Should we split up the Top 250 Rated Beers?

I actually paid more attention to the BoF list than the Top 250, for the reason that more of them had both stood the test of time and were actually drinkable without extreme effort. If this idea creates something similar but with more recent beers as well, that would only be a good thing in my opinion.

 

I think rotating seasonal is fine if it is decent volume and annually recurring. People can and do still get those just fine. Just my $0.02.

 

The list shouldn't be altered, the list is stagnant because of the lack of overall reviews left for newer beers. This causes the older beers to stay. The list has evolved to include to breakout by state and country if someone wants to dial it in.

Instead have a separate list of Top 250 year round beers, but the TOP 250 should be the TOP 250 regardless

 

I think it’s fine to maintain a top 250 while emphasizing the filter options available (country, state, style, seasonal, etc.) and perhaps add a couple other filter options (such as seasonal availability) that allows you to produce your own custom list.

 

This!

 

Please, Please, PLEASE do NOT split up the list. As someone who has hit 240 out of the Top 250, I REALLY do not want to have to lose beers in my count that I've worked so hard to tick. The Top 250 list SHOULD BE stagnant, it's IMPOSSIBLE for tickers to hit a moving target.

The list is ALREADY a moving target, I've had too many trade experiences where I traded a lot on my end just for the Top 250 beer to be "Retired" later. It's really annoying . The "Retired" criteria is also way too unclear imo.

On another note, I really feel having a Retired Top 250 or 100 list is also worth discussing. There are lots of people looking to tick some of the old whales/top beers. How will anyone know about Vanilla Rye or BBT or Bourbon County Barleywine if they aren't even on any list?

Just my two cents, but as a ticker with an active interest in the Top 250 list, I'd prefer if we could make the list MORE stagnant, not less. I almost prefer the Untappd Top Rated Beer format, where they just live the overall Top Rated beers including retired beers. Only when a truly new and amazing beer comes around will it be placed on the list.

 

Doesn't "top rated beers by style" already allow users to find highly rated and often more accessible beers for all of the various styles?

 

It might be great to tag the beers with types, subtypes and regions (state/country?). You could still have the big list of 250 but it could be filtered on demand to cater to the individual.

 

Any list where SNPA isn't #1 can hit the bricks.

 

Along these lines, I’d also welcome a best-by-country list.

 

Some beers are knowingly rather difficult to acquire but I like the chase as it is. The list is awesome.

 

I voted no. Keep the Top Rated Beer list as it but start a Top Rated “beers you can get list”. Talking about beers you can get I’m drinking a top 250 beer right now, King Sue from Toppling Goliath # 48 on the list.

 

We should consider having a top retired beer list, then go from there

 

I wouldn't oppose introducing a new list of year-round beers, but I think it's interesting to compare all beers in a general category, so I think a top-250 list that any beer is eligible to go on should remain. If this list no longer existed, I would be a lot less interested in this site.

Separately, I would add that "year-round" beers is potentially a very limiting category. If a "year-round beer" is a beer that is produced and sold every day of every year, then I don't think this list would contain many interesting beers, since business concerns require breweries to only produce the safest beers with the broadest appeal with such frequency and in such quantities. It's inherently only in more limited products that breweries are allowed to be creative and make something special, which is part of why the top-250 list is mainly composed of rarer beers.

And, while it might be frustrating to see a long list of beers you've never drunk and and will probably never get the chance to try without great effort and expense, I think it's beneficial to the industry to introduce casual drinkers of beer to what are held to be the very best products, because without a list like this there probably wouldn't be much demand for limited runs in the first place. The idea of a limited run of a product like beer is a an unusual one that those who aren't familiar with this business would find counterintuitive; so if people who are just getting into beer never get the opportunity to hear about special releases, special releases might become less frequent due to lack of interest. So even if you never get to try CBS, you should support the existence of this list so that future products like CBS, which you might in fact get the opportunity to try, will continue to be produced.

I admit that it's problematic to compare beers that people can't easily try to ones that are being sold in stores right now, since the ratings of the former will remain stagnant, but this is also true of movies and books that are out of print versus ones that you can download now, and critics should still introduce these less available movies and books to audiences, since this tends to edify those audiences by encouraging them to search beyond the most accessible offerings.

In a word, year-round beers are the ones that breweries are betting that they'll make their money on; these are going to get promoted by the breweries regardless of whether there's a special ranking of them online. Limited beers have less value as a source of revenue, and are either ways of keeping hardcore beer enthusiasts loyal to the brand or a way for the breweries to express themselves creativity. Year-round beers will continue to be produced and drunk as long as there are breweries, but limited beers might not be produced or drunk if there is no longer a suggestion that these beers offer something that the year-round beers don't. The influence that Beer Advocate has on the industry should not be underestimated, and I think it would be sad if more niche beers could not be produced due to lack of interest.

 

I see no problem in having an ultimate Top 250 beers as you've had, however I like the idea of a more mainstream and regular drinking Top 250 list of the more available and lower alcohol beers. Your Top 250 beers is mainly filled with rare, not readily available beers with a higher to very high alcohol content which many beer drinkers do not find to their liking, nor can they ever have an opportunity to ever even locate the beers. I like a list of what most people are able to buy and enjoy most of the time.

 

I would be very concerned about seeing the Top 250 change so dramatically. That list has a lot of meaning to many BAs, and I know plenty who have invested a lot into "completing" it. I can appreciate that. The whales are part of the challenge, and I think it adds the the allure of certain beers (Good Morning, KBBS, etc..).

I'm all for additional tabs, and ecpanded options, and while I think many here would blindly vote "yes" on this, I do think that kind of change would be pretty crushing to a lot of people who really take it seriously. My vote would be to leave the Top 250 list as-is, and maybe expand/add to the other list options.

 

Maybe have a minimum number of reviews to qualify.

Say at least 500 or something.

 

I like the idea of keeping the original list and adding one or two more, such as a “year round” list.

But if you did this, what about making them Top 100 lists again?

I really dug how clean and simple a Top 100 list looked.

 

I voted yes, but I think it's more of my problem is with how all the lists are constructed. It's not through lack of effort on BA's part (e.g. trending and new are both great ways to help different breweries get some recognition). It's more that some breweries have such a following on this site that whenever they have a new beer, it's going to make it on these lists. Like the fact that Tree House has 43 beers on the "New" list is kind of ridiculous. It just makes it frustrating to navigate in a way. I personally would be looking for new or emerging breweries. Even breaking it down by state is kinda of difficult when state lists are dominated by very few breweries.