Should we rank breweries?

Talk Discussion in 'BeerAdvocate Talk' started by SaverioD, Dec 29, 2013.

?

Do you want BeerAdvocate to re-establish an annual ranking of breweries?

  1. Yes, numerical rankings like top 100 advance the goals of craft brewing

    37.7%
  2. No, numerical rankings like top 100 do not advance the goals of caft brewing

    30.4%
  3. Who cares whether they advance craft brewing or not ... Polls are fun

    31.9%
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  1. cavedave

    cavedave Grand Pooh-Bah (4,145) Mar 12, 2009 New York
    Pooh-Bah Society Trader

    Yeah we really need to steer this site away from the folks who think our beer hobby and this site are fun. Or is that not what your are saying?:wink:
     
  2. unclejazz

    unclejazz Maven (1,287) Oct 24, 2011 New York

    I decided to look thru a listing of US breweries just to cull a reasonable list and found breweries with at least 200 beer reviews and got the following top 20 list. I added the number of reviews in parentheses. I am not saying this is my top 20(only tried about 1/2 of them), but it is a solid representation of established breweries and newcomers that have a solid line-up of beers:

    1. Side Project (278) 4.4 avg
    2. deGarde (238) 4.37
    3. Alchemist (5,341) 4.37
    4. Hill Farmstead (16k) 4.35
    5. New England Brewing Co. (5.4k) 4.22
    6. Good People Brewing Co. (990) 4.21
    7. Ale Apothecary (236) 4.21
    8. Peg's Cantina/Cycle (1,596) 4.2
    9. Anchorage Brewing (2,631) 4.18
    10. Cellarmaker Brewing (200) 4.17
    11. Treehouse Brewery (907) 4.17
    12. Alesmith Brewery (15k) 4.16
    13. Toppling Goliath (2.5k) 4.14
    14. Crooked Stave (3,462) 4.13
    15. Kane Brewing (1,495) 4.12
    16. Prairie Artisan Ales (3,970) 4.11
    17. Surly (17k) 4.1
    18. Societe (1,073) 4.1
    19. Russian River (33k) 4.09
    20. COAST (1,802) 4.09

    What I do notice is that none of these beers has national distro and many are only available at the brewery. Curious to see how this list will change in a year.

    Cheers!
     
    #22 unclejazz, Dec 31, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 31, 2013
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  3. Stevedore

    Stevedore Grand Pooh-Bah (5,072) Nov 16, 2012 Oregon
    Pooh-Bah Society Trader

    Very interesting to see Hill Farmstead with so many reviews despite being tucked away in the Northeast Kingdom of VT, as opposed to AleSmith, Surly and Russian River which are near major metro areas (SD, Mpls, SF/Napa respectively). It's either that good or the hype is strong, probably a mix of both.. though the fact that Hill Farmstead doesn't currently produce a beer rated under 4 despite going through a fairly large rotation is pretty astounding.
     
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  4. rozzom

    rozzom Pooh-Bah (2,534) Jan 22, 2011 New York
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    Cool idea, although I reckon it should be a minimum of 1,000 reviews. Never heard of one or two, and with only ~200-300 reviews and both having a focus on sours/saisons, it seems too easy of a "win" for them.
     
  5. azorie

    azorie Pooh-Bah (2,409) Mar 18, 2006 Florida
    Pooh-Bah

    I do not get it. please provide the math and logic that got you there. thanks!
    I understand the 200 reviews part...how did you get that avg score, I guess is what I am asking.
     
  6. Stevedore

    Stevedore Grand Pooh-Bah (5,072) Nov 16, 2012 Oregon
    Pooh-Bah Society Trader

    It's computed by BA as an average composite ranking of all the beers. It can be found on the brewery page.
     
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  7. Hopdaemon39

    Hopdaemon39 Initiate (0) Dec 27, 2011 New York

    Totally agree- while it's interesting to know about all of Russian rivers and three Floyd's offerings, it's slightly painful knowing I can never get them out here in the craft brew boonies (otherwise known as NYC).
     
  8. SaverioD

    SaverioD Initiate (0) Jun 1, 2013 Georgia

    CaveDave, definitely not what I was saying. I have great fun with craft beer and I try to help others have the same. That is why I launched this discussion and, you can see from my approach, I try to bring an element of humor along with the seriousness.

    Sites, like this great Beer Advocate site, have a role in promoting the industry but also they have a role in protecting its integrity and part of protecting the integrity is ensuring that the less popular but deserving brewers and teams get recognition their fine and often risk taking work. If we can have fun and also elevate the discussion of craft beer drinking, we all win. I think my post is contributing to that end - how often to we think about our biases when voting?.

    It would suck (my regret for the technical term) if craft brewing lost its way and ended up primarily just being smaller versions of the international brands with branding over substance and timidity brewed into the beer. I just drank Brooklyn Brewery's Black Ops (actually, I am lying since it doesn't exist) and I could not help wonder about the distance between that still-just-a-rumor experience and the barley water we drank in the '70s and '80s. Life is too short for that gap to exist.

