Why do people review beers when...

For myself, with no training as a judge, I've found that having discovered flavorful beer I find it hardest with AALs and similar beers to overcome my personal preferences and stick to style. I noticed this the other night after reviewing a Euro lager and giving the head a score less than it deserved. I noticed I'd done that because my second beer that evening was one I'd reviewed before and give a higher score for what was essentially the same quality of foam, etc. Been getting me to re think ways to avoid biasing my own ratings because I like some beers better than others. At least I can say I've never given such a beer a rating as low as a 2....

 

There is a simple solution to all this:

Option 1: this review is for my personal notes
- great! Make sure you use less than 150 characters and your review won't count

Option 2: This beer is not my style
- Totally fine - please reference option 1

Option 3: This beer is flawed / terrible because of something in the brewers control
- Fire away - a bad review is warranted.

With the new system it is very easy to take personal notes, or some comments around skunk or your own preferences without the review counting. Just use less than 150 characters. If you know it isn't a legit review, keep it short.

 

Never thought of this. Very good idea.

 

If the beer was for sale I would rate it and review it infected or not.

 

Agreed - brewing flaws too - if there is diacetyl, etc... it is all something that the brewer can test for and control. Even if an infection develops later on over time, the brewery can always recall the beer and offer refunds to customers with bad bottles.

 

My particular favorite is when someone rates a pilsner and writes something like "bleh! This tastes like dishwater. I hate this style of beer." Why bother reviewing something a) you're not going to like anyway and b) a style you obviously have a negative bias towards.

Someone tries (rates) a lager..."this beer is weak, there's nothing to this beer, I don't get punched in the face with flavor. Won't drink again. Ever!"

I know I don't review but, c'mon. It's why every lager and pils on this site can't get past an 85 score. It's not fair to the beer and it's not fair for people who maybe want to venture outside of the IPA and imperial stout realm.

 

I review regularly and have only had a few instances of infection/off flavor, and several instances of non-fresh beers.

In the case of infections/off flavors I try to never mention the word infection, simply because I don't have a way of verifying the truth of such a statement. So many breweries are trying their hand at wild beers and saisons, but many of them are not yet masters of the craft. The addition of wild yeasts gives way to new flavors, many of which are funky, sour, or very chemical like when not properly used. For that reason, I try to describe the flavor to the best of my ability and rate the beer objectively on my perception of the given style.

Reviewing beers that aren't fresh is much more common, but also much easier to do. One, if a beer is way overage, I won't review it. But if I get a 3 month old IPA, that's fair game because a beer should be able to hold up relatively well for 4-6 months no matter the style. In addition, it is easy, at least for me, to approximate what a beer would taste like super-fresh based on its non-fresh taste. This is subjective, I know, but the beer still gets reviewed as it tastes. The only time I will stop a review of non-fresh beer is if it has no dating and really tastes off.

 

Totally agree I just noticed this recently while reading reviews of a IPA, the reviewer noted it was older and "well past its prime" and gave it a low rating. I don't understand.

 

Agree. The review should represent the beer in accordance to style. Brewers that don't bottle date run the risk of VERY old beer being rated. They made a decision not to date it, they deserve the consequences of their decision.

 

Agree wholeheartedly with this - dating the bottle / can clearly is within the brewers control, so if they get slammed with reviews of ancient beer, they can't really complain, as they are part of the problem.

 

As for reviewing old beers, I tend to agree that, if you can tell (bottle/can dating ) and the beer is significantly old for style, don't review. However:

• does that mean you can't rate any beer with no dating, because you never know, it might not be a "proper review of the brewer's work?"
• What is considered too old?
• should you only rate beers that age well fresh? (Deschutes' big beers are an interesting aside to this question)

I think a beer with some age is fine to review if noted in the review, the beer has a significant number of reviews, and the reviewer has plans on revisiting the beer.

I say this because the review is might actually be useful if you are somewhere you can't get a particular beer fresh to know if it is still ok 3 months out. Knowing some FW beers are awesome fresh doesn't help me when I can't get them without a month or more on them, because I have to make my decision on the choice in front of me. Is the choice to distribute to places where you can't deliver freshness the "fault of the brewer?"

Edit: danger of doing long post - people start hitting your topics before you do.

 

Not that you are suggesting otherwise, but reviewing any dated beer past its best by date is an issue.

 

One could argue that if the brewery packages their beer in uncolored glass, some of the blame could go to them in the event of skunking. Having said that, I take most consumer comments about a beer being skunked with a grain of salt.

 

My idea kind of agrees with you both on this one. The infections/etc. should be a statistic people can see, but should not impact the score of the beer. To make this happen, BA would have to change the way ratings work a bit. My suggestion would run something like this......

You could start the rating process off with a "do you have reason to believe this product was flawed (infected etc.)?" And if you check "yes", a note comes up that says "you may still review and rate the beer, but it will not be averaged into the online score and your review will be will be highlighted with a symbol/note indicating 'possible product flaw' ". Then , at the top of the beer's page there would be some stat displayed showing a count of reviews that had possible flaws. And finally, the total count of possible flawed beers compared to total count of reviews for all of a brewer's beers would be added up and displayed on that brewers page somewhere at the top near their rating.

 

I was hoping this thread would be: "Why do people review beers when... they only have a few ounces of it and it's their twentieth different taster of the night?"

 

That's strange. Because these are important details in the presentation of said beer.

 

I didn't mean to take anything away from your topic... Yours is totally valid too!

 

The "past its prime beer date" scenario you mentioned leads me to think that people should keep those reviews below 150 words so they don't skew the numbers.

Infected, let the chips fall where they may.