Does the less rare a beer becomes mean lower ratings?

It's true. you can no longer taste the rarity, so reviews and rankings reflect that.

 

What @Roguer said plus the (perhaps overly) negative review from those who expect liquid sex and just get a good beer. I cannot claim innocence here (Hopslam being a recent example).

 

No, not for me anyway, but I'm definitely less likely to buy it if I know I can get it any time. There are tons of awesome, readily-available, year-round beers I pass up while searching for the latest limited release, seasonal, or rotational beer.

 

Unfortunately 1000s (if not 100,000s) of people pay attention to the Top 250 on here, when the list is essentially meaningless.

 

"Tasting the rarity" is a great way to put it. Well said felonious monk.

 

I've only been a part of the craft community around two years now and it didn't take long at all to pick up on the way things work around here. As soon as I got done shaking my head it became a continuing source of amusement, which is one of the few reasons I still lurk around these forums. Cheers

 

Getting it fresh cannot be underestimated. The best-tasting IPAs I've ever had were from local breweries Boulevard and Free State, neither of which is really known as an IPA brewer. I just know they were days-old brews.

 

If it's true, the community has a palate than mine, because my palate cannot tell me how much of a given beer was made.

 

I agree with Roguer and would add that the "next big thing" aspect seems to drive higher ratings for rare beer.

That is, if you're one of the first people to rate a great beer, you may have a conscious or subconscious desire to have that beer be the the next big thing. That way you can say or feel that you had the next big thing before it was number 27 or whatever on the top 250. Thus, you might rank that great beer higher than you would a comparable beer with an already huge reputation.

On the flip side, if you're late to the party and there are 2000 people that have already rated a great beer and made it number 27, you might be inclined to pull the Swingers line and rate the beer along they lines of: "This party's [beer's] dead anyway." In other words you might consciously or subconsciously rank it lower than you might rank a comparable beer because you don't want to be the last kid jumping on the bandwagon.

Of course Heady Topper may disprove this entire thread, but OP, you have a point.

 

higher sample size + lower chance of trade value inflation bias.

 

When a specific style is rare, those drawn to that specific style seek it out and rate it highly. When the beer becomes widely available, people whom don't necessarily seek out the style try it because of its availability. They downgrade the ratings because they approach it with a different mindset.

 

The beers of fame list pretty much corrects the homer/hype train. IMHO It's the only one that matters

 

Well it's human nature to crave the forbidden fruit. When that fruit is no longer forbidden, it doesn't taste as sweet anymore...

 

It's not unique to beer, either...tons of consumer goods that are rare and expensive get hype and lead people to believe what they are buying is automatically top notch because "you get what you pay for"....my favorite brewery is hill farmstead...single bottles of theirs are 15 dollars minimum...if they were to bottle their next release under a fake brewery name, nationally distribute it and charge a fraction of their normal price, I GUARANTEE it would garner considerably lower ratings...so to answer OP question, hell yes...and I'm pretty sure we're all guilty of it

 

I feel that it has more to do with this: a beer becomes more available to the masses and there's a larger sample size drinking it, then the average will probably skew down a bit. But who really cares in the end? Plus, I love the fact that I can get a once rare beer more easily. I remember just a few years ago I could hardly ever find Sculpin and now hardly a month goes by where I haven't had a few, and I'm better for it. Who cares if it's not the #1 rated IPA anymore?

 

I lol'd hard at this. Truth.
It's hard for me to take any score seriously unless they result from blind tasting. That being said, what difference does the score make? The beer tastes the same regardless, and your palate can't taste rarity (@DoubleJ).
Scores are naught but a guide. Optional, and only as important as you make them.

 

Increased production should equal increased exposure, but I don't think increased production necessarily equals decreased quality. I also expect that ratings will change as more people try the beer, but I don't think there's a specific relationship between rarity and ratings. I think changes in ratings due to increased exposure ultimately depend on the product.

 

What you are observing doen't have any necessary relationship to quality of beer as production is ramped up. As it turns out, even if all the proposed biases (e.g., change in quality, homerism, taste of rare, freshness, distance from brewery) were not operating the beers being rated at the extreme upper end of the scale will tend to move away from that extreme as more ratings are added into the mix. In otherwords, you'll see such changes in ratings at the extremes regardless of what is being rated.