When purchasing beer, what's your minimum score?

I think most beers' ratings are valid - the rating system IS a popularity contest, & the higher-rated beers are so for a reason. BUT, I don't allow the great to be the enemy of the good, & am very happy drinking good beer on the regular.

 

Thanks for the offer! I have tried it and enjoyed it. One of the "pubs" I visit regularly has a beer manager who will stock a few of the long shelf life imports and seems to have a long term rotation plan so the when her case is sold she brings in a different beer to offer.

 

An inherent problem with this site (which I enjoy) and other rating websites is that group-think is statistically going to happen, nearly 100% of the time. I can guarantee that even the biggest beer snob on this site will have had a beer and said "damn that was good" then logged in to rate, and seen it was an 80, and dropped their own rating down to get closer to the average. I've caught myself doing it before - I have a beer that I think is a 4.75 and i load up BA and its closer to a 3.75 and I think "what did I miss that I thought this was so good? Was I overcompensating and giving it a 4.75 because I really wanted a beer and that one hit the spot?"

 

Spot on Nate!

 

I use the ratings as a guideline on my purchases...sometimes.
Most times I am already looking for something particular, if something else catches my eye, I would be curious to see how it is rating on the site and use that as part of my decision making process; however it's not the be all end all means to an end decision, but sometimes it's a money saver and not just a tick for a sub-par beer.
Plenty of beers I really enjoy and like/love a lot don't rate in the 90's or perfect 100 range. There is obviously a reason those beers are rated that high, but you have to drink what you enjoy, not what everyone else is rating high.
And yeah this is just a silly statement, imho: "Yeah, if you want to drink all their 84 and lower rated beers ..."
Cheers and drink what you want!

 

You need to factor into your analysis that thre are lots of people using this site who will log in and think "I gave it a lowe rating but what did I miss that leads all these others to be so positive." And then bump up their rating. Then there are also people who will log in and see that the mean is different than their score and make their rating more extreme because the want to compensate buy pulling the score up or bringing it down lower.

This is statistically guaranteed to happen to a much greater extent than any "group think."

 

If I look at the BA ratings before taking a flyer on something, I look at the score, but always also look at the number of ratings, the rating within the style and the percentage of deviance among the raters. I like some styles that are less popular, and they tend to have lower average scores and high varianton among the raters - and if only a few people have rated the beer, then the score can be unduly influenced by a couple or few peope who downgrade the particular beer because they just aren't into the style.

 

I use ratings to help with purchases sometimes. I saw a 6 pack of an IPA by Shasta brewing that was $17. It had a score of 81. Now, there are beers I absolutely love that are rated in the 80's, but for the most part, my tastes are reasonably close to what they are rated on BA. And $17 on a 6 pack rated as so so, was not worth it to me.

 

Then it should all even out

 

Price weighs in first in my purchase of beers. Bombers over $10 or so is when I start to look at reviews to see if spending that much on the beer may be worth it or not.

 

I look up reviews before I buy but more to read to see what flavors people noticed rather than the score. I know what's pleasant to me and what's not so I try to use that as more of a guideline than anything else.

 

I drink a good amount of beers within the 70's range ... some are quite enjoyable.

 

I love your review and the percentage it deviates by well done sir!

 

Drinking beer is a lot more fun when you look at the ratings after drinking something. That way you can laugh at most of them.

 

I try to refrain from checking the rating on BA most of the time but, like others, if the price is high I'll check to see what others think before dropping the cash.

 

I agree with people not taking the style into consideration. I love black ipas and would choose them before most other beers but I have to rate them against other black ipas. I would still choose a black IPA with a 4.0 rating over a pilsner with a 4.5 rating because of my personal preference. That being said the only time I will look up the rating of a beer is when the price of 1 beer is over $10.

 

The ratings and top 250 list serve only to give me ideas. I like to try, and never buy a case or even a 12 pack of anything (unless it is a mixed 12). But once it is in the glass, I really don't care what people here or at RB think. We each have our own preferences and taste buds. Add to that the setting in which you drink it. If I am sitting in the seats at a baseball game, and it is hot, guess what, a Sam Summer becomes a much better beer than a BCBS or any high abv Belgian.

Sadly, too often beers that overwhelm the senses are rated highest. Maybe we will get away from that. For several years after Parker and Wine Spectator started rating wines, huge fruit bombs were rated best. That's started changing, and more subtle, nuanced and balanced wines are back. Hope beer follows suit.

 

Statements like "yeah, if you want to drink all their 84 and lower rated beers ..." are the essence of snobbery. The writer could of made a fair, critical reason he/she won't drink that brewery's beer instead of making a statement that the beer in question was beneath his/her status as a beer aficionado.

 

I'm moving to MA in fall for grad school so Narragansett has been on my "to try" list for some time. I tried the Lager, Summerfest, and Boh Pils this past week when I was in MA for stuff and I was really pleased. All three of those beers are very unpretentious and don't try to be something they're not. It's a cheap, locally brewed beer in a 16oz can. And there's flavor there. All in all, I rated them pretty good, especially the Lager which is probably the best AAL I've had.

However, the styles of beer Narragansett brews are not popular with the larger crowd on BA. There's something I ultimately respect more for a BA who can go and review something like Narragansett Lager and be objective and rate it more appropriately for what it is, rather than comparing it to Heady Topper.

I do consult ratings before buying beer if I don't really know what I want. Generally, I'll avoid everything rated <70 unless I'm buying it as a joke. That being said, if a beer is on my short list, even if it's mediocre, I'll buy it. I was obsessed with trying Narragansett everything (something most people would call mediocre) and Yuengling because I hadn't had it, even though nothing brewed by those two companies are critically acclaimed in the BA community.

In the end, just gotta go with what you want to try. Sometimes you'll find something delicious that people like hating on (for me, Upland Harvest Ale, or Harpoon Citra Victorious) and sometimes you'll find a critically acclaimed beer really isn't all that (for me, Gumball Head).