    Saverio
     
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  9. cavedave

    cavedave Grand Pooh-Bah (4,145) Mar 12, 2009 New York
    Pooh-Bah Society Trader

    It's tied right now 31 yes, 31 no.

    I voted yes, but I guess it might just be the nerd factor of another list of beer info.
     
  10. jmw

    jmw Initiate (0) Feb 4, 2009 North Carolina

    I hate the word 'artisan'

    It's looking like your results are split evenly, meaning that all of your possible answers have no statistical significance.
    Rethink thread and poll.
     
  11. SaverioD

    SaverioD Initiate (0) Jun 1, 2013 Georgia

    Hey Jim, thanks for your note. Though, in retrospect, I should have added a response that allowed a "Who cares, polls are useless" as an additional negative posture, I think the result is still a useful insight. Since this is an open poll, by definition it has no statistical merit - just like any open poll, it is not expected to be representative of the population.

    But, here are my take-aways:
    • Only a fraction of the post visitors actually took the poll so we do not know whether we have a representative sample of the overall population
    • If we combine the "Yes" and the "Who Cares, we have 2/3rds of the respondents having a positive posture toward ranking breweries
    • We do not know whether the results would be amplified or reversed if we actually embarked on a true statistical survey of the population - I am betting that it would be reversed
    Nonetheless, I was more interested in the written replies and the member's arguments than the poll. I was interested in seeing if others considering brewery ranking as inherently a really bad and unworkable idea for the reasons I listed. I also wanted to see if my considerations on the pluses and minuses were pretty complete.

    This was a conversation starter and we should not read into it more than its limited role. Fundamentally, the resources required as well as the logistical and design complications are too great to really rank a brewery population with any degree of integrity.

    Saverio

    By the way, what is wrong with the word "artisan"? It would seem relatively accurate for craft beer production over the centuries. What am I missing?
     
    modern likes this.
  12. jmw

    jmw Initiate (0) Feb 4, 2009 North Carolina

    Fair.
    Still, two of the choices combined garnering 2/3 of the vote indicates nothing but an even split all across. The willingness of a subset of a limited population to take a poll is the only thing that defines your sample size, and that defines your representative sample of the overall population. The population that visits, considers, and moves on does not count any more than people on the street. They are merely artifacts of the sample and confounding indicators. I forget what the initial question was but I suspect that it would indeed reverse if you sampled the entire population, because the overwhelming majority of the full population does not care one bit about the goals of craft brewing.
    As a conversation starter, carry on.

    As for 'artisan', I just don't like it. Current use is hubristic. You're not missing a thing.
     
  13. modern

    modern Initiate (0) May 31, 2012 Ohio

    I would guess that you are missing the 30 seconds it takes to post a comment with very little actual consideration. Most of your posts seem organized and thoughtful.

    This is a great thread, I agree with most of the arguments cavedave has been making. To me ranking breweries on a website is an extension of arguing with my buddies about why this beer is better than that, or under what circumstances a visit to Columbus Brewing Company can be better than a visit to Founders. I love this stuff. Rankings give people a discussion point. Founders is better than Bells because KBS is better than any beer Bells makes! But Two Hearted is hands down better than every one of Founders IPAs! So lets take all of our anecdotal, emotionally driven, sometimes drunken evidence and make a list!
     
  14. modern

    modern Initiate (0) May 31, 2012 Ohio

    I disagree with this perspective entirely. Demand for a product is never a problem, managing demand can be. It does have the wonderful side effect of letting a brewer decide what kind of brewer he wants to be. Does he want to ride the wave and expand to be the next Dogfish Head, or continue to sell every bottle he makes. Risk vs reward, but good options to have.

    As far as an up and comer not being able to compete in the market with established, highly rated breweries, the popularity of craft beer today proves that theory is incorrect. If you build it, they will come.
     
  15. Immortale25

    Immortale25 Grand Pooh-Bah (3,549) May 13, 2011 North Carolina
    Pooh-Bah Society Trader

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  16. raynmoon

    raynmoon Initiate (0) Aug 13, 2011 Colorado

    How about trending/hot breweries.

    An ever changing list. Sort of like BCS standings in a way.

    Example, Victory brewing would be high on the list currently.
     
  17. lowbit

    lowbit Initiate (0) Jul 24, 2013 Wisconsin

    Yes. Based on the average awesomeness of beards across their brewing staff.
     
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  18. markdrinksbeer

    markdrinksbeer Initiate (0) Nov 14, 2013 Massachusetts

    My take: Regardless of implementation or intent, it would end up being more of a popularity contest rather than a rating of the actual brewery (based on what criteria?).

    As it stands now, if I want to know what brewery is rated the highest by average of ratings of it's beer, I can go to

    Places > Chose a State > Breweries > (sort by ) Beer Avg.

    However, that in and of itself goes beyond what I care to research, as that information is nothing I care to care about (hope that makes sense).
     
    SaverioD likes this.
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