Scoring: What do the numbers mean to you?

I reckon, I miss the drinkability category in doing reviews. It was, of course, replaced by overall but add look, smell, taste, feel and drinkability together and you get your overall score. I reckon that I am old school. Shrugs.

 

Great question. That's where I would give it a 4.5 or higher on the Overall. It would get lower marks for Taste and Aroma because it doesn't smell or taste much like a German Pils. But a high mark in the Overall because I really enjoyed it. Creature Comforts Everything Is series was a good example. There were some great beers in the series. Made with Pilsner malt and different New Zealand hops. They were hard to rate (before the India Pale Lager category was formed). In the IPL category those are 90+ beers, but if I want a great Bohemian or German Pils (where they were originally classified) they were disappointing. Still really enjoyef drinking them though.

 

For me, it would depend on the hops used. I've had German Pilsners (import and domestic) of varying hop flavor and bitterness, but they've all used noble hops so I've rated them well.

As I think you've mentioned, throw Pacific NW hops into a "Pilsner" and you've lost me.

 

You make a good point. I don't see how some beers can be classified as a German style Pils if it doesn't use noble hops.

 

I created my rubirc very, very similar to this - so credit goes to you for posting it first. However, I do the following instead...

2.0 - Below Average
1.0 - Awful

Salud!

 

When you see this happen, add one full point to their score and consider that the true rating b/c what's happening is they're a hop-head who only likes American IPAs and doesn't know how to handle rating anything else to style.

 

I'm no big beer expert, so I try not to overthink it. I do try to take into account how well the beer confirms to what the brewer says it's supposed to be. I don't try to dissect style nuances because TBH I don't think the distinctions are all that clear. I also don't reserve my 5's for "THE perfect beer." I hand 'em out like Halloween candy.

Just don't piss in my beer and try to tell me it's "dank."

 

I rate like this:

The first 4 points are style based- how well does it match the ideal?

The 5th point is how much I like it.

So for example, if I am drinking, say, an ESB, scoring the taste, and it has a perfect amount of esters, the malt profile is spot on, the correct amount and impact for hop flavor and bitterness, but it uses the newer fruit salad hops, then the first 4 points will be dinged to around 2.5 because it is not a good representation of an ESB because the hops used don't provide the flavors that are expected for the style, despite the fact everything else is correct. But if I really enjoy this deviation, it would get the full point for how much I like it, and then be a 3.5 score for taste.

For me, at least, this way I can both rate to style and also rate my enjoyment in a way that feels more holistic to me than just tweaking the overall value.

 

I generally don't buy a beer if it's over 2 months old or has less than a 4 on BA and I feel like it's led to my scores being inflated. I feel like I only drink beers I'd like, so the scores should all sit in the 4s, but still it feels like I score too highly.

 

....or it just means that I like almost everything and am unable to discern the subtle differences that make one beer "better" than the other. I fully admit my sense of smell is poor so there has to be some real outlier there to give it anything other than my standard, benefit-of-the-doubt, generous "4" for smell.I do get pretty picky about looks, to compensate for that though.

 

Agreed

 

On 0 to 5, why isn’t 2.5 average?

 

Pilsner Urquell is the case in point. That's a world class beer in its style. But BAs give it a 3.6/82 or "Good". I bet it has the highest score deviation among beers with more than 2,000 ratings.

 

Because most BA raters don't understand the style.

Yeah, I've been preaching about beer style knowledge (understanding?) for a long time, but the majority don't listen. If the beer doesn't hit you over the head with flavor (or hops?) or ABV, it has to suck.

I have a +19 rDev for Urquell.

 

Yep. And most people don't know PU uses a ton of Saaz hops in the brew. It is quite a "hoppy" beer.
PU has a 19 pDev overall. Fat Head's Head Hunter IPA has roughly the same number of ratings and has an 8.3 pDev and a 4.33/96 rating. What can you do though.

 

Because it's not a linear scale and the results are distributed randomly.

In theory, professional beer producers should have an "average" quality level that is above middling. 0s, 1s, and 2s should be very rare for any metric in a commercially available product, 3s should be uncommon.

 

I'm glad I stopped reviewing. With everything being so similar these days, I'd struggle to categorize what's great, average, bad, etc.