Is rare beer really that much better?

No. Just go off of your personal preference and honestly don't buy into what everyone says is great on here. I personally do not feel that Heady Topper should be number one just based on its availability. It's great but it's up to you.

 

I'm starting to realize that high expectations for a rare beer to be amazing has in the past:
-led me to seek them out,
-sometimes pay more than I feel they were worth,
-feel a sense of accomplishment when tasting it and
-rate the beer highly in part because I wanted my expectations to be met.

Do others also feel they might have rated a beer higher than they would have, to justify the hype and the expense?
I think I will be more conscious of that from now on.

For me, i know I really like a huge variety of big bold flavors and I have to admit I am no cicerone. I went to California and found a bottle of Pliny the elder, and I was excited and surprised about how affordable such a famous and rare be was (less than $7). I loved the label, and wanted to fall in love with the beer. Then i tasted it and I thought, "this is very good, but I've had double IPA's that were better." 90 minute ipa by dogfish is better imo, even though most beer lovers will likely disagree, right?

 

That leads me to these drunken philosophical thoughts:
1) sometimes there is no reality, only perception.
2) perception is always subjective.
3) there is a diminishing return value for increasingly expensive beers as with most things.
4) I will be happy whether I have a very good common beer in my hand, or an expensive rare one.
5) I will be extra happy to try a beer I've heard a lot about, thru friends or podcasts such as "the beerists" or "strange brews". That said I'm going to draw the line at waiting in a long line for beer, there are too many great beers at reasonable prices. I will be living life to the fullest even when my beer glass isn't!

 

A great way to check this out is to do lots of blind tastings. Then you can see which beers you like the most, without relating to rarity/price/reputation/etc.

 

Very true. Was in Philly for beer week this past summer. Stumbled across Pliny at Monk's one night. Knew all about the hype etc etc. Watched the bartender pour endless pints before getting to my order. Waited and waited and finally tasted it. Yes sure it was good but I was not blown away. Had another pint to make sure and we headed to another bar.

 

IMO Pliny is highly rated because it was the first great DIPA. It has tremendous fame and legacy behind it, and a lot of those ratings came from years and years ago before the DIPA explosion. Now there are thousands of great DIPAs on par with Pliny, and a LARGE number that far surpass it. Pliny the Elder is entirely average by the standards of the DIPAs I bother to seek out. Heady is far, far superior personally.

 

Plenty of beers are made in tiny batches/ are rare and they suck which is why you never heard of them.
a question that makes more sense is are "hyped" or "highly sought after" beers better. this question has been asked on BA many times.

 

Not at all. SN Celebration can compete with any IPA that I've ever had, and I've had some pretty rare IPA's.

 

Where does one have to go in NY to find a case? I've never seen a 6 pack in the city.

 

Some rare beers are that much better. It has nothing to do with how rare they are, they are just much better.

 

No...good beer is good beer, bad beer is bad beer... old, new, 10 barrels, 100 barrels or a million.

Great beer is based on 90% taste profile with the other 10% consisting of numerous factors...smell, mouth feel, mood, beer temp, price, rarity, personal preferences and so on...

 

The answer is YES. But not because its "rare" but because most of them, at least stouts, are "Barrel Aged". There are almost no shelf Barrel Aged beers, and the ones I have found are not great (NH Dragons Milk for one). And a BA Stout on average is way better than a non-BA stout. And BA beers are by default low production, which makes them rare.

However, if we're talking the difference between BCBS and something extremely rare like KBBS, DBH, etc, the difference is not as wide.

 

Feels like under the rare beer effect umbrella, you have taste, duration of time sought after said beer and finally, the ability to get in on the conversation and/or tick it. Not being critical of this, but I'd try to mitigate the mental state brought on by the latter 2 areas (duration and conversation / tick) and adjust overall taste experience based on its own merit. Got a BCBS? Compare it to a local item that's not too hard to get a hold of. Same goes for any other whale or rare item. Just my $.02

 

Really? Unreal... It's made in smaller batches because the batch that was brewed was smaller. That's it.

Jeff

 

This question is too general. Does it happen to be the case that MANY of the best beers are rare? I would say yes, however I am a fan of BBA types as well as sours and by their very nature (due to production methods and time) they are more difficult to mass produce. However, flavor makes a good beer, not scarcity. Ceteris paribus, if tomorrow BCBS were on tap at every bar I visited the beer would be just as delicious as before. This is a case in which correlation does not equate to causation.

In this scenario I am attempting to negate the effects of placebo as those are not a universal standard.

 

Rare beer certainly skews the rating system, that's for sure.

 

As with most things in this world, your expectations and mental impressions heavily dictate your perception of how it tastes (or, if it were music, how it sounds, etc...).

That's not to say the taste is meaningless...you just have to consciously realize its only part of the whole.

 

Don't forget flavored, pushed to the limit if possible. And thick- yeah, it's got to be super thick. High gravity. Can't have a stout without all of those things. It's so old-fashioned to want a quality base malt or yeast profile any more. Why do they even bother making 'normal' stouts these days, amirite?

 

You still can't polish a turd. Even if it's hard to get.