Beer ratings vs. Wine ratings

Are people lining up to drink the latest gold medal ESB?? perhaps not... not saying they should..

I would.

 

Interesting thread, always wondered if there was a WineAdvocate or something similar.

 

Me too, been too long since i had a good ESB. Make it on cask and i'm golden

 

BTW, I think "style" doesn't really fit for wine.....it is difficult to apply to beer already, but for wine, the construct falls apart. wines are rated to varietal, but what is a wine STYLE...?

 

Having been in the beer and wine business for many years, I've found that beer geeks and wine geeks are the same kind of animal. A 100 point BBA Imperial Stout gets the same buzz and furor of a 100 point Napa Cab. I like the way that beer reviewing is evolving. Wine reviewing is dominated by Robert Parker and Wine Spectator, and both have made and broken particular brands (and styles). Beer reviewing seems more collegial at this point. The beer business is way more collegial than the wine business.

 

My experience is that it varies, just like beer. I've had incredibly high rated wines that I hated, had low rated ones that I love..

The thing is what you are seeing with beer is virtually identical to wine with people who are fans. Been to numerous tastings and took courses, went to lectures so forth, shared opinions with other wine drinkers... they say the exact same things so called "beer geeks" say..

this isn't as good as last years
this producer is better than that one
this would be better if it was aged longer/ or fresher
there's no way I am buying that it's overrated.

sound familiar? The same thing happens now with consumers, often they went and still go to a store to buy wine, they saw lots of labels and would be completely confused. Now that happens with beer.

It also slays me as we constantly hear about prices on this site when the vast majority have no idea how much more exclusive and expensive other alcohol is. That seems to go way over people's heads.

Beer is sort of stuck between this world and I am not sure where it's going to go, or perhaps it will just stay comfortably stuck where it is right now.

 

so would I

 

I look at varietal and to some degree location as a comparable to say "beer style".

New Zealand - Sauvignon Blanc
Oregon - Pinot Noir
Argentinian - Malbec
Portugal - Vinho Verde

you can even break out the geography into more specific regions, but you get the idea, I've always found that the most useful, for finding what I like and enjoy.

 

Absolutely agree,

however I was making a distinction also that if it's between this at one booth, and some other booth that has the next Toppling Goliath, Hill Farmstead, or Russian River... which one do you think most people are just going to run to and fall over themselves wanting to taste and get? Particularly if it's some big huge brew that of course dominates the lists here (ie. large IPAs or Barrel aged stouts).

Wine world is the same, there are those who just go crazy for big Bordeaux and other similar things..

 

I guess we can thank the breweries for not making craft beer like wine. The price difference between the best and worst beer on earth is only a few dollars. I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) wine makers actually change the price according to the rating (Get a 96 Wine Spectator rating? Change your $20 bottles to $100+).

As far as ratings, I much prefer the aggregate of ratings on BA over the authority of one person or organization. Although, I usually do filter ratings by "Top Raters" to see what the people who really know beer, or at least really experienced at drinking beer, think.

 

I don't want to find "diesel" (actual finding in a wine), "scorched earth", "underbrush", "graphite"(used to be pencil lead), etc. in my beer/ale. And, unlike wine, every year is a good year for beer/ale.

 

Being a bit of a wine collector and having worked in the industry, I think it comes down to history and vintage. Wine and wineries have been followed and talked about foe hundreds of years. Following the vintages and which were best etc... The Craft Beer movement is quite young, to say the least. Someday soon you will start to see more of a conversation about hop vintages and which micro-climates are producing which particular flavors and so on. This is a very exciting time for Craft Beer. I can't wait to see how it all plays out.

 

Yeah, in that context, i might be one of those throwing themselves at that booth lol.

