Are beer ratings biased?

I do this, but when it comes to a sour beer, I'm usually not sure if it's categorized as an American Wild Ale, Berliner, Saison, etc. Some of those styles are pretty open to interpretation, as some saisons are tart/sour. This definitely wasn't a typical saison in the sense that I think of one, but maybe that's what the brewery is calling it, I wasn't sure so didn't correct that. There are times though when I usually have to correct information on beers, and I do that often. But if an uninformed person were to see that and rate strictly to style, it wouldn't be good for the beer or brewery.

 

Good on you. As do you I think it's unfair to the beer/brewery when it's miscategorized. Quite often I notice the conflict because the bottle label and the category don't agree.

One thing that can also help if there's not information on the Brewery website is to do a Google search on the beer (not too time consuming) and look for some other verification (e.g., do the search, click on images and check out a few labels then provide that link as a pointer), As mentioned by @MNAle the mods usually deal with it quite quickly.

 

Numbers like words can lie, but compile those numbers over hundreds of tastings and it evens out to a point where the data are useful. I use BA ratings as a precautionary "hey, now" moment if I'm about to buy a sixer of a new beer that I don't know about. IF it gets 3.8/5 and above, I'm more likely to try it out. If it doesn't, well... buyer be warned.
It's a bit like people who contest the Consumer Reports ratings for reliability. It's not CR rating stuff, it's consumers. So I find it useful. Plus, yay data! #BeerFacts.

 

I'd say it's fairly well accepted that NE-style IPAs are different and need to be judged to that style and not as a traditional or a West Coast IPA. It can get confusing though as it's really becoming a spectrum.

 

Sometimes they are biased, and sometimes they reflect the immediate time we first have a beer and think it is pretty darn nice. Upon later reflection one might say-How did I rate that one so high ? Of course we may have had more impressive beers since the rating we now question.

At any rate-bad pun-, ratings to me are just an indicator and not gospel. I know of one beer revered by many that I think is just average. It's all personal taste in the end.

 

The way I help those local breweries is that when I see they come out with new beers, I add them on BA so that anyone inclined to rate them will be able to. I expect that a lot of folks on BA don't add beers and places when they go to do a rating and can't find it.

 

Except that they aren't a style.

 

Speaking for myself, yes biased, nope I don't really care what the overall score by others is, it's my rating. I figure lots of folks are similar, not pro judges.

 

When only two styles, actually sub styles, starting with "imperial" more than dominate the top beers it Is not a ranking at all.

The site is great for information on almost any beer you want to try, but the ranking is only indicative of current tastes.

 

You can't give a beer less than a 'perfect' 1, so if ratings were uniformly distributed (that is any rating was equally likely) you'd expect the average to float around 3.

 

Actually I think this is wrong, but I gotta get to work. The problems with trying to talk statistics before coffee.

 

I rate my beers against their individual styles rather than across the board. But I'm still biased towards weihenstephaner, I love all thier beer

 

I prefer stouts and found that I would usually give them higher ratings than other types. I have gone back and amended my ratings since. I now compare each beer against others of like style. There is some good advice to be found on the Beer Advocate 101 under how to rate a beer. I appreciate the instruction to not review a style you hate. Reviewing according to style has involved a lot more thought, but also,a lot more sampling, so I don't complain.

 

Bias is what burns my ass. I like IPA's. You like Lagers. They like Stouts. It's all relative and based on personal preference. Don't tell me mine is not as good as yours. You like what you like and I like what I like. Period.

 

All of them. Unless you taste blind, it's impossible to be unbiased.

 

True, but it drastically reduces bias.

 

Well actually that depends the method in which the blind tasting is conducted. Some methods allow more bias to creep in than do others that deal with reducting or eliminating known biasing effects.

 

For sure biases will be brought to the table. But there are some methods by which they can be controlled for and their effects eliminated or canceled out. (However, those methods are difficult enough to implement that they may not be needed in the sense of being overkill.)