Reviewing Cellared Beers

I try to remember to note if the beer was out of my cellar, but usually that is moot since I will have reviewed it when fresh most times, and I don't update the review normally.

However, it is never fair to review an infected beer, but especially so out of the cellar.

 

If the brewer intended for the beer to be cellared, then it’s perfectly fair to review. The age and method of storage should be notated in the review.

If the brewer intended for the beer to only be drank fresh, then it’s not.

Generally beers capable of being aged are explicitly stated as such on the box/label, and often include a vintage (2019, 2018). Firestone and The Bruery are great examples of this.

 

Ratings at sites like this first and foremost are records of the individual tasters' experience, and I think the general rule should be that the taster decides whether he wants to make that record. If the sites choose to aggregate numeric scores, it should be up to the sites, not the raters, to determine which scores are worthy of inclusion in the aggregations. I do think it's best practices to specify the circumstances of the rating both for personal records and external consumption. Many beers are encouraged to be cellared or have not been produced again after an earlier run, in which case a cellared example is the standard or only way to experience the beer going forward. In those cases, the cellared ratings are usually more relevant to others (not that that's the primary purpose of sites like this) than the ratings of fresh examples. I definitely think it's appropriate to rate "infected" or otherwise flawed beers, as, again, those ratings reflect an unsanitized version of the actual consumer experience.

That said, BeerAdvocate has its own, I would say "excessively restrictive" rules of rating, and that's why I've never rated here.

 

There's no problem as long as the reviewer notes the age in the review. In fact, a review of an old bottle can be very helpful to someone else trying to decide whether or not to cellar that beer (or buy an old bottle).

Recently received some beers from Wisconsin that had a label stating they were “Cellar Certified” for aging by the Wisconsin Brewer's Guild.

 

There is and always will be people cellaring beer. To omit information on how a particular beer or brewer's work ages simple because it has aged would be a dis-service to other beer consumers, who may find the information of how a particular beer is holding up valuable as they setup trades or decide what to pull out of their cellar for the night.

 

Where is this stated? Do people use it for that? Sure. Where is it stated that is the purpose? Here is what is stated:

The Goal
BeerAdvocate is a consumer-based website; as such, subjectivity comes into play. With that in mind, the following aims to bring some objectivity to consumer-based beer evaluations by using BeerAdvocate's rating system and encouraging a more thoughtful approach to rating and reviewing beers.
-- https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/how-to-review-a-beer.241156/

Baloney.

 

A review is not the most effective way of communicating this, even to BA members. Posting a thread is much more effective, IMO.

Look-at-me sites like Untapped, fine. No one should seriously pay any attention to those as sources of legitimate reviews anyway.

 

I prefer, both for myself and for any one else reviewing a beer, that any new notes one might have upon cellaring a beer be added after the main content of the original review, which should always be done as fresh as possible.

While some breweries have expressed approval for cellaring their beers, I think it's pretty widely accepted that most breweries release their beers at the moment that they are intended to be enjoyed. It's not their fault that a 4 year old bottle of Brown Ale someone bought at World Market for you for Christmas tasted like shit.

 

Yeah, searching the forum is much harder than searching the reviews...

An infected run of beer (usually BA beer, it seems) is valuable consumer information, I agree. I just do not think posting a poor review is the most effective means of communicating that to other consumers.

Perhaps if BA provided reviews of BA beer by vintage...?

 

I mean, search the forum for KBS...see how many results you get as opposed to how many results for a beer search of KBS. Via beer search, you find the beer you're looking for right away and read the reviews for that one beer all in one click. Good luck in the maelstrom of the forum. I mean why's that even part of the debate?

 

I have actually been going through a few dozen cellared beers the last couple months and coming few months. I typically note that it is/was aged with year bottled/release and current date, as well as any previous ratings when I may have had it earlier when it was fresher.

I don't, however, review them if they have been aged too long (had several drainpours sadly but that was on my inexperience when I started) and went 'bad' (not infected just went too sour or became malt bombs). I don't think much more is needed than that.

 

That wasn't the search under discussion.

Search the KBS beer reviews for "infected" vs search the forum for "KBS infected".

Is it even possible to search the reviews of a particular beer?

Or, are you just reading through the mini-maelstrom of reviews, scanning for "infected" vs those who rate the beer at 2.3 and say things like "Overall this beer isn’t really fit for drinking, but great as an ingredient in beer desserts like beeramisu or chocolate stout cheesecake." (from a recent real review of BCBS).

 

This is going way off the rails now. You wouldn't be looking for every single beer you ever drink for an indication of infection unless you're a crazy person. Most people are looking at review trends, skimming a few reviews for the beer they may want to drink soon. The trends therein, positive or negative, are helpful.

BCBS had trends of infection notes in 2015. That was helpful.

 

Likewise no one is going to search the forums using just KBS as a search term unless they are a crazy person.

The OT was about reviewing cellared beers. Is posting a review now of a cellared 2015 infected BCBS helpful? That was part of my main point initially. No, it is not.