 

Here my problems beginn.
The terroir plays a huge part in the end product, but also the winemaker- and those two factors determine the end product.
Take Pinot Noir, Spätburgunder, in the mosel region for instance. There are many producers who make Pinots in a very german way- light in color, a bit sour in taste, made in a steel tank. On the other hand you have the producers like Markus Molitor or Stephan Steinmetz, who make Pinot Noir the french way- strong, with a lot of substance, matured in barrique.
Same can be said in the region for Riesling-there is a typical flavour profile for Mosel Riesling, yes, but there are as well many, esp. younger,winemakers who make totally different Rieslings.
Are those products of the younger generation not "true to style"?
Using the term"style" for the complex interaction of the different factors(varietal, winemaker, terroir etc.) seems lazy and misguided to me and does not help me. It may work in regions were only one "style" is made- but at least the regions I am familiar with, this is never the case.
Just my experience.

 

I find it intriguing that your arguments about "style" of wine are basically the same arguments used by some fans of beer brewed in Germany and some fans of beers brewed in the UK, Belgium or the Czech Republic as to why other brewers in other countries just can't get those beers right. While not usually acknowledged as such something very much akin to terroir plays a huge part in the end product (e.g., type of barley and how it is malted and by whom malted, the hops used and where they are grown). The skill of the brewer is critical to the end product with two different interpetations of the same recipe being often very different. Some brewers mature in stainless steel and some still use wooden tanks (and some beers are reported to have lost character when moved out of wooden tanks to steel). Similarly young, new brewers are making very different versions of traditional offerings.

In more than one discussion I've heard/read arguments that even within a particular region where there are lots of breweries the variability among beers having the same generic name (e.g., Pils, Bitter) is the order of the day.

So I'm inclined to think that the differences between beer and wine are not as great as we might like to think.

 

It's not lazy. It's just a commonly understood phrase among those who are not wine connoisseurs. That is, it gets the point across among many people who purchase wine.

Equating "style" with varietal (and as previously mentioned, location, to some extent) probably helps over 90% of the wine-buying public--including myself.

 

This. The price point of highly reviewed wines keeps them in an elite high luxury market. This also means people looking to buy higher-end wines are going to be looking to respected reviewers and recommendations to aid in and justify their purchase. So, there are many wine review sources to meet that consumer need/demand. As much as some people may complain about beer prices, the beer market is nothing like wine, thankfully. The cost to a consumer to take a risk on an "expensive" beer really isn't that high in the grand scheme of things, so there's less demand for beer reviewers and publications. Or another way to think of beer prices are low enough that many people are comfortable just figuring it out what beers the like and don't like for themselves, so there's less need for authorities.

Just don't forget that reviews, scores, price, rarity, hype, and expectations in general can cause subtle but very powerful psychological effects on people's brains making them enjoy a product more in quantifiable physiological way. I'm not saying you are wrong in your tastes, because no one can taste for you. It's just the brain reaches these conclusions through a tricky twisting and mostly mysterious path of nuerons, which is not nearly as logical as we all want to believe. It's all part of being human and explains why we look for respected authorities to help make sense of our world.

 

I tend to buy what I have not seen before and what I like. Ratings don't have much influence on what I buy but I do look at the ratings after I drink the beer.

 

I find style for beer lazy as well. But maybe it is a cultural thing...Maybe it is also my desire to get to know regions and traditions in their detail which makes the term just useless for me pöersonally.

Yes,many say that in many major german wine growing regions, a generational change happened that -can- be compared to what is happening now with the emerging craft beer scene here.

But for me the huge difference is that this change in wine was not only because of the newer generation taking over, but also because of the climate change.
40 years ago you simply could not grow a strong Pinot with a lot of substance in the Mosel valley, or for that matter many french or more international varietals like Chardonnay or Sauvingon Blanc did not turn out well.......
Wine is simply way more linked to where it is made,to the soil and the climate, than beer which makes it very exiting to me.

 

I'll say working in a big box "liquor store" the major difference here is that price point is often dictated by point rating for wines while certain beers can be a 88-90 and cost 1.79 a single