What if beer ratings didn't exist?

If there were no rating system here, then there would be a lot more threads, likely one for every beer. I per say don't put too much thought into them, but if making an impulse purchase, then I will quickly check to see where it is. Normally before I buy I take @champ103 approach and read the reviews. I have passed up a lot of 3.5 beers and ended up purchasing them later because of the reviews. Plus with regards to Saisons, BW, Gose and some Belgians you really can't trust the numbers, people just don't like them and trash them. Then there are some beers were people are slamming them for absurd reasons. My favorite are the reviews that give a beer across the board 4's but give it an overall of 3, not that it really affects the beer's overall score. So I like the numbers, reviews better, and look at it as a way to wade thru the shelf of the unknown

 

You certainly are a good person to respond. This is typically how I conduct my research, and prefer actually speaking with people than looking at ratings. This is how things should work, plus experimentation.

 

Yup, and that's pretty much how it was done before ratings sites came around - word of mouth and networking, in a way. I would get information from fellow club members, friends in other states, bartenders, books, etc. A critical difference, however, was the general attitude. These were all "try this when you get the chance" type conversations; there was never the sense that you just HAD to go out of your way to get something.

So, yeah, I think that adding numbers to the works, in conjunction with the multiplier effect of social media, is playing a significant role in the craze and fomo.

 

Well you'd get more agreement from me if it weren't for the fact that Social Media have been shown to have much the much the same driving effects for products where there are evaluative comments and discussions but no ratings are involved. (Except after the fact as a way of assessing and attaching numbers in attempts to measure/assess the effects of Social Media.)

Here is a bit of data on the topic (apologies for links to some fairly technical sources):

http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/32135886/De-Vries-L._2012_J.-Interact.-Mark.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1487215010&Signature=aAg10/iRO7XGHzLoToDnZnwcnuY=&response-content-disposition=inline; filename=Popularity_of_Brand_Posts_on_Brand_Fan_P.pdf

http://spectrum.library.concordia.c...cial_Media_Based_Brand_Communities-Aprl20.pdf


PS--Glad you got to visit Cantillon, I found that one of the most informative brewery tours I was ever on and particularly enjoyed the self guided part of it. Plus their beers were easily available in multiple places in Brussels, including some that were much closer to where I was staying.

 

We managed pretty well before social media told us we were inept.

 

They lack a craft beer revolution

 

Or it's the other way around - the fact that the beers are old is an indicator that demand is low.

 

I'd argue that ratings eases this because I suspect there is a certain level of laziness. Searching social media for qualitative data (or even amassing, filtering, and grouping it) would be a lot harder than having a service that does it for you (beer rating sites). Ratings makes it easier for "non-community members" to garner information, for instance. (Pre-answer: no, I have nothing but anecdotal evidence )

Now, I am far from arguing that social media doesn't have an effect. If my admittedly quick skimming of the second study (first didn't link to anything) is correct, it seems to argue social media can create a community (like the BA community) that effects its members in similar ways to "real" communities of the past (Shared Rituals [WBAYDN, NBS], Moral Responsibilites [BIF, trading, leaving a whale on the shelf], Brand Use [proper temps, glasses], etc).

The study (again, skimmed) seems to me to be a little more towards proofs of social media affects on "brand loyalty" - which seems to be concerned with a particular brand, and how social media can help said brand:

(link)

It seems that the study seems social media (this site being one) would lead to a community of Tired Hands lovers, say - but I'm not sure if it applies to "brand loyalty" to the pseudo-brand "top 250 beers". The latter seems ratings-driven, the former seems to fit the study.

I am sure I will be corrected on my quick reading, and I will state that the study isn't irrelevant by any means. I'm just not sure where the "brand loyalty" applies for people chasing CBS, BCBS, Hunahpu, and Darkness, as they aren't the "same brand"(or are they?)

 

I think that rating and reviewing helps beer. without it you would not have as many people interested int he hobby and trying all kinds of beer. Before sites like this, did you even know about different styles of beer? I often choose to buy beer instead of wine because there is a reliable source of reviews on practically every beer.

 

This is so true, I hate buying wine because it is such a crapshoot and no one does detailed reviews on it. Like beer, if you tell me what you like or don't like about a wine, I can buy or not buy it with confidence.

 

Or it's both happening more or less together and reinforcing/feeding the other.

 

Whoops.

