Rating beers blindly....what would happen?

This is actually an intersting point. There are two sides to this coin. One side says, in the interest of ratings integrity, you shouldn't look at a beer rating until after you rate it yourself. The other side says, what's the freaking point of a site like this if I cant use the raitings as a way of determining what beer I want to go out and try.

I tend to fall into the second category. Participation on BA seems dumb to me if I can't look to the beer descriptions and ratings as a method of finding other beers I might enjoy.

 

Our tasting group does blind tastings on occasion and they are by far my favorite way to try beers.

Rarity, hype, and other biases fly out the window.

 

Is it now? And how do you reckon that?

 

As you know, being from PA, one poor purchase can be 24 mistakes, not just one. I'll use the ratings here and other places to make up a list for shopping and then generally buy only from that list, particularly in state purchases. I keep a modest cellar of about 5-7 cases, some for aging some to be finished off fresh. However, I don't record any scores and don't check them before rating/reviewing. After doing the review/rating I revisit the reviews to look for things I may have missed to see if it was me or figure out whose reviews to trust.

But as for biases in the overall ratings, I'm pretty confident that the Law of Large Numbers" takes care of most if not all of them.

 

I think we would absolutely see a downward trend in reviews of highly regarded beers on a sitewide basis. Absolutely no question.

And we'd see less references to the style of the beer in the reviews (for those who post reviews) - because almost all of us aren't as good at determining the style of a beer as we like to believe. And I'm definitely not excluded from that.

I also think reviews wouldn't be as interesting or informational, for what that's worth.

 

What would happen?

Anarchy....total, unadulterated anarchy

 

I've participated in this in the past, it's pretty interesting and fun.

http://beeradvocate.com/community/t...s-hauls-and-reviews.89905/page-2#post-1413886

 

I like a lot of beers that others sniff at. I like to drink a whole pint at least, and to assess fairly I want to spend more time than just a blind taste. Tasting blind I'm not reliable, couldn't duplicate if done over.

 

I know many self-appointed beer experts who do this all the time and aren't remotely pissed off about it. Not sure who you hang out with... in fact, a group of us are doing our 2nd annual blind whale tasting tomorrow. No one will be mad and no one will be 100% accurate.

 

Dude these guys are great haha. This is what beer culture is all about.

 

for the most part i don't really care what other people have scored it. doesn't impact how it tastes to me. to date i've rated 138 beer. about 5% have a +15% rdev or higher score from me, and about 10% have a -15% rdev lower score, including some site faves and some beers put out by breweries i would consider amongst my faves.

i score partly for my own edification - to recall roughly what i thought of a brew vs other brews should i consider buying it again.

 

Sounds like a fun group. But I can't help but feel bad for the blind whales. Poor sightless bastards...

 

Blind tastings are the best. We have an annual blind tasting (tomorrow!), the rules being to bring a whale and a shelf beer you think would be comparable. I have a horrible track record with identifying the beers, which sucks. But it's also a great way to clearly understand which whales are all hype.

 

I think you'd see some of the "classic" world class beers rated even higher. For example Duvel, St. Bernardus, Weihenstpehaner Hefeweizen, Old Rasputin...etc.

 

I don't review but I like checking them out. Often I'll have some new-to-me beer and find myself thoroughly stoked with it, and then check the ratings here to find it at 82.

(Then I'll look at that other site, where it will rate about half that.)

Makes me feel like my palate's insufficiently discriminating, which is to say, lucky.

 

It's not easy ratings beers blind. Brewery, style and labels can really sway you when you know what you're tasting. I run a beer podcast (Brewtal Battle at www.brewtalbattle.com and on iTunes) and we taste and rate beers blindly each episode. It's really hard at first, but you start really training your bore and palate. The biggest problem is trying to discern whether certain tastes and aromas are intended in the beers, since you don't know the style.

 

My opinion on this thread may change slightly if a lot of people like it.

jk- blind tastings can be fun, so long as there is an adequate sample size and other similarly styled beers with which to place ranking and detect "off" flavors. However, doing these with other people usually just ends up with a different form of "groupthink".

 

Most of Founders beers would be 85's instead of 95's.

Kidding...kind of. Picking on Founders aside, I think the everyday stuff from "name" breweries are the most inflated.