ABV Review Bias

For me, at least, the answer is definitely not. I've had some poop beers with high ABV, and I've had some great ones. I've had some poop beers with low ABV, and again, some great ones. ABV is just another characteristic of beer, like hop profile, malt flavor, etc... the only difference is that it happens to be quantifiable.

In fact, going against what you said, I think I may even tend to commend a beer that is packed with big flavor and holds a low ABV - this means I can drink more in one sitting!!

 

I don't have a bias towards more ABV, but highly celebrated styles like Imperial Stouts and DIPAs have big ABVs and these styles also have big flavor. That's why they get big scores. I don't think most BAs rate beers higher just for getting them more intoxicated.

 

No... but ABV is, by nature, quite compelling (read: Bud Platinum).

 

All other things being equal, I might tend to rate a beer of higher ABV slightly better - but it is never that simple because, as tectactoe said above - ABV is a characteristic of beer and has an effect on all aspects of the beer.

 

Not at all. I'm not rating how big of a buzz it gives. In fact I might note how impressive a beer is if it has a low abv while still tasting big.

 

Not at all for me.

 

There was recently a thread about this; although high ABVs are common, over 30 of the Top 100 still have ABVs of 7.5% or less.

 

If anything, higher ABV results in a lower score for me. When all I taste is alcohol, every other aspect of the beer is going to suffer.

 

The question is if higher ABV = higher ratings on BA, not if you personally rate beers higher. So quit sounding like a bunch of folks trying to explain why you don't need to go to meetings - obviously higher ABV = higher ratings.

 

I'm actually more impressed when I get an awesome beer, full of flavor, with...get this...LOW ABV!

 

Good point, Zombie Dust at 6.4% ABV at #15 is the first beer on the list that is not high abv.

 

41/100 on the Popular beers list and 50/100 on the Beers of Fame list are under 8%, so I'm going to say no bias at all. You should probably drink more lambic.

 

Under 8% is low alcohol? How many are under 6%? I should drink more lambic, can't disagree with that. Probably need to get a second job to afford it though.

 

More likely, the amount of alcohol does not preclude consideration.

 

Imo anything over 6.5 is high.

 

I picked an arbitrary "lower" ABV. Have we defined what low is? We could argue on what exactly low is, but for craft beer I would think 8% would be a good starting point. We can't compare the ABV levels of craft beer to BMC IMO. Even at 7% the charts would read like this:

26/100 for Popular, 35/100 Beers of Fame.

Just because it's not a 50/50 split doesn't mean there is a bias towards higher ABV beers. A lot of the "popular" beers nowadays are barrel aged ________ and those beers tend to be higher in ABV. Lambics, gueuzes and wilds are becoming more popular by the day and you'll eventually see a leveling out against the higher ABV beers.

 

I'm not convinced that it's a strong factor here on BA, since if it were true that a high a ABV equaled a high rating BECAUSE of the alcohol, then it would follow that a low ABV beer would be rated poorly because it's lacking the one element cited as being the reason that beers are rating highly.

 

Oh, so beers get higher ratings if they taste like bourbon (or some other liqour), not because of high ABV. Got it.