Why don't you review?

I always felt that, rather than read someone else's review (or them, mine), why not just buy the damn beer and drink it? It's only a buck or less for a bottle of beer. It's not like a new $10k car or a hundred dollar air conditioner or even a $4.99 record album...

Granted, prices have changed and there's more beer on the shelf (much of it I can easily reject because of brewer, style or flavoring ingredients - even stupid labels) but --- too late to start now.

 

I review some and others I don’t, biggest reasoning for the ones I don’t is that I either didn’t like it enough to give it the time of day or I forgot what I thought about it. I’m not gonna spend the time to write about something I truly didn’t like and I’m not going to make up a story about a beer I can’t properly characterize. Cheers.

 

First, why do I review?

1. It's fun for me
2. It makes me ponder the beer more, which... see #1
3. For local beers I don't think are one-offs with few reviews, it gives others who care something to go on
4. As a reference to myself, when I choose to use it... see #3

So, twisting the original question to give answer more like @BigIronH - why would I choose not do a review?

If none of the listed items apply

 

I have over 2000 beer reviews logged on BA. I stopped in late 2017. So the question for me would be "Why did you stop reviewing?" When I first started in 2011, it was simply because I liked trying new beers and I was getting sick of not remembering which ones I'd already had. At that time a full review was required to log a beer on BA, so I started honing my reviewing skills. Fast forward to 2017: I went through a period where I had to pedal back my alcohol intake, the world's beer selection had skyrocketed to the point where I could no longer remotely keep up with all the new stuff coming out and my reviews were starting to become redundant anyway, where I was using a lot of the same descriptors and adjectives over and over. Also, by that time my experimentation phase had mostly run its course. Reviewing new beers was a way for me to figure out what styles and characteristics I enjoyed and I had sufficiently accomplished that objective. These days, if I have a beer that blows me away, I'll rate it and maybe give it a quick review. But I just can no longer justify spending the time it takes to review a beer or even rate it. Maybe if I finally go for the Level 2 Cicerone certification, I'll change my tune.

 

What is wrong with using the same descriptors? Perhaps related, why does a review have to take a lot of time? I know I post some wordy reviews, but I also have a lot of short, mundane ones.

As an open question to all who might want to weigh in on this thread (and hopefully it isn't a sidetrack)... Do people who don't review feel they need to be unique or wordy?

 

The reason I don't do a review is that I'm not in a position to take notes. If I'm at a friend's house or out somewhere with folks, taking notes seems rude. By doing a review I'm not trying to influence anyone, instead it's as if I'm talking with other BAs. Here's what I taste, smell, think about this beer. When I read someone else's review they're talking to me. Just friendly communication about beer! Happy Thanksgiving y'all!

 

I don’t like having to make numeric ratings for each category. I enjoy writing reviews in various tasting threads, but assigning scores to each characteristic takes the fun out of it.

 

So, a lot of my reviews are very similar because, honestly, so many beers within a given style are so damn similar. Especially the murky, joosey turbid, frooty, 16oz can beers. The vocabulary is limited, much like the profiles of most beers of a style are limited.

 

Well, the reasons why or why not folks tend to review are pretty much a mirror image, so it's not your fault that the thread wandered a bit off the rails. It's an interesting approach to a well worn topic.

 

This probably directly answers the question of why I *do* review.

 

I don't review as much anymore as I used, which isn't saying much.
I have found it a little bit harder to articulate my impression(s) on the characteristics I am witnessing anymore so i just prefer to give a rating instead.
If I do imbibe a beer that really blows me away enough, or disgusts me enough to write a review I will.

 

I once corrected someone on some factual error re: a beer or a brewery they made in a post. (Kinda my thing - a personality defect? - yeah, I'm sure it annoys some folks but relatively harmless in the grand scheme of things and considering current state of the nation. My mother must have listened to a lot of DRAGNET on the radio when she was pregnant with me and I picked up on Joe Friday's "Just the facts, ma'am." in the womb).

Anyway, whatever it was I wrote, the other dude came back with something like:

"How can I believe that when you're so lazy you've never reviewed a beer in the X number of years and thousands of posts you've make here?"

I don't know, didn't really seem relevant to me. As if had reviewed the thousands of beers I have tried over the decades, it would make whatever I stated more accurate or believable. I'm kinda of still into the 20th century concept of "reliable sources" facts. You can drink a lot of beers and still not know much.

(Funny, I used to have about a dozen reviews of places - I was mostly interested in warning people of bad service, incorrect info, changes in ownership, tap menus, etc., but after awhile most were out-of-date, all the places had closed or changed hands, fixed the problems, etc. So I deleted them all. Save for that one which I can't delete and get the message:
The following error occurred: PLACE CLOSED
when I try. Yeah, one of the reasons I'm trying to delete it and even though half of the ones I did delete were also closed. Now it seems like I just really had it in for that place...)

 

Too bad I can’t look up any of your reviews because your page is set to private. Thanks for nothing.

 

I’ll go on the record to say that being corrected by you is a great honor and is practically an initiation to being a regular forum participant. Cheers, JK.

 

OK, you asked for it then

Click on steveh's avatar, a black window opens up with his info, click on 711 - the number of beers he's reviewed and it'll take you to a list of his reviews. At least, that works for me, and there's probably other ways to do it, too.

 

Goodness me, you’ve cracked another code. Thanks. This has been a legitimate problem for me; wanting to see reviews from certain users but not being able to view their pages. Excellent workaround. Enjoy the day, my friend.

 

I review most of the beers I drink, so your question doesn't really apply to me but I did latch onto this part of your post.

I review lots of places based on limited experiences, but the key is to make sure the review adequately describes the context and limits of the experience. For restaurants/pubs I include the time of day, the day of the week, and what i ordered so that people realize my experience at 2 pm Tuesday might not equate to their experience at 7 PM on a Friday. My burger and fries might not be indicative of the pasta or pizza at the same location. I almost always check YELP before going to a new-to-me place. A series of reviews reflecting limited experiences of other reviewers is better (IMO) than no input data at all.

 

Hey!! What makes you think I *wanted" him to see those?!