How often have you revisitted one of your previous beer reviews? If you have, did it change for the better or worse?
Normally for worse. I tend to grade high initially and they after a 3rd or 4th try I'll come back to reality. Or I'll have another of the same style that knocks the previous down.
I usually only re-review if it's a beer I'm aging on purpose, or if it's a different serving type that greatly changes the brew. For instance, the Stoic just keeps getting better and better with time and Lagunitas Sucks on tap at the brewery was mind boggling. If a later tasting shows deterioration I don't bother reviewing.
I try not to mess with scores too much but I'll re-review some of my earlier ones from when I really had no clue what I was tasting.
I revisit a lot. It can swing in both directions. Lately, I've stopped reviewing from notes and have been taking time to just sit and review the beer over its course. The review seems to be a little more concrete in this fashion.
I need to re-evaluate altogether. I posted 3 reviews when I first joined BA, and quickly realized (when sober) that I need to try others in every style before giving quality reviews. Taking notes for the time being and will post reviews / re-reviews when I have more experience. Meanwhile, enjoying tasting / enjoying all the brews I can get my hands on! Let the flavors flow! Cheers ~
Quit stealing my answers! I havent done it yet but come to think of it, need to update Moo-Hoo actually. Cheers!
I wanted to revive this thread because I recently went through and changed a number of my ratings. In particular, I wanted to address how the beer climate inevitably changes over time, and how that makes me want to adjust my beer ratings accordingly. Do you do that? Do you change ratings based on how well a beer has stood the test of time? Personally, I find beer ratings, like movie ratings, are both a product of one's tastes at the time and the atmosphere of the beer landscape at the time one is drinking. For that reason, a movie may be great when someone is first watching it, but simply isn't that good anymore when viewed again ten years later. Bringing this back to beer, I think this is a problem especially amongst IPAs. Because the market is flooded with so many mid to high-end IPAs, many beers that were considered great IPAs 5 years ago are now lost in the pack. I used to love DFH 60-minute and 90-minute, but I no longer find them interesting. As a result, I feel like I need to adjust my rating for those beers. I also increased some of the ratings for beers that I realized I keep thinking about or really like going back to (my Shawshank Redemption of beer). Inevitably, if we're supposed to rate beers based on how well they represent their style, the rating of a particular beer will be affected by the beer climate as it changes over time. For my own personal reference, I think it is important to go back and adjust ratings, if I realize that the beer no longer compares as favorably in this ever-improving, ever-changing beer landscape.
I will only change the review if I have the beer in the glass and if it's not years apart. So If I had hennepin in 2010 I would not change my review based on a bottle from 2013. If I am still drinking from the same six pack then I will change it if I notice something that makes me re evaluate the review. I wish I had never been a noob and never given away really high scores but I did. I wish I hadn't been so stingy with points other times, but I was.
Every once on a while I'll get bored and look up a beer I'm drinking that I've already reviewed. Most of the time the general idea is the same, but I'll edit my review to add better language, descriptions.
