What if beer ratings didn't exist?

I agree with @Squire123 and @drtth in that ratings are opinions and opinions have existed for as long as beer itself. Beer wouldn't exist or evolve without someone saying "That's good." I know that this angle isn't @AlcahueteJ 's intent though, so to address that specifically, I don't know if you can make a seamless link between ratings and people lining up for beer. It certainly creates more demand for something like Pliny the Younger, but there are breweries by me that have people lining up for beers that have so few ratings here that their rating is listed as "None." It feels like the demand and staying power of these beers moves so fast that the rate of ratings ( ) can't keep up. Everyone is on to the next thing. What these breweries have in place of demand from ratings is word of mouth (as has been said already)... and here this exists as a thread in the regional forum. The "homerism" that @herrburgess speaks of is actually happening to some extent even though we have beer ratings anyway.

 

But now there's an inherently irrational (for lack of a better word) 'need to have' something, that even bypasses other things on the same level. Imo, adding scores and ranks to the dynamic is playing a major role in that. That's the difference, and it seems to be what @AlcahueteJ is getting at.

 

I can buy that.

I think most people would be better off in general if they could tame their "need to have" with respect to beer (and other items). I know I have had my own fights with "need to have"

 

"What if beer ratings didn't exist?" Well at one point they didn't!

And speaking as someone who's been there when the landscape was desolate and only a few beers were available (mainly imports) with just a few coming out in the U.S., it was very much an "If a tree falls in the forest..." kind of thing - people didn't get it, or they just didn't care because beer was not a "thing". Beer was about establishing your identity based on the one main beer that you drank! It was for show. If you drank Heineken, for example, it showed that you were experienced and had money - and I know it's more complicated than that, and that that's kind of a stereo-type, but that's kind of the way it was except for a few people who were into beer. Getting back on track, the early craft brewers had a very hard time even getting people to try their beers, and we all owe them great thanks that they persevered! I'll tip my hat to Carol and Ed Stout from Adamstown, PA. They were some of the first, they did an excellent job with their beers, and they really tried to push their beer and beer in general. In fact, I'd say that they might be the first to start a beer festival (if they weren't the first, they were close). Let me also give a nod to Tom Peters (of Monk's fame, although that came later) who was the first person to import Belgian draft beer on tap to the U.S.; and to Eddie Friedland (the distributor) who helped make that happen.

So to answer the question "If no one rates a beer highly, would as many people seek it out?", the answer is no. People only really started seeking out beer altogether after it became popular. Sad but true.

 

It could be argued that the craft beer revolution actually began in the UK with the growth of small breweries.A lot of American "craft" brewers learnt their crafts and skills either visiting them or working in them.
But there was an existing beer culture to be preserved and expanded , there was for example an infrastructure of cellars and hand pumps.Beer has always been more homogenous here than in the US.
Good old fashioned mild is no less craft than a triple IPA aged in Madeira barrels with a dead chicken.(By the way, "**** ale" was brewed at one time)

 

And as a social experiment, you're hopefully planning to erase all ratings for a month.

 

When I first got into drinking beer the ratings were a great source of guidance. That is most of the highly rated beers had a long standing track record of great taste and consistency. After figuring out what breweries do what styles good I became less reliant on them.

Fast forward to today and everyone give 3.5/4.0 ratings to trash beer. They hype the hell out of a small local batch when the quality and consistency are not there. Sure I can choose to disregard what I deem over the top but I don't like the way everyone rates everything all the time.

If I was in another state I might look at ratings for beer destinations/locations but not for what particular beer to drink.

Basically I don't think I am missing anything by not reading reviews.

 

Basically survive as a consultant which requires being a jack of all trades even when master of none. The range of professionals I have spent time with learning what they do and how that do it is quite large. You could also look at as being a Bumble Bee who brings new ideas into different contexts.

 

Yes, there's no doubt that the early pioneers of flavorful beer here in the US were inspired by spending time in the UK and in Germany and motivated to once again have access to flavorful beers when they returned to the US. Certainly I'm willing to grant without argument that a good mild is a flavorful beer when well done and on cask. (My own first introduction to flavorful beer was through visits to the UK.)

But that doesn't change the fact that there was no need for a 'revolution' in the UK while the situation in the US basically boiled down, for most folks, to having a choice between any beer they wanted so long as it was an AAL, an AAL, or an AAL.

While beer there may have appeared to you to have been more homogeous than in the US, I'd suggest a perception that is quite misleading. Beginning in the 80s I had the opportunity to have beer in both the US and the UK on multiple occasions, by the only one of the two in which beer was my beverage of choice was in the UK.

