Ratings don't have to be subjective?

Anything based on a person's opinion or taste is subjective..no matter what..food,beer,music,movies,etc..what one person loves another may not like and vice versa...some people think Bud is the be all end all of beer..who is anyone to tell them otherwise? If they choose to believe that..more power to 'em..Just leaves more great beer for the rest of us.

 

It's probably pretty much impossible to be truly "objective" when it comes to something as subjective as taste -- one person's taste buds literally do not pick up things the same way as another person's. Same with noses and smell.

That said, it's definitely possible to be a little more objective than the "I don't like adjunct lagers/light lagers so I give them all straight 1s, maybe a 2 or 3 in appearance just to make it look like I'm not giving it straight 1s" kind of reviews... or alternatively, on the other end of the spectrum, "I really liked this beer so I gave it straight 5s." More to do with actually putting some thought/effort into it rather than trying to be objective, though the thought/effort put in (rather than just rushing to slap 1s on things you didn't like and 5s on things you did) generally ends up making the resulting review more objective in the end anyway.

 

Interesting point. When I rate and/or review beers I try to consider both my enjoyment and how it follows the style. If it's clearly a beer meant to skirt the lines of different styles or just be very unique, I'll go by enjoyment.

 

Taste is always subjective.

 

Taste is subjective but can be made objective.

 

I think you have to take into account the style, a mix of objective and subjective. I have seen people review an ipa and rate it low and say I just dont like ipa's. If you dont like the style please dont rate or review it and say its awful

 

While I rate most of my beers on Untappd, my rating system on there (and everyone should have one) goes like this:
5- Will seek out this beer
4- Will recommend this beer to other people to try
3- Good beer but not good enough to recommend
2- This beer I do not like, but you might
1- I would recommend against trying this beer
no rating - Either I thought something was wrong with the packaging or lines from a draft line,the beer is old, or other anomaly that I'm not blaming the beer for.

I find having my ratings actually mean something to me tends to keep them sane, and the partial points in between go to show how far i am leaning from one stage to another. Now, these ratings are only really relevant to me and my tastes but they do help me remember which beer I liked or did not like when I go to get a pint. So, at least for me ratings are only relevant to me and whether I liked or would recommend the beer for someone else to try. I'd never try to rate something for everyone's taste since it's so subjective and not very possible IMO. Interesting discussion, but I'm not a fan of "style" in general. That's a whole other can of worms.

 

4 = I would buy this again.
3 = Meh but I don't dislike it.

Everything derives from that.

 

Even if you're rating against the the 'self-described style' there's a high level of subjectivity that comes into play. For some styles there's a veritable canon of benchmarks. For example, does a new Belgian Dark Strong Ale/Quad taste more similar to Abt 12 or Westy? If it's closer to Abt 12, is it somehow 'less than'? Because, at least anecdotally, there's a large contingent that claims Westy 12 is essentially the best beer in the world. You can say, with reasonable objectivity, if that beer hits the general hallmarks of the style (color, ABV, gravity specs, IBUs, even general flavor profiles), but if it does, does that make it subjectively taste good? Presumably, if you nail every aspect of a style, you'll have a good beer, but I think that is by no means a guarantee. I know this for a fact because I personally have made beers that fit the BJCP's criteria for a given style and ultimately found them underwhelming. Did I objectively make a pale ale? Yes! But that doesn't mean much of anything.

And the other issue is that this canon is being constructed based on criteria that are ultimately recorded through subjective means. Abt 12 and Westy 12 are so highly regarded because they taste great, and have come to be representative of the style for that reason. They did not necessarily define the style.

To keep ratings useful, rating to style is critical, but there's no way it will ever be truly objective.

 

Except for the very basic evaluation of a beer, there is a mixture of subjectivity and objectivity in every rating.

Basic 100% subjectivity: "Ehh, I don't like it." vs. "Oh man, I love this beer."

Introduce a reason for why you like or don't like that beer ("I like this beer because it has a great hop flavor combination.") and you've started the objective part of the process getting into your rating. The more evaluation points for that beer, then the more objective the evaluation becomes. True, each point in the objective process is subjective, but each subjective point can be further broken down into an objective form. ("I think the hop flavor rates a 9 out of 10.")

Objectivity and subjectivity are inseparable above the basic level of evaluation.

 

How many times are we going to repackage this thread topic under a thin-yet-shiny new covering?

I'll try to be short and succinct since I've stated my opinion on this issue many, many times, always long-windedly: If you can't be bothered to review with some modicum of objectivity, don't review. Reviews that don't take style and objectivity into account are completely useless and should not be allowed on this site, period.

I understand this comes off a lot less level-headed than I may have been in the past, but it irks me beyond belief that people simply can't set their personal biases a few inches to the side and attempt to give a thoughtful opinion backed up by facts within an established rubric. It's not hard. If you want to be totally subjective and hedonistic, do it in a place that doesn't have the motto "Respect beer." Go to Untappd.

Edit: To be clear, I'm not saying you should or need to rate 100% objectively; that's not possible. I'm saying everyone should rate with some percentage of objectivity. I advocate for at least 50%, ideally around 60-65% in favor of objectivity. That means your opinion still counts, but does not dominate the rating.

Also, while rating to style is important, I think that a lot of brewers these days, particularly in the US, are trying to break out of styles or put their own twist on styles. To make sure one doesn't unfairly fault them for experimentation (a key component to keeping things fresh and pushing beer as a whole forward), one should rate against what the brewer set out to do as well as the style the beer is closest to/bills itself as.

 

Objectivity is 100 percent quantifiable without dispute. How do you accurately quantify the quality of color, taste, mouth-feel or aroma without dispute? If this was possible, all ratings would be relatively the same, but they're not because everyone subjectively views beers differently. By using the BA rating system, you are applying an objective scaling system to your subjective opinions.

 

Exactly 6301 more times.

 

Here's the problem with that example - there's a strong argument that NYFRB is simply not beer at all. Michael Tonsmiere tweeted about this - it has a FG in the 1.052 which would only make sense starting with an absurd gravity meant for like a 15% stout. They would be losing tons of money. https://twitter.com/MadFermentation/status/626531815222845440

Essentially they backsweeten, like a Mike's Hard. It's vodka with root beer spices, and has a ton of sugar. NYFRB is the "definitive style" of nothing, and will probably give you diabetes like soda does.

 

'On the other hand, a beer can be rated based upon how well it replicates its self-described style (aka objective)….'

Styles are very subjective and rating to style is utter bollocks!

 

I never understood this. Beer doesn't really have a singular taste. When I hear someone say, "This tastes like beer," it makes me think of an AAL taste and is usually used demeaningly. To dock something because it doesn't taste "like beer" is absurd. Lambics probably don't taste like "beer" to most people, should we dock them for that?

Still, NYFRB is hardly a beer for reasons mentioned referring to its composition. That is what makes is difficult or impossible to review for this site. It is not beer. If we include it, we should include Zima, Mike's Hard, etc.[/QUOTE]

 

A critic who demands the establishment of "objective" standards simply wants everyone to rate beer according to his/her subjective standards.

 

Both the review and the idea of taste are inherently subjective. As far as scoring a beer it's the best approach to use the style as your guide and then appreciate the beer from there. That will tell you as much about whether the brewer is successful in either making a style well or in putting a unique twist on a beer form the approach of both style and taste. Recently I had a beer that I did not like. I orginally rated int around a 3. Then after I really drank it some more and thought about it, I increased the score to around a 3.5. Inching it up by the categories as I came up with reasons why it was a better beer than the score I gave it even though I did not like it. This is also why really drinking more than one of a beer is a great way to examine it closely.