Poll: Should “value” be added as a beer rating category?

That’s usually my philosophy, except when my Vietnam vet neighbor tosses me a can of Budweiser. I have always hated Bud’s flavor, but when free and consumed in the presence of good company I can manage to down it!

 

I know, even when I really don’t want another (or a first) he’ll just set a freshly opened can in my hand.

 

Just about anything (except for maybe light beer) is better and more flavorful than Bud.

Interesting that you mention this though, a few years back my neighbor stated that his nose would get clogged when he went to sleep after drinking Bud, so he decided to branch out and try PBR. That lasted about a week before he switched back. He also tried Modelo (his wife’s preferred beer) but gave that up after a little while too.

At this point I view him as a lost cause. At least he sure seems to enjoy his Bud and that’s what matters!

 

I could see having a 'radio button' indicating whether you found it worth the money, but it shouldn't impact the score. Choose between 'Worth it', 'Not worth it', or 'N/A', with 'N/A' being the default.

 

Exactly! And straight to the point of subjective value. It is an admirable trait to know what one likes. Regardless of the opinions of others.

 

I really like the idea that @AlcahueteJ raised, a totally separate "value" rating that could then be combined with the overall score to create a "best value" list.

 

But as some others have pointed out, the price that a specific beer sells for can vary. For instance one of my favourite brews sold for $2.20 in British Columbia, but over $4.00 in Alberta. Other beers the situation was reversed. So "value" is specific to location.

 

All the attributes we currently rate are somewhat location dependent. We would have to ask people to take a little responsibility and recognize that if they paid $10 for a can of out of market hazy then maybe they should take a beat in the same way that it's not reasonable to rate some 18 month old ipa you found on a dusty liquor store shelf.

The point of crowd sourced ratings is to leverage the law of large numbers rather than rely on the expertise of appointed professionals

 

I feel like dedicating a part of beer rating, on this site for the ultra nerdy, to as vague a category as 'value' is just begging for disingenuous ratings.

"I paid $7.99 for this past prime 24-pack, but all I wanted to do was be drunk all weekend, and I was, so value = 5/5"

 

In my reviews, I give the cost/fl oz of the beer. Obviously this varies by where it is purchased (ie internet sales source vs brewer vs point of sale such as a store (or here in Pennsyltucky, a beer distributor). After I add the data to the review, I promptly forget about it until I write the summation. At that point it may cause me to add a comment to the review, but usually not unless I feel I've really been screwed. It doesn't consciously effect scoring until the summation.

 

Not everything can be quantified with a score, just put it in the text of the review and there you go. Easy peasy.

 

Since this discussion was reopened by a new comment being posted today, I re-read several of the comments and my ideas sort of gelled into the following: I can understand the arguments for not adding a quantitative rating for value or having perceived value affect the beer’s rating if we are talking about how the ratings are used by the entire BA community. However, much more than half my incentive for rating/ reviewing beers is to generate and update my own personal history with the beer. I would love to be able to add a numeric value for my perceived value of the beer that I could sort through in the future. I don’t give a hoot whether anyone else claims “value” is useless, indefensible, or wrong. Putting an expression of value in the text of the review is not sortable from “best” to “worst” so it doesn’t help me.