I was thinking about this recently. We all rate beers based on look, smell, taste, and feel. However, is there a specific category that influences you more than others? Does one sway your overall rating? For example, if look, smell, and feel got 3s, but taste got a 4, would your overall be more likely to edge towards 4? Similarly, does one category frequently sink a beer for you? Link chunks or floaties (impacting look), a strange smell, or perhaps a feel that is too thin or too thick?
Taste makes or breaks a beer in my mind, and has by far the greatest influence over my ratings. Look and smell are important but they very rarely affect my enjoyment of the beer. Even a poor in-mouth feel can also be (somewhat) forgiven if the beer is absolutely delicious. It’s just impossible to ignore a bad taste in a beer, even if the look, smell, and feel are flawless.
Taste has got to be at least 75% to me. If a beer has a 5 flavor and somehow has 1s across the rest of the categories thats still a 3.5 beer at least.
Alright, looks like taste takes the early lead. I'm sure it isn't too surprising. I wonder if ratings would be different if more weight was put on the taste category.
Taste I can always tell what I really think about a beer by looking at my taste rating in relation to my overall rating. The overall rating is for the Alstrom brothers, the integrity of the database, my weak attempt to rate to style. The taste rating is mine.
Aroma is over-rated and visuals are under-rated. I'd weight them as follows: Visuals - 20% Aromas - 5% Body - 20% Flavors - 40% Quaffability - 15%
The things that drag a beer down to me besides flavor, bear in mind I believe nose & mouthfeel are force multipliers for taste: Mouthfeel & Nose. A beer has to be ugly as Hell to really drag it down; reference my Michelada pics. Had tons of great beers that just were duds on looks. That could be down handling & care all the way to how the glass was washed Drinkability to me is the sum of all parts. Although I've some had epic go down easy beers that weren't all that style-wise
I appreciate a good-looking beer but it’s not gonna make me buy it again if it doesn’t taste good. Aroma is just an early indicator of flavor and usually gives me a good idea of what to expect—but especially with hoppy beers it can be a powerful factor on its own in how much I enjoy a beer, especially that first whiff just after cracking the can. But flavor is obviously (to me anyway) the make-or-break factor. If I don’t like how it tastes, then why am I drinking it?
I am going to apologize in advance for a reply I am writing for this, but I truly agree that taste is very well a priority for any level of beer drinker, but my reply is going to answer this query as a beer professional. Some drinkers will not like my professional opinion on the matter, but I figure after all these years it is time to share that so this forum as a whole can have a little bit of additional flavor so to speak!
I agree with most of what is being said here that taste is the deciding factor. At the end of the day, if it does not taste right, nothing else is going to save it. Where I would add a layer from a training and process standpoint is that taste does not really exist in isolation. What most people identify as taste is heavily informed by aroma and how the brain is processing both together. In sensory training, one of the simplest demonstrations is having someone hold their nose while tasting something, then releasing it. The difference is immediate. That is not theory, that is how perception works. In brewery training and off flavor work, we were always taught to control the environment to isolate variables. Neutral water, unsalted crackers, and yes, even resetting aroma between samples which is often done with roasted coffee beans placed in a small cup. That is a standard approach in structured tastings because aroma fatigue is real and it directly affects perception. From a practical standpoint, I tend to think of taste as the final decision point, but aroma and mouthfeel as force multipliers that shape that decision before you even take a full sip. You can pick up fermentation issues, oxidation, hop expression, or contamination signals on the nose before they fully register on the palate. So I land close to where a few others are already pointing. Taste makes or breaks a beer. But the inputs that define that taste start earlier in the process of perception, and that is where aroma and structure carry more weight than they might seem at first glance.
Thinking about what @Giovannilucano brought up, this would be my modified scale: Taste - 60% Aroma - 25% Feel - 10% Look - 5% I agree that aroma and taste are inextricably linked. The reason I still give so much more weight to taste in this context is that I've had plenty of experiences of a beer that had a very muted aroma but still had a really enjoyable flavor. I've also experienced beers, mostly hoppy pale ones, that had really vibrant and enjoyable aromas but had really underwhelming flavors. Those beers are ones I'm probably not going to revisit, while the one with muted aromatics but enjoyable flavors are definitely on the menu to revisit. Mouth feel/drinkability are closely liked, for me, and definitely fit into the "force multiplier" category. A good-great feel can absolutely elevate a beer. An utterly terrible one can tank a beer. Most of the time it is just a part of the experience.
This is why I'm so sad that I have a horrible sense of smell. I can smell a beer the first time I pick it up, then I take it away from my nose, wait 5 seconds and smell again, and I smell absolutely nothing. I've tried the smelling coffee thing and it doesn't help. I feel like I'm missing out on a lot. I recently learned that there's a chance you can re-develop your sense of smell through training. Might have to give that a try.
I chose feel then I saw the results.. wow My two cents: most beers taste decent enough, and I believe it’s far harder to get the feel right (at least, in my view, it’s quite rare to encounter amazing mouthfeel) - especially with the plurality of drinkable but otherwise forgettable craft beers these days, mouthfeel goes a long way toward standing out
Taste is the final result I rate on. But I always smell a beer first. Too strong a hops smell? Nope. Dirty line funk? Nope. Metallic (which probably goes along with hops, but could be the water)? Nope. So smell will impact my rating, but mostly impacts whether I’m even drinking the beer or not. If it passes the smell test, it better pass the taste test.
That's also where appearance comes in, maybe to a lesser degree, but still a factor. There's a saying in aircraft design: If it looks right, it will fly right. An ugly beer (or any food) is giving you a negative impact before it gets anywhere near your nose or tongue. We eat, first, with our eyes.
I like this breakdown. It lines up well with how a lot of us actually experience a beer, just put into clearer proportions. Your point about aroma and taste being linked is right on. I have had plenty of beers that smell great but do not carry through on the palate, and that disconnect stands out quickly. From a brewing standpoint, the goal is always alignment between aroma and flavor, but it does not always land that way. On feel and drinkability, I agree with the force multiplier idea. Mouthfeel should support the beer, not work against it. A stout can be full and heavy, but still balanced and not fatiguing. Lighter styles should feel clean and refreshing without coming across as thin. While I still personally see taste as the main factor, aroma can absolutely become a bigger factor if you understand how much it feeds into that perception. The more attention you give it, the more it shapes what you are actually experiencing as flavor. I also know look is not going to factor in much for a lot of people. The only time I really see it mattering more is in a taproom setting where presentation is part of the experience, but that is a different discussion for another thread.
That is actually really interesting to hear, and I appreciate you sharing that. Now I am curious, because I do not really remember this being something that came up in beer training on my end. What you are referring to does exist though. It is usually called smell training or olfactory training, and it has been used in clinical settings, especially for people recovering from illness or loss of smell. If you want to look into it, a few credible places to start are Fifth Sense, AbScent, Cleveland Clinic, and Mayo Clinic. They all have material on smell training and how it is approached. It is not beer specific, but the crossover is obvious. If it helps even a little, it could absolutely improve how someone experiences aroma and, by extension, flavor.