 

Did you partake of any of the below listed beers?

Cheers!

“Ballantine XXX Ale, Ballantine India Pale Ale, Ballantine Brewer's Gold Ale, Ballantine Porter (aka Krueger Old Surrey Porter), McSorley’s Cream Ale, Lord Chesterfield Ale, Black Horse Ale (Trenton and Koch), Rainier Ale, Pickwick Ale, Croft Ale, Genesee 12 Horse Ale, Schaefer Cream Ale, Schoenling (Little King’s) Cream Ale , Carling Red Cap Ale, Pabst’s Old Tankard Ale, Liebotschaner Cream Ale, Gibbons Ale, Kodiak Cream Ale, Tiger Head Ale, Neuweiler Ale, 20th Century Ale, Utica Club Cream Ale, Utica Club Sparkling Ale, Yuengling Porter, Stegmaier Porter, Narragansett Porter, Narragansett Bavarian, Koch Jubilee Porter, Boarshead Stout, Koch Holiday Beer, Matt Holiday Beer, Augsburger, Augsburger Dark, Augsburger Bock, Prior Light and Prior Double Dark, Geyer Bros. Dark, Old Chicago Dark, Haffenreffer Private Stock Malt Liquor, Hudepohl Hofbrau Deutschlager, Schaefer Braunslager, Royal Amber, Esquire, Horlacher Perfection Beer, National Premium, Andeker,”

Above list courtesy of @jesskidden.

Cheers!

 

Tom, the irony is that over the past decade(s) Great Britain has experienced an anti-revolution of sorts. The top selling beers are Carling Lager, Fosters, Stella Artois, Budweiser, Carlsberg,…

While ‘classic’ English beer like a Bitter Ale (on cask) is still available at pubs, the majority of beers consumed are light colored lagers (and AALs).

Cheers!

 

Back at the dawn of the craft era you bought anything you saw that was new. Most stores did not carry craft anyway. The owner of the few stores that did sell would tell you about a new beer coming in and there was word of mouth among drinkers but you had to pay try. Since all the craft drinkers were just seeking out better beer we did not need rating. We knew it was better than what we had been drinking and that was enough.

 

Haha! Not too many, I'm not as old as you Jack!

Ballantine XXX Ale - I used to drink this regularly in college.
McSorley’s Cream Ale
Lord Chesterfield Ale - It was a little hard to find back then, but it was, and still is my favorite Yuengling beer. As of about 10 years ago it was made with 100% Cascade.
Rainier Ale
Genesee 12 Horse Ale - I could only get this around New York.
Schoenling (Little King’s) Cream Ale
Liebotschaner Cream Ale - ahhh! My favorite. What a great deal that was. Drank many cases!
Yuengling Porter - Incredibly popular at the Khyber Pass in the mid 80's.
Stegmaier Porter
Prior Double Dark - I was only able to try an old bottle of this with Rich Wagner. Surprisingly it held up remarkably well.

 

I have had these:

“Ballantine XXX Ale, Lord Chesterfield Ale, Genesee 12 Horse Ale, Yuengling Porter, Augsburger, “

So maybe you are older than me?

That list was constructed by jesskidden (who definitely wins the ‘maturity’ award).

The reason posed a question to you (with that list) is that there were indeed ‘alternative’ US brewed beers prior to the craft beer movement. Needless to say but where you lived might strongly impact which beers were available . Just by eye-balling the list, many of these beers seemed to be Northeast beers.

Cheers!

 

We wouldn't know about a lot of the tiny breweries, you'd just have to figure out what beers you enjoy by trying them. I'd think there'd still be people giving recommendations so you'd try things your friends liked, but finding new beers to add to the rotation would be tougher.

 

Look at the market before computers and internet were easily available. I'd say 98% of people who care about beer ratings look them up via the internet. Before we all had internet the market was greatly influenced by brewery ads in magazines, on tv, radio, in the newspaper, etc. The small guys couldn't afford national advertising so they stayed local, the big fish could afford the marketing and gained market share, nearly all of it.

 

My personal experience was growing up in a western state. I'd never heard of any of those beers on the list till moving to PA. But on the other hand Coors seemed pretty good with TexMex food or a well made Pizza.

 

Tom, where there 'alternative' US brewed beers available to you? Styles like Porters, Stouts, Cream Ale, Blonde Ale, American Bock,...?

Cheers!