Appearance: What makes a 5 rating?

I honestly prefer my beers super murky, especially IPAs. All of my fav IPAs are murky as hell.

 

It's by far the least important part. I personally couldn't care less as long as it tastes good.

 

I personally think that appearance rating is pointless. Am I really going to rate a beer lower because the head was only half an inch and not a full inch? or the head was a dark khaki instead of a mocha brown? The only things I take into serious consideration when rating is taste smell and mouthfeel. Taste is obviously about 60% of it with smell being about 15% and then mouthfeel about 25%. I especially attribute mouthfeel to a higher percent when judging stouts because a thin stout will ruin everything about the beer for me.

 

I assume either people rate it based on their perception of what the style is supposed to be (BJCP style guide for example), or rate it with prejudice after they try it, and I assume the majority is the latter.

 

This.

 

Appearance really has very little to do with how well someone enjoys a beer.

Tell me that doesn't look sexy as hell.

Hazy/murky beers are glorious. I'm not sure what you mean by style guidelines. Do IPAs really need to look filtered? I think not.

 

I'm in the same camp. The smell, taste, and mouthfeel are all more pertinent than appearance when determining if a beer is good or not. For example, a murky beer like BCBBW should, in theory, not get a score of 5 because it doesn't appear particularly inviting. But when you're drinking it, whose really paying attention? For me, if the beer looks inviting to drink then it's a plus. I don't consider the appearance to be a qualifying aspect of what makes a beer worthy. Good topic OP. This is something I've wondered about but never really thought it through.

 

That's probably why appearance is rated least important on BA (5% of overall I think). A great beer is a work of art, if you think appearance doesn't matter look through the "Great Beer Guide" by Michael Jackson. With that being said, I agree, I would rather drink a beer that looks like crap, but tastes great.

 

Bingo. I almost always rate appearance according to style.

However, I have poured a few beers in my life that irregardless of style, just have the most absolutely beautiful color, clarity, and head that just won't fall down but leaves amazingly thick sheets of lacing. It's hard to be objective and care about style when seeing beers that look that good, so I just click 4.75+.

 

If you're going by BJCP standards, it's how well it lines up with the style guideline. For Russian Imperial Stouts:

Color may range from very dark reddish-brown to jet black. Opaque. Deep tan to dark brown head. Generally has a
well-formed head, although head retention may be low to moderate. High alcohol and viscosity may be visible in “legs”
when beer is swirled in a glass.

 

And, the BA weighted rating formula reflects that. "Look" is 5% of the overall rating.

Personally, I more or less rate to style expectations. The "more or less" is because I in no way consider myself qualified to actually "judge" to style. But, Kölsch and Blondes should be pale yellow. Pale ales and IPAs should be amber. Stouts and porters should be dark brown to black. I generally would consider a beer that is too light in color to be more of a fault than one that is too dark, unless it visually crosses a style boundary.

Besides color, I consider clarity and carbonation (visual bubbles) to be part of "look".

I consider over-carbonation to be a fault, but Pils & Kölschs are expected to be more carbonated than are porters, for example. British styles less carbonated that American styles. This is how I think, anyway. I've never consulted the "official" judging guidelines.

I don't give the head "height" much importance, since it varies so much with pouring technique. I do consider head color, retention, and lacing.

I start at about 4-4.5 and deduct from there.

 

Thickness and retention of the head, appropriate color and clarity within style guidelines, lacing. Presence or absence of sediment. These are the technical aspects of appearance rating.

On the less techinical side, I once went to a Left Hand tasting hosted by one of their brewers. His approach to evaluating appearance was "When you look at it, does it make you want to drink it?" I always remembered that.

 

So what you are saying is that if you gave an IPA a good healthy pour and it formed no head at all and showed virtually no carbonation you'd not care (or even not suspect there may be some poor brewing decisions at work)?

 

Right. I'm more concerned about the features I listed.

But if that did happen then it probably wasn't an IPA anyway

 

Point taken. If your stout comes out yellow something's wrong. Beyond that it doesn't really bother me.

 

"A bit hazy" is very vague. That could mean a lot of things haha.