open up your palate to accept more flavors as time goes on, in my opinion.

 

I suspect by actually reading the guidelines, you're already doing better than a large chunk of other reviewers.

 

Many people will scold you if you don't "review to style", but I think reviewing completely to style is a little over the top. When I review, I take the style into consideration, sure, but my reviews are also heavily based on my tastes. As much as I would hope my reviews and thoughts contribute to the community, I also use BA as a personal reference and database, so in my opinion, my personal preferences outweigh my obligation to review based solely on the style.

As long as you give honest, accurate (well, accurate to your own palate, anyway) reviews, you should be good. Because in reality, when I want to find out what a beer is all about before I drink it, the words in the reviews are more important and will tell me more about a beer than the numerical scores.

 

If you're judging a beer in a competition, the technical aspects of the beer and how much of a paragon of a given style it is are paramount.

If, however, you're reviewing for a consumer site (like this one), your opinions are everything. Keep the stated style in mind, of course, but so long as you justify your score with your prose, you'll be fine. Just look at the beer, smell it, taste it, perceive it with all of your senses, and then communicate your experience. There really is no way to "properly" review a beer, just tell me what you think of it and why. Simple stuff that many just tend to overthink...

 

I know when i do my reviews, i write what i taste. I also read the descrition of the style if it is a new style that i didn't try yet so i have a idea of what i should be expecting. I think it is all personal taste, everybody's pallet is different, that(in my opion) makes craft beer and reviewing fun, seeing what other people write and taste and get out of beer.

 

Be prepared to get reamed for this statement.

Now I don't review beer, but I would think that personal preferences are obviously going to impact a review to some extent. However, it's a bit unfair to review beers of a style that you don't like. If you don't like yeasty, don't review Belgian style beers. People like those beers precisely because of the yeast. I would be confused if I read a review for La Fin du Monde and it said it was too yeasty.

Also, if you don't like bitter, why drink IPA's?

 

Its your review. review as you see fit.
App
Smell
Taste
Mouth
Drink

Its your beer. Go for it.

Cheers!

 

The guidelines the "brothers" put on here are a great place to start. It takes time, and you will find out what you like and what you dont like.

The style lists and breakdowns are extremely helpful to go through, and finding out what beers excite you (or not).