Beer Rating Curiosity

Totally agreed - and it sucks a bit when the umpteenth IPA is released and they are all really a bit the same...

 

At my beer club last week we gave Orkney's Skull Splitter our highest rating of the night -- however, there were other beers we tried (one was a session IPA) that all agreed we'd prefer to drink on a regular basis. It was just that the Skull Splitter had the most bold, complex, nuanced flavors, and we couldn't deny that it was by far the most interesting beer.

So, while I might reiterate what others have said, when I'm in the beer section and want to select something I'm familiar with, the best beer -- or the one I will give the highest rating -- is not necessarily the one I will pick. Which is why I should probably do a better job tailoring my ratings to the style. Obviously the imperial stout is going to be a more complex and interesting drinking experience than a pilsner ... but the pilsner is like an entirely different drink, with wildly different intentions.

Therefore -- and while I know it's not going necessarily going to happen -- I firmly believe we should make a concerted effort to grade beers relative to their style. I'd love to see more (or any) lagers in the Top 250!

 

Sounds like the perfect beer bar...as long as the other 10 are Imperial Stouts! Wow, 20 different IPAs on tap...awesome thought....

 

It might help to understand that in Germany, words like "Bock", "Dopplebock", "Export", "Märzen", and so on are really just to indicate strength, not style per se. Think of Aventinus - it has almost nothing in common with a beer like Andechs Dopplebock or Ayinger Celebrator. I've have Dopplebock Dunkel, Dopplebock Hell, Weizen Dopplebocks, and Smoked Dopplebocks. It just means that the ABV is probably going to be north of 6.6% or whatever it is. "Rauchbier" means even less stylistically, at least to me. Rauchbiers can be Vollbier strength, Märzens, Bocks, Dopplebocks, or Weizens. Eiche is a dopplebock. It is also a rauchbier.

Of course I am a known fanboy of the Eiche so maybe I'm just being defensive.

 

I think rating a beer without a noticeable flaw that is a good representation below average is useless, regardless of how you feel about the style.

 

I think we need to come up with a better rationale than a brewery's self-presentation on a web site.

Unless we want to acknowledge Budweiser as the King of Beers.... :-)

 

Perhaps you should take issue with the person who entered the beer as a dopplebock instead of a rauchbier, instead of the beer itself.

 

Not at all clear to me we can make a convincing case that 'style' and 'classification' are not the same thing.

 

So common, how about 1 of my locals micros, 10-15 taps of their beer, but 8 to 10 are hop bombs...to be fair some times its as low as half, lol

 

Yeah, good info.

Andechs Doppelbock Dunkel:

Samichlaus Helles:

 

Wait so a 15% Rasberry Eisbock doesn't count?

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/2097/11784/

So picky!!

I completely agree by the way - I think it is a relatively useless list if the majority of beers are IPAs, Sours and Impy Souts... I generally think of it as the top 250 most sought after highest rated beers, not necessarily the best beers...

 

Right! The pay is usually lunch, and a ticket for a beer when you are done.

There are professionals who show up to judge, but they are professional brewers and judging is a thing they do.

 

To add to what @hopfenunmaltz mentions.

Large number of those who are recruited/selected to be judges have actually been through a short training course on how to judge beer and also, when new to judging, are often part of a panel for a particular style which includes other judges with experience judging that style category.

 

An amber ale isn't really a style, that's just a catch-all where beers with that certain similarity are put. To me that's the difference between a classifcation, which is broadly defined, and a style, which is narrower (i.e. Pilsner).

 

That is one glorious looking beer in that glass (and setting).

 

Indeed, a line of argument I've used in a few reviews, i.e., that the beer deserves a good score and is miscategorized.

 

Big Imperial Stouts are easy to love and that love is a sign to the beer noob that they are truly getting to appreciate and understand this whole craft beer thing. But you don't really become an aficionado until you grow to appreciate the merits of all styles equally. And when that happens styles cease to have any meaning whatsoever.

 

Good information to have, though I then have to question why we have any of those terms as styles at all, and why so many beers seem to generally clump into them well enough for that use. Aventinus is listed as a weizenbock, I've never encountered a hopped-up (aside from some US versions) or ester-forward marzen, and so forth. I'm genuinely curious on this!

 

But then you're dodging the issue in that to argue amber is not a style without defining what consitutes a style doesn't solve the problem. And by the same line of argument I could propose that Pilsener is not a style since all the name means is "beer brewed in Pilsen."

 

That's an interesting perspective. If I'm not looney tuney, I think I recall you once suggesting ESBs in a thread where folks were looking for good ambers. If I remembered correctly: according to your perspective, would that be an example of a style that works within a category?