The Year in Beer: Breaking Down 2020

Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. But it is evidence that NEIPA is not the number one ipa style which is in stark contrast to the belly aching in other posts. All I ever hear is people complaining that NEIPA has caused a shortage of WCIPA. Here we see the data supports the opposite.

 

I admit I have used BA for many years, but have only joined in the last couple of years. I have not posted, since I consider myself a professional drinker, but an amateur beer critic. I will say that I do, without doubt, consult BA before purchasing a newly discovered brew on the shelf and I have come to totally trust the Bros rating system. If they give a beer above a 90 score, I will pay regardless of the price. I have full confidence it is going to be great.

I am pleased to hear that BA online has fared well during the pandemic. And I will pledge to be more active on my part.....but that won't be much even if I doubled my past activity. Still a bit shy about offering an opinion based only on my personal likes/dislikes. I'm still struggling to determine which side of the stout/porter debate I fall on. :-)

I was pleased to see so many darker IPAs coming out and look forward to finding some of them on my shelves here in Texas. Noticed the absence of enough Russian Imperial Stouts to make the list. That is one of my favorites.

Congrats on surviving the pandemic shutdown. Better times ahead in 2021.

 

Black IPA's are a thing again? I know the EBF one I'm eagerly waiting to crack, but I don't believe I had even one black IPA in 2020.

 

I've been waiting for this article. I love stats (my PhD curriculum was heavy on stats) and reading this tingles my toes and just makes me happy...

Anyway, the biggest take away - all those damn IPAs. Holy Mother-of-God...Can we start focusing on a different style already?

 

I personally wish "we" could indeed move on to other beer styles (e.g., lagers) but Pogo says:

 

A few years ago, I went into a local burger bar. They had eight taps and six of them had IPAs. Untappd Now has 23 different IPA styles to choose from. I personally rarely enjoy IPAs. I think that hops are a necessay evil and should be used sparingly, not the highlight of any beer. Things are getting a little better. There’s a focus on aroma hopping versus bittering, more breweries are doing sour programs, lagers are being rediscovered, and Farmhouse / Saisons are all the rage. So many interesting styles and flavors to try. So, I agree... let’s move on from IPAs.

 

I'm one of the folks who started writing reviews again. (I hadn't meant to go 4 years between reviews, but here we are.)

I'm also making an effort to readjust my rating system so that an "average" beer gets a rating closer to 3 than 4.

 

One thought to bump reviews. Perhaps coming up with a way to allow users to post a second review of the same beer; with the caveat being the second review is reserved for cellared/vintage tasting. I think it would be real cool to have a “sub-rating” if you will, and would also allow one to track their cellar reviews and provide a way for easy comparison between fresh and cellared. This would of course only be applicable for a subset of styles.

 

Really fun and interesting article. As a self-described engineering nerd I like the numbers. I first discovered BA while using it to try to select new beers of a certain style and since joining in Aug(?) of 2020 my time on BA has oddly eclipsed my time on Facebook. My one most disturbing observation about the "numbers is the average score of the beers in general (3.99) vs. average score of NA beers (~3.6). From reading reviews and misc. posts about NA beers I am quite sure many reviewers are judging the NA beer against the full ABV beers of the same style, instead of ranking the NA against other NA beers. I would love to see BA further clarify and reinforce their intentions regarding how NA beers are to be rated. There are some excellent NA beers available and more coming almost every day. I think the 3.6 rating suffers from raters who insist on doing their own thing instead of rating them as intended.

 

hey....no stats about "places" ratings? We users of "places" might be a niche audience, but I like that resource.

 

Wow, that's a lot of information! Thanks for posting this.

On one point you raise: while a good APP would benefit BA, I'm more content with a browser interface, even on my Android device, that I am with the average APP.

Read the full article: The Year in Beer: Breaking Down 2020[/QUOTE]

 

Hey @Todd, just a thanks for providing all that site data for 2020. It's always interesting to see that data and to check some personal biases that might have crept in. Great snapshot of the BA community as a whole.

Most favorable to me is the (relative) uptick in reviews vs ticks. It's a reminder to me that I need to do my part for 2021 and contribute to reviews as well!

And yeah, F 2020.

 

I'm really surprised Barleywines are not more prevalent. That's OK though - more for me! Any stats on trading on BA? I'm thinking about increasing my presence on BA with the large inventory of cellared bombers I have. Thanks so much for the information Todd.

I enjoyed Extreme Beer Fest: Cyberspace last night. It was great to put a name with a face. The setup was excellent. I liked how you could preview the beers with the videos from each brewer prior to the live show and the interaction through the posts.

 

Very interesting and congrats on a great year!
I have a serious (not snarky) question: how does a pandemic not make the development of an App possible? Seems like it would have been a lot of computer work, perfect for isolating during a pandemic :-)

 

Thanks, very interesting stats and discussion. It's great to see lagers making a comeback, but still hate the way IPA's crowd other styles off the shelf. I love a good IPA but not to the exclusion of everything else. It's really tough to find the good Belgian and German beers that were everywhere 10 years ago (and the demise of Shelton Bros. didn't help in this part of the country). Any brewers reading this, please make more dubbels, quads and dopplebocks! Wee heavy too.

This review also made me reflect on how things have changed since I got into good beer about 35 years ago. Back then, Sam Adams Boston Lager claimed to be the "best beer in America" and for a couple years it really was. My gf at the time worked for an airline and I have visited 49 states (sorry Alaska, I really do want to see you) and drank local beer in most of them. In those travels it was rare to encounter a beer that I hadn't already had. Nowadays I would have to quit my job and do nothing but drink beer just to keep up with tiny Vermont.

Interesting that google analytics is crappy given the amount of surveillance they do. If you really don't want anyone looking over your shoulder, there is always the Tor browser. It's not just for the dark web. More trouble than it's worth for normal people though.

I still mostly log in from a desktop PC unless I'm traveling. Get off my lawn...

 

Oh. Am I not allowed to have an opinion? I thought I was.

 

Saying something doesn't count simply because you don't enjoy it is a bit silly isn't it? I guess it is a pretty typical mindset from an American cultural and political standpoint. Just ignore the things that bug us and pretend they don't exist...

 

Do you opine on culture and social philosophies a lot? And should I now similarly conclude from YOUR reply that...ahem, "America"....is now just a vast collective of smug, arrogant, self-indulgent putzes? Or maybe you just speak for yourself? (...which would be just fine by me, BTW, because I try not to be a presumptuous RRRshole.)