Should we split up the Top 250 Rated Beers?

Point taken. I guess what I meant to say is that I don’t CARE if the top rated beers are difficult to acquire. Typically, however, most have been limited and/or rare and I’m 100% okay with that.

 

Many responses here surprise me. The BA database has certain data for each beer. A restructuring of the top 250 list would change the organization of things according to that data, but it will not change the data. It seems like a good portion of people are not fully taking this into consideration and are instead taking the interesting proposal as a magic fix to something they dislike.

Simply excluding "rotating and seasonal" beers will not take the price of the beer into account. It will not take distribution area into account. It will not take production output into account. It will not take batch size into account. It will not negate people's ratings biases for certain styles. It will probably not create a list that can be ticked without trading. I'm guessing it might not get SNPA on the list (it's currently ranked as the 5,248th best beer... down 4 spots from yesterday). The list will exclude by design something like Celebration, but it would potentially include a draft-only, brewery-only beer from a small brewery.

What that exact organizational change will do is make the output of certain brewers ineligible for consideration for BA's top beers list... brewers who have a business model with practically everything in their portfolio as a rotational (a business model that likely has increasing popularity in the industry).

I decided to quickly scan the top beers of NY list to see how many of them were year-round. After some spot checking, I only found 4 on the top 100. Half of those were incorrectly listed as year-round. I also found a year-round beer that was incorrectly listed as rotating. It also became clear that different people have different definitions of year-round. The Other Half website currently has 152 beers categorized as "year-round" vs "occasional" (yeah, right). The first year-round beer on their list is not currently available for purchase at the brewery (unsurprisingly) and it is listed as "rotating" on BA. In other words, even if such a change was made to the BA list, the change will only be as valuable as the accuracy of the data.

Would I like to see what a top 250 year-round list would look like? Sure. But as THE top 250 list, I imagine that it would be excluding a big portion of today's craft beer culture (and therefore be a poorer reflection of it in some respects) and not really providing the "beer for everyone" list that some here seem to envision/desire. It was stated in the OP that the list has become stagnant as a result of the current format. Changing the list to year-round only would shake things up tremendously at first, but after that initial upheaval, I can't imagine the list becoming any less stagnant. I would expect the limiting of the beers to just year-round offerings to potentially make the list even more stagnant since there will be fewer eligible beers and a tougher barrier for entry.

 

I voted to keep the top 250 list the way it is. To me, it’s representative of current reviewers’ tastes. It may seem static in the short term, but it’s changed a lot since 2004. Personally, it’s of little use to me to set goals for trying beers, but it’s interesting to see how many I’ve had. (No surprise that I’ve had many more of the beers of fame.)

In short- keep the top 250 as is, but i like the idea of the year-round/seasonal lists.

 

I did not vote because my feelings are in that muddled area between the extremes. I say keep the Top 250 but make some changes. In addition to the ideas already discussed, I question whether you should use all ratings, no matter how old, to populate the list. That beer that was mind blowing 10 years ago when it had less competition is likely "good but nothing really special" nowadays. A rising tide doers not always lift all boats. So I say let ratings more than 7, 10 or 12 years old drop out of the database as far as compiling the list (definitely do not delete them from the site though!) and adjust rankings accordingly. I am definitely not a ticker and have no dog in this fight; just my thoughts.

Just don't mess with Beers of Fame.

 

Keep the current list then offer a different top 250 that features beers that aren't one offs

 

One-offs aren’t included on the top 250 currently.

 

Maybe I’m misreading what you’re saying, and my apologies if I am. But what you said to @cavedave is that it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t have a practical purpose or value to him, because he’s only one person.

Isn’t your opinion the opposite, and you’re the only one holding it? (I realize you aren’t, but @cavedave is far from the only one holding his opinion either).

So what metric should we use to determine if the list is useful then?

One might say that the people responding to this thread/voting in it are the only who do care.

Also, maybe the site needs more traffic/members, and since the “Top 250” list is a key feature of the site, wouldn’t that be one of the first things you’d change to generate more user activity?

@Todd

 

Took me a while to get to this, but I agree with the majority. Split this up, make it more attainable, and sit back see the stats go wild...

 

What I am noticing, and finding confusing, is the idea that the top list "doesn't have a practical purpose". It is, very simply, a list of the best regarded, currently produced, beers in the world by the rating community of BeerAdvocate users. That might or might not be useful information to any given person, but it just is what it is. Its the list of the best rated beers in the world, according to the aggregate of users on this site. Period.

Its usefulness to me is largely confined to that of any cultural artefact. It conveys some information to me about the broader culture around beer in the US currently. I probably have looked at it less than 10 times in my life. Other people derive other value from it. Its had it's metrics tweaked a number of times apparently, presumably in an attempt to make it more "useful" to more people. However, it seems obvious that making a dramatic change like turning it into something like "top 250 beers that aren't extremely difficult to obtain" would really just turn it into an entirely different thing and it would lose essentially all of its current usefulness and have a new and different usefulness. People, myself included, who remain curious about what the general beer nerd regards as the "best" beers period will just have to find another list that aggregates drinker submitted ratings to consider to answer that question.

I don't see how a dramatic change.like that, rather than a simple addition of another list, adds any net benefit to BA. But I'm also not in charge of this site or heavily invested in the lists either way, so maybe I'm missing something. I trust that @Todd and the team will continue to make well considered choices about their assets but I do think the notion that the "top beers" list needs to be "useful" beyond conveying the aggregate best rated beers is kind of silly. It is what it is.

 

Completely agree.

Not implying you didn’t think that, but I just wanted to be clear since you quoted my post. Not that I’m offended or anything either, but your post was well said, and I do agree.

 

This one:

In my opinion, no - if it's one of the most viewed pages on this site.

Anyways, my point was that the poll was binary, and maybe a bit confusing. You could vote split it up and really mean "keep it the same but split out a new list of year-round", or you could mean "split it up and don't have one overall list". I think a more useful poll would have a middle ground option.

 

As a bar owner, I'd LOVE to get my hands on most of the current top 250, but they simply aren't available in Georgia. I like the idea of the Hall of Fame 250, but I'd be more interested in referring to a list of currently popular and respected beers that are nationally/regionally available, just to keep our rotating offerings fresh and exciting. Cheers!

 

I love the idea of regional lists- or at least having the option to sort by region. I would find useful from a consumer point of view and would welcome use by bar/restaurant owners as well.

When I travel, it’s nice to know what are the well regarded regional beers, so that I can keep an eye out when preparing for dinner or eating out. (Yards brawler and Philadelphia pale ale are standouts and I’m not sure if I’d found the had I not been looking based on recommendations for standout shelf beers I saw in the forums.)

We’re heading to Boston this summer and I’m looking forward to finding some Jack’s Abby in the wild.

 

Which beers are you still missing?

 

I think you should definitely keep the "whale beers" top 250 (e.g. current list) as that's part of the cache of Beer Advocate (and greases the baseball card 'esque trading wheels), but also add a Top 250 Mainstream list for beers that are actually produced each year that one can more readily.

 

Just noticed that the "Bottom of the Barrel" list is gone. In addition to being a public health and safety asset, it was a fun list to peruse.

 

So @Todd just wondering when a decision or change may or may not be made on whether to keep the current Top 250?

I probably am not going to keep trying trading for them if the list is going away or drastically changing ….Thanks!

 

Awesome thanks again for listening!! I agree creating new lists but keeping the old should be a win win