Does price effect your rating?

No, but it probably should.

 

I sometimes will let it creep in, especially if they are going after a foreign style where the authentic is better and cheaper. Stuff like Cascade, where I love it (still not as good as most lambic), but at $30-$45 a bottle... I won't buy it. Shame letting it sit on the shelf.

 

Exactly.

 

Yes to the extent that I will not give a 4 or higher to any beer I won't buy again.

 

0%. Its the product not the package or the price point that i base my opinions on.

I cannot tell a $4 beer from a $12 beer of the same style however i like to think im pretty good at tasting a well made beer verses one that is of lesser quality or flawed.

In my opinion if you buy your beer again really isn't part of the "overall" category when reviewing.

The common format is Aroma/Appearance/Flavor/Mouth-feel/Overall Impression (where you comment on overall drinking pleasure associated with entry, give suggestions for improvement)

 

Only if the beer sucks hard since it will make me mad about wasting so much money on it.

Expensive beers that are just "ok" I dont consider the price on my rating.

Also, as most already said, it affects repurchase.

 

"Being human" is my thought ... I expect the price to reflect the quality of the beer, and if it doesn't, you're damn right it gets reflected in my rating.

We don't review these beers in a vacuum.

 

Nope...but I love a good deal.

 

Absolutely. If I pay more for a beer I expect a better beer. If it's a letdown it makes me rate it harder for that fact. I do, however, think it's awesome when a cheap beer blows me away and I love rating it higher because it did.

 

hell naw

 

Affect*, towards the thread title. I'm drunk and don't choose to avoid my grammar-picky nature.

Speaking from my modest psychology background, OF COURSE price affects our rating. If we spent $50 on a 12oz, we don't want to admit it sucked ass. If we paid $.05 for the same beer we would decry it immediately. I do my best to account for this in my reviews, but I'm sure the bias still applies a little bit (also the bias for rare beers).

 

I agree with most of the other posts here. Price does not affect my ratings at all. However, it does very much influence if I will purchase that brew again. There are plenty of beers that priced themselves out of my comfort zone and others that I buy on a regular basis as my go to brew because they are more reasonable. Example, theres always some All Day IPA in my fridge. My recommends are also affected by price - of course.

 

I believe that this is where the answer lie, regardless of the conscious decision to try and not let price have an impact on the review. With exception to a blind tasting, it would be nearly impossible (for myself at least) to remove the emotional content of my critique, if in fact I had an emotion going into it. For good bad or indifferent, the emotional response to a beer can set the tone for the review. Mind blow upon first nose, spent a year chasing this down, waited 6 hours in the rain for the release, received it blindly (in a BIF or an extra), and so on are situations where the mood around actually drinking the beer is quite possibly already set at a level that encourages a slight inflation, but not out of some compulsory service towards the beer, but due to being excited or thankful or even victorious. It would take a rare, steely approach to critiquing in order to discount everything that you are feeling about a beer when any amount of elation has been experienced.

Being said, the flip side of those emotions can happen if you spend what can be considered (eye of the beholder, we all have different thresholds) to be a higher than average amount of money on a particular beer. You now have the consumer version of a chip on your shoulder. Let's use Brown Note from Against the Grain as an example. Label aside (as my repulsion, I feel, has been well documented) this is still a Brown Ale that last time I saw it was pushing $14 for the bomber. IMO, that's insane for a Brown Ale and anything short of melting my face in flavor euphoria will result in disappointment. And given the relative narrow parameters for a Brown Ale and the current BA score of 86, I would guess it would disappoint if purchased at $14. On the other hand, I purchased Tweak for right about the same amount but in a 12 oz. bottle and it is one of my higher rated beers ever, but it DID actually blow my mind. The money meant nothing so long as it delivered, and the BA score reflect that sentiment as well, currently at 97.

So two beers of two different sizes but same price with very different scores, and the smaller format is the higher rated. Tells me that price raised expectations for both but allowed for one (Brown Note) to "pay the price" so to speak in reviews due to that expectation. As a matter of fact, the first review of The Brown Note lambastes it for being excessively priced, even though he enjoyed it overall, and that's from an incredibly seasoned reviewer.

Finally, whether it's value or emotion; the price, method of receiving or elation behind a beer could shed some reason why there is a variance between BA scores and the Bros. (Heady 100 v. 95, West 12 100 v. 93, Todd the Axe Man 99 v. 89, Abyss 99 v. 92, BCBS 99 v. 95, Hopslam 99 v. 94) where the average BA needed to jump through a few hoops to get these while they were sent free of charge to the bros. Conversely, the bros have rated easy to get (relatively) or more likely to be on the shelf beers higher than the average BA (FBS 99 v. 100, Abt 12 98 v. 99, Weinhenstephaner Weiss 98 v. 100, Peche Mortel 97 v. 100, Duvel 95 v. 100). These comparisons are not hard and fast throughout, but I think there is enough sample here to suggest that emotion and/or price certainly plays into reviews, whether right or wrong.

The final point of what' turning into a thesis is that aside from the emotional side of factoring price as part of the review is the value of that beer relative to price. To balance out the emotion though, I could understand how one could argue that perhaps a "value" rating should not make a difference on the positive side, but should absolutely make a difference as a negative.

Solution? Add a "value" criteria for rating. Don't necessarily give it a ton of weight, but at least offer it as a placebo (or whack a mole if the comparison works) in order to remove the price effect from the critical review of the liquid itself.

 

this right here

 

this

 

Yes, because I don''t buy expensive beers. Too many good ones out there at reasonable prices. So the expensive ones never get rated by me.

 

As others have said, the price doesn't impact what I think about the beer. It will make me more or less likely to seek it out again though.