Brickyard - Lava Lounge. I gave it 3.22, which is +52.6% rDev. De Struise - Pannepot. I gave it a 2.14, which is -50.6% rDev. I guessed Pannepot would be be high on my list of negative rDev beers.
Most surprising deviation was Cantillion Gueze at -14.2, but that was because I drank it at 10 years. Also, Stone Encore 02.02.02 at 10 years was at 20.8. Aging is a tricky thing...
To the plus side mine is a bygone local The Booth Brewing - Kukmin IPA +24%. I loved this beer and this brewery and miss them both on the local scene. I also apparently reviewed it on a sample straight out of the brite tank at one of their awesome events they used to have at their brewery. So that probably helped. The two that surprised me the most though are; De Proefbrowerij - K-O Blond at +21%. I think this is such a great and unique beer that really speaks to the excellence of Belgian beer. I get that the Belgian Strong Pale Ale category has some heavy hitters, but it's sheer insanity to me that this one doesn't crack the top 20,000! AND New Belgium Brewing - VooDoo Ranger Imperial IPA at +19.4% ! Granted, it was 2017 and I referred to the brewery as "Fat Tire" in my review, but i really liked it and called it a clear west coast ipa. Has it changed? Is it still crisp and bitter? I haven't had it in many years. And I would not have guessed I would like it so much. On the negative side its Short's Brewing - Hopstache at -36%. This was 2013, shortly after I joined this site, and I was on probation, in a town with no friends, and growing weed in my basement. So I was just chilling at home all day and I would often walk to a nearby liquor store and grab singles of new stuff to try. And I still remember how disappointing this beer was. I don't get what people liked about it. Most notable to me is Treehouse Brewing - King Julius at -22.2%. A very kind BA sent me a box of Treehouse beers to try completely free and unsolicited. A true act of beer karma that I can never repay. I don't really like the neipa style but I tried my level best to rate to style. Most got over a 4 and Haze was something I would love to drink again and got a 4.54 and genuinely helped me understand the appeal of the style. But I thought King Julius was pretty whack. Just not a very good beer. I am clearly in the minority there.
There is no reason to justify any review of a Short's beer. Notoriously hit or miss, and to your taste And there were a ton of infection issues in the 2000s.
I gave up on Short's a long time ago. Humulupalicious is still a great beer, though. Soft Parade, as well.
My two highest ones are Miller Lite and Bud Light Orange. I regret nothing! My biggest negative is Sunday Molé Stout from the otherwise reliable Weyerbacher. I don't know if something went haywire with it or with me but it was bad enough that I can still kind of picture the moment I had it. Kind of a slow motion, life passing before your eyes kind of deal. My second biggest negative, if I may borrow a term from the OP, is some Hoppin Frog nonsense. Smashing Jalapeño Blonde. I recall that moment even more than the Weyerbacher. I go into detail in the review/therapy session.
The last Short's beer I had was Bellaire Brown a few 5 years ago. It was still solid. If I'm ever up that way I'd stop into the pub in a heartbeat, but they're not something I seek out when I'm back in Michigan these days
Bud Light at +90.4%. Doesn’t surprise me that it’s a (light) AAL with the historic beer snobbery baked in among some craft beer enthusiasts, but I wonder if there isn’t some intentional anti-trans bullshit attached to that particular brand. My second highest is Old English 800. Anyone who can’t appreciate that is missing out.
I have two… Stroh’s for me was +37.1% ( @beergoot ) Stoup NW Red, the greatest beer on earth, +34.8% Then a slew of +30-19%, I tend to look for the good in things I guess. The ones who know me best we say I see more negatives than positives, not the case in beer I guess.
My current highest is Crazy Ed's Cave Creek Chili Beer, at +90.4% (3.37/5). Second is Olde English 800 High Gravity, at +84.5% (4.06/5). Coming in third is Milwaukee's Best Premium, at +61.9% (3.06/5). My lowest by far is Bud Light Platinum, at -50.2% (1.12/5). I don't think my ratings for the top three are unreasonable at all. Crazy Ed's is exactly what it claims to be, and a rating of 3.37 isn't that great anyway. I drank OE800HG out of a Miller Lite Taste Activator™ glass. Surprisingly smooth and crisp, with no off flavors or fusel nastiness. I bought a 15-pack of Milwaukee's Best Premium for five bucks to boil bratwurst in and saved one to sample. Nothing earth-shaking but everyone else seems to have hated it. Thus the rDev. Bud Light Platinum is far and away the worst beer I have ever put into my mouth. I made the mistake of pouring it into a cup, which opened up aromas of roadside ditch water on a stifling summer day in rural Ohio. No joke. Suggested serving temperature on this foul concoction should be 0 K to preclude any possibility of molecular motion.
Highest plus was Stone Crime at +27.5. Didn't mind the heat, enjoyed with burritos. Lowest was a recent Bonn Place English Dark Mild called Nemo. Very acidic. -44.5. When I looked at this, abount 95% of my beers fall within 10 points either way.
My highest rDev beers are from Stone, a pair of chile beers: Punishment (+48.5%) and Crime (+45%). I like spicy stuff in general and those were SPICY big beers that I shared with our son, who also likes spicy stuff. Loved them both. My lowest rDev was Tiberian Inquisitor from Three Floyds (-52.5%). It tasted like nail polish. One of two drain pours I’ve ever had.
Dude, what are the odds we’d both list Crime - IN CONSECUTIVE POSTS??? I didn’t see your post until I made mine. Imma go buy some lottery tickets!!!
Surprisingly it was a Miller Lite I had from a keg at a fund raising event at an American Legion. I rated it a 3.34 (+ 48.4%) Even more surprising when I scrolled down the page, there were much higher ratings than mine. Makes me wonder if the big brewers were looking at the earlier low ratings and tweaking their recipes for improving the scores? On the other end of the spectrum, I rated New Trail Brewing’s “Lazy River Pils” at 2.17 (- 40.9%). This one also got low scores from others, mostly for being an adulterated Pilsner, and low quality beer. The real slap in the face is that it was a Gold Medal winner at the Great American Beer Festival! Experiences like this have me rethinking my hopes of attending the Great American Beer Festival some day.
I am too lazy to go through all of my 1600 reviews, but from the most recent 50, I deviated - 20% for Easy Operator Deciduous Brewing Company
If I'm reading you right you think this is a manual exercise to find the max rDevs for the plus and minus. It isn't. Go to your list on My Beers, click on the column header and get the column arranged highest to lowest. Click again and you'll get lowest to highest. Easy peasy.
4 about +30%. Bohemia Clasica +29% with an explanation. BA says Bohemian Pilsner. It is NOT. I rated it as American Adjunct Lager (it IS an adjunct lager, about the best I've tasted). Kudos to brewer Heineken. Other 3 ratings less meaningful.
+83.1% rDev for Old Milwaukee +82.9% rDev for Busch I've got a couple 60+ and three 50+ then the madness begins to calm down some. It's an interesting topic that I think about often here on BA.com b/c IMO we're not very good at rating to style. Just because an American adjunct lager isn't a barrel-aged stout or American IPA doesn't mean it can't be a 4+/5 — after all, we're not judging it against BCBS or Heady Topper. We're judging it against Budweiser (or thereabouts).
