Is beer scoring/rating too lenient?

Yes, people score too high.

Yes, you're waaaay to concerned about it.

Worry about things you can control. People have been complaining about inflated beer scores for years, & not only on this website. It's a fact of life.

 

I agree with much of what you've said. I think one problem is with beers that have been rated for several years. The quality of beers has gone up tremendously IMO. Say a beers been on the site and had 1000 ratings ten years ago and ranked high back then, but may comparatively not be as good today, however those ratings from back then still count in the overall scores today. That being said, I think many beers are just over-rated. However, a Rochefort 10 you mentioned may be the best beer a newby has ever had at that time and thus they rate it highly. This is one reason I like the top 250 beer section as it considers total number of scores in the equation, though there's still the issue of old scores. I think a solution would be that scores older than 5 years don't count in this equation. Whether or not that could be done by BA is another question.

As far as the Bourbon Countys go, I think standard BCBS does beat out some of the more limited version IMO. I know others that agree. I personally preferred 2014 BCBS over 2014 Vanilla Rye and Proprietors. I know other people who agree with me. I can't say that about other years Bourbon County limited editions though; most of them were outstanding. Sometimes I feel that people rate on how a beer is ranked or how limited it is and not how it tastes; they get a "whale" and go nuts over it just because they finally got it. Anyway, great post. I'm interested in others reactions to this one. Cheers!

 

Is your favorite beer of each style not 10/10, in your opinion? That's the beauty of this hobby that we all have different tastes, and nothing of what anyone else says will change what you tastes. My all time favorite and highest rated is Founders CBS, but I "only" rated it 4.9/5. I've personally never tasted anything better, but I think there can be. How? I don't know... Founders will figure it out.

Whatever I just said (sorry, scored some Ten Fidy today).... yes, scores are too lenient, but I think it might be a money and marketing thing to sell "high rated" brews.

 

What he said ... and before you start a thread asking how can every American double IPA be ranked over 4.5 and no English pale ale even reach 3.9, the answer is "because."

 

You must be new here.

 

Tree House Double Shot w/ Sumatra /end of thread

 

Rate to style and this is not an issue. Rate to taste and the numbers are kind of meaningless.

 

If you look at the numbers the reviews actually use (the "4.5 out of 5" and such) there's actually a wider range of scores that somehow translate to "100" on the "school grades" type number scale. Looking at the "top 250" list and going by those numbers you get a list of scores in the 97-100 range, but if you use the decimal numbers it becomes 4.36 to 4.73.

I generally ignore the "1 to 100" scores since the formula used to figure them out seems a little weird (I mean, shouldn't 100 be the equivalent of a 5.0, not "4.5 and up?" Okay, maybe spread it out a little to include some of the 4.9 range or maybe even 4.8, but it's weird that half the top 250 list has a "perfect" score. If 100 meant "4.8 to 5.0" rather than "4.5 to 5.0" then there wouldn't be a single "100" on the site -- so much for "every beer" getting a 100!)

4.60 vs. 4.51 there. Maybe not "several notches" but they don't have the same score, at least not if you look at the system of scores that makes any amount of sense.

 

Subjective: relating to properties or specific conditions of the mind as distinguished from general or universal experience.

That is the beer tasting/rating. My 100 might not be your 100 my 50 might be your 100.

 

Each example of a BSDA that is outstanding CAn be rated outstanding. Does that make sense? There is no reason to glorify one excellent beer over another because of the popularity of the brewer or the idea that one brewer is well known and the other is not. Westy is a 10 and St Bernardus is also a 10. The curve does not have to exist.

 

Yep, people score too high, self included I bet. Then those inflated ratings drive sales because this website has that kind of power. Well, maybe not BA itself, but the people quoting these ratings do. Some breweries could probably fart in a can, and people would rate it very highly, which is sad. As someone said above..

It happens with anything that involves opinion, personal preference and biases. I like Halo and you like Call of Duty. I like Ford and you like Chevy. If we were in a position to rate those products the ratings would probably be skewed based on our bias. At least in the car example, you can compare facts about those products. Beer does not offer such luxury, and everyone has different tastes. I try to remain neutral with a rating, but even then, personal taste in beer will skew the rating imo. I don't where I was going with this...

Long story short I guess that yes the system is broken, but is there a way to fix it? A true honest to goodness way to rate without bias in an unregulated open forum that everyone would follow? Who knows, I doubt it. I just try not to take this stuff seriously, at all.



I just drink what I like and enjoy the ride. That is what it is all about.

 

Only if you think it's only about the numbers and that there is some "real" score out there just waiting to be found.

 

As I understand it, the translation into 100-based value takes other things into effect like number of reviews and rDev, for example. For instance a 4.65 that has 1000 reviews and ALL of them are 4.6-4.7 might get a 100, whereas a beer rated 4.75 with 50 reviews that has a few 5s but a smattering of 3s might get a 95.

OP - I'm not sure the goal of this site is to determine the best beers, but be informative about them, as best it can. As others have said, use the number for what it's worth, one piece of a puzzle that might help you determine that you'll enjoy a beer.

 

The way I see it, the 70-100 scoring is sort of like grading on the curve. You adjust the "test" scores so that the highest real world score becomes ~100% and the remaining scores follow from that. That's not exactly how it works, but I think that's at least part of the idea. No beers on this site have a perfect 5.0, so if you translated the 1.0 to 5.0 scores linearly (by multiplying each rating by 20) there would be no 100s at all--the highest score would be Heady Topper at 94.6--and there would be no point to having the two different number scales in the first place. They provide an easier-to-reference round number for people to reference in stores and restaurants.

The way I look at it: 100 isn't a "perfect" score, it's the highest realistically possible score and a recognition of the fact that a perfect score in a system based on combining the opinions of a large group of people is impossible, or at least highly improbable. For what it's worth, I tend to look at the decimal scores too.

 

Your example actually illustrates the problem with not giving out 100s. That would be allowing things to be driven by those who won't bother to learn the difference between those things in the category at the top and the rest of the field. It wouldn't much matter what the upper score limit was, or what the rating system was, such folks will only pay attention to that "best" idea, rather than learn what are the subtle differences that put something thought to be amont the "best" at the top of the heap and distinguish them from the rest of the pack. No rating system will solve that problem.