Reviewing bad beers

Beer 101 - How to Review a Beer states:

I presume this means that an infected bottle is fair game, as well as a bottle displaying quality-control issues, such as those that manifest with the phenolic/band-aid smell. Those are within the brewer's control, as I understand things.

But what about light-struck beers? Is that truly outside the brewer's control? Has anyone ever complained about skunked Heady Topper or Surly Furious? In my opinion, putting a beer in a bottle is within the brewer's control.

Taking that a step further, why should a brewer not be held accountable for choosing to do business with distributors that are not vigilant about how their beer is handled? As far as I am concerned, the brewer has some measure of control -- and thus responsibility -- up until the moment the beer is purchased by a consumer. Is is really unreasonable for me to review a bad beer for these reasons?

 

I am not. But this isn't a legal matter, is it?

Maybe I could re-frame the question this way: Should a beer's rating reflect the beer you would get if everything goes right from the time it left the brewery until it hit your lips, or should it represent an aggregate of all instances of the beer reaching its customers? Given two beers of similar quality, why shouldn't the beer that is routinely handled better and sold fresher get the higher rating?

I think that is a misreading of the question. Do you think Fantome's inconsistency is the fault of the distribution chain? I think Fantome's problems pretty clearly fall under the umbrella of "brewer's control".

This is sort of what I was getting at. A year or two ago, I was in a store in Peoria Illinois (well out of my normal distribution region), and approached an employee to ask a question about their selection. At least I thought he was an employee, because he was checking bottle dates, and removing old stock from shelves. Turns out he worked for a distributor, and was making sure his products were not improperly represented (he was also able to answer my question).

Now, I understand that this level of commitment to brand is not uniform across all distributors, but if I were a brewer and had a choice between a distributor who paid this level of detail to my product and one who did not, then my decision of distributor will be reflected in the overall enjoyment of my beers by consumers.

Why should I presume the brewer's choice of distribution chain had no impact on the beer I received?