Rating Style: What do you look for?

I like reviews that tell me what flavors/smells are experienced.

My biggest pet peeve in reviews: Users who start a review with "I'm not really a fan of the style, but."

 

I find reading reviews before I try a new beer has the ability to create an expectation that is often hard to live up to. One guys says it is a hop bomb, another guy says it is malty.....the more reviews you read, you start to wonder if they are even reviewing the same beer!

 

write about the flavors and aromas as well as the bottled/ canned date if there is one.

 

I find more often than not on BA, that if a beer has over 100 reviews, the Score is pretty damn accurate...

 

i am not sure how to answer the question, but as a huge hoppy beer fan, i find it hard to trust a review when all the reviewer says is that the beer's aroma/taste is "lots of grapefruit, tropical fruits, mango...". im looking for something that differentiates the beer from another one. dont just tell me youre getting the same smell on this beer that you had on the last one. check the youtube video reviews on some of the top ipas/iipas, from some of the top reviewers, and it feels like the all say the same thing.

and i agree 100% with @RBassSFHOPit2ME: although i dont consider myself an expert by any means, i find my more recent ratings have been pretty damn close to the actual score on this site.

 

I read them on occasion, but take them with a grain of salt. And I don't like to read them prior to trying a beer for the first time. I want my experience to be mine, not skewed by someone else's. Ultimately I'm going to return to beers that I enjoy, regardless of their ratings by others.

When I do read them, I prefer those that loosely follow the typical structure and give a good description of the experience they felt. Many people tend to get overly wordy in an effort to sound knowledgeable in my experience. It's a beer review, not a poem.

 

Respectfully, if you're going to "rate" the beer it is my opinion that you MUST rate to style. A true judge, a true review, in my opinion, is one that is as objective as possible. For example, if you hate Stouts, but as one who feels sufficiently competent to "rate" a beer, it's a very good stout, it should be rated as a very good stout; or, if outstanding or perfect, then it should be so rated - even if you hate it! That's what judging is all about. Of course, in the "rating" (since there is no system here to rate objectively vs subjectively) the subjective part can be part of your review. I.e., "I don't like stouts but this is a well made perfect stout for those of you who do like stouts." And, your score should be your "objective" score in my opinion.

 

Less is more. That's why I just look at the numbers. If I see the words chocolate or vanilla I'm generally sold regardless of what else you write.

 

But that's the thing, a lot of beers are very much the same, and would get similar responses. At a recent fest, a new brewery was pouring, and my friends and I tried their beers. We were discussing the IPA, and my friends were all raving about it. When my turn came I basically said that it was good, that I enjoyed it, but it wasn't unique. After getting some verbal abuse, I listed 6-7 local IPAs that I thought tasted about the same, and were the same general quality. The point being, there's only so much wiggle room within a given style, so a lot of beers are going to taste very similar, if not being almost identical.

 

The design of the reviewing system makes it difficult to not have subjective opinion affect reviews. I use BA to keep track of what styles, breweries and beers that have tried and whether I liked them or not. With the revamping of the system a year or so ago, there is no way on BA to differentiate between a beer that was well made and to style (but I just don't like the style that much) or a beer that just isn't that good, except to add modifying statements to the review. A mediocre score with the statement "this isn't my style" at least makes this clear. I stopped reviewing most sours here because I generally don't enjoy them. However, I do review each sour style and brewery so I can track what I've tried. The stats are very useful for me when I'm shopping, especially out of town. I advocated for an unrated "Had" category when the system was revamped last year, which I could have used to mark beers that I had tried, but did not feel confident about rating with justice or experience. Without that feature, I think a fair subjectove rating with the caveat that it's not a favorite style is the best bet. As others pointed out, the beauty of large sample sizes means that a few outliers (I will never review a ton of sours because it is a waste of time and money) will be eventually be statistically meaningless, overwhelmed by the many reviews by folks who like the style.
Tastes change and it seems like review ratings should reflect that to be useful.