I'll see about fixing the first link. It's gotten broken in the copy/paste. (Probably because I'm not used to the best way to do that on this site. )

The second link is to the freely readable version rather than the pay to read final version. It appears there have been something added to the latter not included in the former. I'll see about dealing with that later on.

Re your first bit, I think we're actually pretty much on the same page there. It is harder to locate multiple sources of info to build a more complete picture than it is to be able able to just look at some number. whether accurate or not.

But since similar things happen in the absence of ratings, what I'm proposing is that while the ratings may, for some folks, be an accelerant to feed the fire, they are not the only thing that ignites a fire nor are they the only source of fuel for a resulting blaze. Take away the ratings and there still will be fires.

 

I have been drinking craft beers for 55 years.

 

I would say that this describes the beer scene of most european countries. In germany, czech republic, poland, belgium etc., as far as I can tell, ratings are not really a thing. I mean, there doesn't even exist a really popular german rating site, there exist several smaller ones, sure. But NONE that gets printed on the label with its scores or gets used in advertisements, as I have seen it happen in the US with rb and beearadvocate, so, yeah....
Most people still just drink what is produced near them and/or what they grew up with...

An interesting case with ratings it the wine world, were you have "famous" critics and authorities that hand out scores that get printed all over the labels. I wonder why such a thing doesn't really exist for beer. Yes, there are competitions and awards, but there is, at least to my knowledge, no experience of Gault Millau, Falstaff, wine advocate, etc, that rates beers within a small group of judges and has a real authority in the matter.
Please correct me if I am wrong.

 

Well, except for producing printing on the labels, Michael Jackson is a good example. He more or less popularized a numerical rating system in his books on malt whiskies and used basically a numerical rating system with beers, although in the case of beer he represented it to the public in the form of the number stars awarded to a beer rather than the simple numerical value.

In the Whisky/Whisky world today some of that has been picked up and is used also by a small group of judges.

http://whiskyadvocate.com

There are some relatively large liquor stores to be found today who print shelf-talkers from these sources for the whiskys/whiskies they sell.

In addition there is at least one online source of ratings data for alcoholic beverages in which a small judging panel is used:

http://www.tastings.com/Search-Beer.aspx

Clearly such sources as this site and some of the others mentioned are more widely known amongst beer drinkers.

 

And those types of beers were being made before you were even born, which is why there has been no craft beer revolution in the UK.

Hop in your time machine and visit the US 40 years ago and see how many of those beers you can find that were brewed in the US.

 

http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/32135886/De-Vries-L._2012_J.-Interact.-Mark.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1487215010&Signature=aAg10/iRO7XGHzLoToDnZnwcnuY=&response-content-disposition=inline; filename=Popularity_of_Brand_Posts_on_Brand_Fan_P.pdf

http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/32135886/De-Vries-L._2012_J.-Interact.-Mark.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1487215010&Signature=aAg10/iRO7XGHzLoToDnZnwcnuY=&response-content-disposition=inline; filename=Popularity_of_Brand_Posts_on_Brand_Fan_P.pdf


@cjgiant @AlcahueteJ

Try one or both of these links to that first source, perhaps they will work better. I'm still puzzled by the one in the first post since it works fine for me on my laptop but does not work for my tablet.

 

Well, there is this need, I think, at least regarding certain iconic brews. In munich, though not so obvious, I'd argue you HAVE to have Augustiner Helles or Edelstoff, gravity served. In cologne, you HAVE to have Päffgen. In Düsseldorf, you HAVE to have Uerige, and so on...

And, there is another apsect: Many munich locals only drink augustiner. You could say, they HAVE to have augustiner, any other beer is just a lesser substitute. In cologne, you see this with Reissdorf, in the Eifel region with Bitburger, Karlsberg Urpils in the Saar region... There is a different kind of hype, super homerism hype, you might say.

And.....well, what you describem that people HAVE to HAVE a certain product because there is a number, a rating attached to it.......again, I see this in europe among wine nerds a lot. When parker rates a Riesling highly, you just HAVE to HAVE it. When the Gault Millau gives a producer a high rating and counts it as a top producer, everyone rushes to get it,prices often explode. And when a producer has high ratings for a long time, well, the wines become very,very expensive...So yeah.

With wine, I also find it very odd because you still have hundreds of small producers that are,to my taste,often even better than the famous ones, but just don't recieve high ratings, making them totally fly under the radar for most people.