Does appearance skew your rating?

I mean honestly I think you're overthinking it.

But yeah, I've gone back and fiddled with the #s until I'm happy with the overall score.

 

I leave every category seperately. I don't taste the apprearance.

Jeff

 

I'm not knocking how you decide to review your beers, but if that's commonplace, something seems broken.

 

Reminds me of the old joke: looks bad feels good.

 

It wouldn't make it a 1.8 because of the look being a 5. The appearance rating only mildly affects the total score. Each category is weighted. I believe it goes Overall>Taste>Smell>Mouthfeel>Appearance. The appearance only affects the hundreths place, so I believe if you had scored it 5-1-1-1-1 then the score would be 1.09, but I'm not 100% certain of this. I will check and get back to you on that.

 

Ok, so I was a bit off, but it comes out to a 1.2 if you score 5-1-1-1-1, so it's still a very mild affect.

 

Each category is independent. "Skew" is not the word I would use either. Of course the appearance affects your overall perception of the beer. If it looks poor for the style I will knock it right then and there, and be sure to discuss why I did in the body of the review.

 

This. I still eat Thai food even though it may not look presentable.

 

It can't be weighted evenly. If it was every overall score would have to be in 0.2 increments and for those who do official reviews (as opposed to ticking) that is rarely the case.

 

This doesn't appear (ha, see what I did there) to be affecting Heady Topper.

 

4.53/5 rDev +14.1%
look: 4.5 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5

My review for Bell's Hopsolution. Evenly weighted this is 4.4. Obviously taste triumphed over the fact that this beer was lacking in aroma. I imagine Look has an even lower weight assigned.

 

I know it can't be weighted evenly. It would be terrible if it was, since frankly, while I like looking at a nicely poured beer that has great head/nice retention/leaves great lacing, that barely affects my experience with drinking the beer! Taste is most important, followed pretty closely by smell, then pretty far behind is mouthfeel, and significantly further behind is appearance!

 

You're ugly and I rate you a 1.

Ohhhh, did you mean something else?

 

That's why you got a 1 instead of a 0.

 

Appearance of my beer is the least of my worries. I know you are supposed to judge on it but it really does not influence my enjoyment at all.

 

I don't dock points for appearance on my beer...but if does have a beautiful color, I may add some points.

 

Appearance should stand on its own and frankly I like that it is the first factor listed in the review process. This way you can see what the beer looks like and give an unbiased rating that isn't affected by the smell, taste, or other compnents. The only time I'd bother to adjust the appearance score is if after time the beer settled and looked drastically better (or worse) than what it originally looked like when originally poured.