NBS BIF #15 Hints and Hauls: Was it Over When the Canadians Bombed BIF #14? HELL NO!

Well, that depends on how you define "average." There are three ways to look at it.

There is a mathematical average, which is self-fulfilling; whatever the average rating is on the site is by default mathematically average, but the guide above then becomes irrelevant. I don't think the goal is to result in a 3.00 average.

Then, there is a more verbal interpretation of average. From the dictionary (skipping past mathematical average):

• "having qualities that are seen as typical of a particular person or thing"
• "mediocre; not very good"

On those same lines, good is better than average. An average beer should fall into the 3.00-3.49 range if you are using the word to mean that the beer isn't notable.

But then there's a third approach, and this is where ratings invariably skew higher than the 3.00-3.49 range. If you like beer, then the average beer is good. If you like sunny warm weather, then the average weather in Florida is good. People don't move to Florida from the Northeast because they think Florida rates a 3.00 in weather, even though the weather in Florida is quite average ... for Florida. They think that weather is, at the very least, good - and maybe very good or outstanding! (FWIW, I hate the weather in the South, but I can recognize that I'm an outlier; huge -rDev on my Florida check-in on WeatherAdvocate.)

This I think is the better approach - and throw out "average" as a concept, sticking with the rating guide from the site. Is a beer good? I start there. If a beer isn't particularly good, but it's still drinkable, it's in the 3.00-3.49 range for me - not bad, I can drink it, I wouldn't order it again if I had an alternative. If a beer is good, I'd definitely drink it again. You might well call that your average craft beer.

Once I get above 3.75, we're talking a beer that is very good, even great (assuming great has some overlap between very good and outstanding). This is a beer that isn't mind-blowing, but it's, well, it's very good, and I'd gladly order it again.

Above a 4.00, and we're talking a beer I absolutely want to revisit. It's got impressive qualities, and either it really stands out in its style, or it's really enjoyable and impressive on its own merits (in other words, it may not be unique, but the review likely identifies nothing but positive aspects). This is a beer that I would preferentially purchase over a good-to-great beer, stock my fridge with, pay extra money for, even consider ending a sentence with a preposition because of. It's that good.

In terms of what I drink, I'm normally buying beers that fall in the 3.75-4.25 range, so that's my "average" (my average rating is, indeed, 4.0). But that doesn't mean those beers are average; I'm skipping over a whole lot of beers in the aisle that I suspect I won't love (but would certainly still review if I could buy just a single).* If I buy a NE IIPA from a well respected brewery up here and I rate it a 3.5, that means I was disappointed ... but it doesn't mean it was bad. It was good, not great, and probably not worth the price (but that influences my odds of a repeat purchase, not the rating!).

From that perspective, I'm perfectly fine with my average scores. I also spend a lot of money on beer. If you only buy expensive cars, you're probably going to have, on average, a better driving experience than if you only bought cheap used cars. That doesn't mean they were worth the money (although they can be for you), but your "average" doesn't mean "average."

*I do the same thing with music. I'll listen to a single from damn near any band in the genres I like, whether or not I've heard of them. I still buy albums, however (and review them ... because of course I do), and the vast majority of albums I own are well above average. I'm only purchasing an album because I've already vetted it, or the artist has earned my trust through past performance, so I'm rarely (but sometimes) disappointed. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 1500-2000 albums, and there are fewer than a dozen that I wouldn't go back to and listen to again, at pretty much any time.

 

This shows a lot more than you probably intended (or realized). You can pretty clearly identify some delivery time frames (you do have to zoom in, though), and a quick review of what beers (or places) I reviewed after certain gaps might even reveal where I was making some of my deliveries. (Really, only two, based on memory.)

What's funny is I knew what those massive -rDev outliers were without looking them up based on those gaps. I saw the spikes surrounding that gap, and was like, "Oh, yeah, I know exactly where I was and exactly what I was drinking ... and it was not good."

Not even average.

 

Haul Hint: I have verified my target's beer reviews. Of the breweries I was planning to send, he has never reviewed a single beer from five of them. There are now three more breweries I have added to the list that he has never tried. There are at least three breweries that, though he has reviewed at least one beer from each of them, getting him new beers will not be difficult.

 

I've got our T-shirt sizes, and can confirm that this is not the case.

 

Haul Hint: I posted three beers a moment ago on WBAYDN? None of those three beers are likely to go to my target, but both breweries will be represented.