Stepping away from beer ratings

It’s funny, I started getting more seriously into beer and reviewing/rating specifically because I had recently started a family. Our daughter was about 3 years old when I joined BA—I had just started working again after being a stay-at-home dad for about 18 months, and as I found myself with some extra spending money (after being a one-income family for so long), plus lots of time at home and a routine dictated by our daughter’s naps and 12-hour nighttime sleep schedule, I found tasting new beers and trying to thoughtfully capture the experience of drinking them to be a perfectly complementary hobby for my new life. The main thing was always drinking in moderation in case anything happened in the parental realm that suddenly required me to be a fully functioning, responsible adult. That was good too as it allowed me to really savor and experience each new beer I tried.

But there is a season for everything and everyone is on their own journey, so good for you to know when it’s time to get off this particular train. At least every beer you’ve tried is documented and your reviews will serve as a resource for other beer enthusiasts for as long as BA exists. Cheers!

 

You definitely have some impressive accomplishments. Congrats on staying active for 19+ years!

 

Sad to see a big time reviewer step away, but I understand. All the best with you family! 19 active years on a forum is pretty wild.

I'm closing in on year nine year. I was a consistent reviewer the past several years, but the past year or so I've found myself losing general interest. I still take notes (and score) nearly everything I try. Though the past year, I've found myself directing my thoughts into a notepad (either virtual or physical) rather than reviewing, even when I'm at my own computer. In total, as a conservative guess, my notepads contain 100+ beer notes and scores that I haven't bothered to review yet. Unfortunately, I've begun to find the process of writing reviews tedious and time consuming, especially when factoring in copying over my thoughts into a spreadsheet to serve as a personal back up (BA has never introduced the export feature.) Some of it also feels pointless, with my focus on local beers, nearly all local beers (aside from Boulevard) don't achieve the ten reviews/ratings needed to be assigned a BA score, meaning there is never, and really hasn't ever been, enough local coverage to provide an accurate snapshot of our beer scene. It doesn't feel right for me to solely represent a metro area's beer production.

 

Best of luck, sir. Thanks for all of your contributions.

 

I think many of us that have been reviewing for over 10+ years can have some similar feelings as @cratez . I still enter new Places and Beers into the database, at least rate what I can. I can remember the early years I was deep into reviewing every beer. Many times I’d pop a beer and try to review it before dinner but wife would surprise me with dinner on the table earlier than I anticipated and I’d be on the computer rushing my review narrative so I could join the family for dinner. All I needed was 3-5 extra minutes. It probably was very annoying to my wife and kids I’m sure waiting for me to join them. I learned though and glad for ability to do quick ratings now for those situations. At taprooms, I just take a quick picture of the beer list and rate them later on or the next day.

 

Thank you for all your contributions! and thank you for that Bar Towel link. I’ll keep that handy

 

Take a bow, cratez! Your voice has been a help for others.

I can relate to taking a pause with the reviews. Life is always changing and bringing new challenges. Enjoy your pause, and you can always come back.

 

This was a big thing for me when I decided to stop reviewing and rating

It used to be my routine to review 2 or 3 beers every night and, similar to not wanting to be on my phone when going out, I wanted to stop spending so much time on my laptop and hang with my partner

Reviewing beers was a way for me to learn about all the different styles and hone in on my favorites. After I had mostly accomplished that, it then started to feel redundant as I was using many of the same descriptors over and over again. Add to that a bit of a drinking problem and it became clear to me I had to pump the brakes. Every once in a blue moon when I have a beer I could see myself rating a 5, I'll review it or rate it. But that's it

 

My reviewing pace has slowed quite a bit over the years, but that's primarily because my consumption has dropped. I still enjoy doing a review after my kids have went to bed in the evenings. It's a good way to unwind after the day.

 

The main reason I review beers is selfish; to track what I've had and which I liked. I mostly drink new-to-me beers to review them, and only occasionally buy old favorites (typically BA dark beers to cellar). If/when I ever step away from reviewing, it will probably be quitting for health reasons, though I could envision dropping back to just rating to save time. It would be hard to break the habit of taking pictures of every beer I have.

 

Ive also stepped away from reviewing beers this year. Do a handful every month. I do enjoy reviewing places when i travel and continue to reviews places .

 

That's why I still take private notes, either in a physical notebook or a notebook app on my phone. The notes give me enough information to reflect on what I experienced with a particular beer without taking the time to turn the lists & adjectives into sentences & paragraphs before I then copy it over to my spreadsheet. In a way, it's only 'for me' at that point.

I also take a photo of every beer I have, and with Google Photos, it makes it super easy to find when I had a beer by searching up the image to locate the date and place the image was taken. If it's draft beer, I'll occasionally add the beer name in the description so it can be searched, though I'm less consistent with doing this.