Why do people review beers when...

Definitely. I just picked IPA because it's the usual suspect.

 

Reviews are expressions of impressions of a given beer at a given moment in time, not some sort of Tralfamadorian representation of a beer's eternal essence. As such, any review is proper, assuming it 1) expresses the impressions of the drinker and 2) explains said impressions. Telling me the style isn't to his/her liking allows me to adjust the score as needed. If there is potentially an infection issue or some other off-flavor, I'd prefer to know. Since I'm finding these beers in the wild just like the reviewer, there's a decent chance I'm gonna find "old" beer too, so those reviews are also valid.

Review scores aren't the be-all/end-all of beers, so don't worry if negative reviews "drag scores down". They're simply a reflection of the drinker's experience with a purchase, and all experiences, positive and negative, whether we agree with them or not, are valid. Get over it if you want to shelter an inanimate object from mild derision or something you'd prefer to construe as "misunderstanding" the product.

 

It's pretty rare, but ff we ever run into bottles at home that taste unexpectedly odd, we'll say so in the review. This is often with an added note about how perhaps this batch/bottling is infected or compromised, as a way to inform others. That said, we'll also try and add a line about how we'll be looking for another bottle to reassess the beer fairly. Honestly this has only happened a handful of times though.

 

Well, I had some 2010 infected Matilda and it was great! It is important to note when an infection affects the beer positive OR negative.

 

Infections I would only review if you contact the brewery and they don't refund or replace your beer for you, or they have already issued a recall. If they are unresponsive then they don't care about your business and deserve a bad review.

Expired beer is pretty similar. If you see expired beer on the shelf, tell the store and do not purchase it. Some stores can't manage their inventory as well as they should and by helping them out, you benefit everyone. If you purchase a beer and notice that it is out of code when you get home, contact the brewery and they should replace it for you. If they don't then they again don't care about your business and I would avoid their beer in the future. Bad review also warranted.

If a beer has no date code on it then it is obviously fair came to rate. If it tastes super oxidized, how are you to know if it was a bad packaging job at the brewery or just age? You can't know that and it's unreasonable to ask people to not rate beers like that. Rate it.

 

I will absolutely review an infected beer & I appreciate it when others do, too.

Not reviewing a beer because it's infected or infused with off-flavors is doing a disservice to people who use this site to aid them in acquiring beers. I hugely appreciate the warnings - there have been several times over the years when I haven't bought/traded for a beer after reading multiple reviews that indicated there was a problem with the beer.

Encouraging people NOT to review infected beers, where the fault lies with the brewer would take away a valuable tool for finding out about the quality of a beer. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm pissed when I drop $20 (or $5 for that matter) on a beer only to find out the brewer hosed it up. These beers deserve the lousy reviews they get.

 

I have news for you: Matilda is purposefully inoculated with Brett.

 

Old beer is ultimately the responsibility of the brewery and you should contact them. If they do not fix the problem then by all means give them a bad review. The brewer has to manage their supply chain. If they can't then they need to pull out of your market and likely will.

 

But you should get that $20 back because the brewer should be eager to replace or refund the beer for you if you contact them. If they don't, then I would avoid their beer in the future and give them a bad review.

 

The rating system used by BA is fairly sophisticated. The minimum number of reviewers alone will tend to dilute any outliers. With increased numbers of reviews the overall score actually negates the outliers. Remember that some reviews are high for reasons that may be judged as unwarranted by some people too.

All feedback and scoring is useful to a degree, and especially so when the reviewer includes words to describe or qualify the review. We should embrace the reviewer who openly states that they generally dislike a style, or that they reviewed a stale or infected beer. These qualifiers help us to understand the score, help the industry identity problems and challenges, and help the community as a whole.

One of the stroke of brilliance with the BA ratings is that they include the Public Voice, and the Expert Voice. One suggestion for improvement might be to include a larger field of experts to the Bro's score.

 

A couple things:

A: a review is that persons experience, with that beer, at that time, in that place. Nothing more, or less. If 99 people have a great experience with a beer, and 1 person doesn't, the 1 person isn't invalidated.

B: if a beer is for for sale (on the shelf or on tap) it's fair game for judgement. If a brewery doesn't want reviews of old beers, they need to take charge and control their supply chain better.

C: why is anyone concerned about the beers score? Do you have a stake in the brewery? Or is it the fact that someone else doesn't think that beer is as awesome as you do what bothers you?

D: after 10 reviews (the minimum for a beer to count) each review, no matter how extreme to either end, each individual review counts for less and less, to the point of being insignificant. Try an experiment: find a beer listed here with really high scores and a low number of reviews. Give it an all 1's review. How much did the score change?

 

Review for spite? That doesn't seem to be in the spirit of things. If the beer is bad, it deserves a bad review, regardless whether or not the brewery made it right.

 

If a beer is infected I think it's fair game to point that out in a review. But if a beer is past its due date that is not the fault of the brewer? Why punish them with a bad review?

 

Though I grin when I come across a poor review (for instance) of a helles in which the reviewer asks "Where's all the hops??," an "unjustly" poor rating should only affect a beer's rep if the beer's only been reviewed a few times. Otherwise the average of a bunch of reviews (most of which won't be "unjust") will mitigate any bizarro outliers.

A different beer rating site you've presumably heard of gives two separate scores: a score in relation to all the beers of that style, and a score in relation to all the beers reviewed on the site, regardless of style. It gives you a strong sense of which styles are the more popular; that hypothetical helles cited above may have a score of 60/100 in relation to all the beers on the site, and a score of 100/100 in relation to other helles. Pretty wild. Thank you for reading my post. Please have a good day.

 

I have no problem with a review of an infected beer. That is what the brewer put out. Note it to see if it was a trend and not a single bottle. If Later I saw mine was the only one mentioning an infection I would remove it. The only excuse I will give for an out of date beer is that if the beer is not dated at all I again find some fault with the brewery. I myself have rated beers that seemed old. With no date I have no way to be sure and make sure that is prominent in my review.

 

I know. Though I was told by GI reps at the time that there was something else in there for a certain batch. Maybe they were wrong? The Matilda I had afterward was definitely less funky. Just sayin'. The beer is tasty to me no matter what.

 

That's one good way of looking at it, here's what I do:
Do not compare overall scores from one style to the next, use the top beers per style button and only compare scores within the style. Three easy clicks removes style bias for any beer on this site. Want to know what the highest rated malt liquor is? No problem with this method.
As far as flawed/infected beers go, Review away! Posting it on the forums will get complaints from some people that your effort is wasted and you should contact the brewer directly. A review is permanent (unless it's removed) and can be edited for subsequent notes (like if the brewer responded and made it right)

 

I will add you can edit your review or change it at any time. So if you could try it again we can change the review. As for infections that totally a control issue at the brewery from my experience. And let's not forget some breweries do not have a date on their beer. So you would have no clue how old the beer is. As the old saying goes don't hate the player hate the game.

 

It's definitely not fair to rate an old beer but infections should be noted and given a low score

 

If the bottle isn't dated, how are you supposed to know if its old?