Should we split up the Top 250 Rated Beers?

Beer Advocate Top 250 BeerFest. That wouldn’t be too hard to pull together would it???

 

The question that needs to be answered is "What do we want the purpose of <whichever> list to be?" When you answer that question, it will be a lot easier to define lists to fit the purpose.

 

Can you tweak the algorithms so that the list is filled with mediocre New England IPAs rather than lagers that are probably just brewed to style?

Kidding…sort of.

 

You’re thinking of the current top 250.
AyyyyOooooh!

 

I'd suggest to include beers with minimal number of reviews, let's say 400 or 500 for example.

 

lol that's hilarious, considering it's harder than ever to get people to write about beer anymore, now that Untappd is conditioning people to just rate, and even not even rate but just tick.

I'd be curious to see stats on number of written reviews submitted on BA over the years.

 

You should change your Avatar..

I Top 250 Beer.

 

Well, I just took a good look at the top rated beer lists for the first time in 10-15 years, and now I remember why I haven't looked at it in so long.

I have never heard of half the beers or breweries on the list, as none of them are available in any of the bottle shops within a reasonable driving distance.

The list as it stands is primarily geared toward traders and tickers, and people willing to stand in line for half a day, or drive thousands of miles for the privilege of paying $50 for one bottle of beer. It's of little value to me personally.

An artifact of a bygone era.

 

A big part of this is because beer has become far more regional than it was 10-15 years ago. There are 9,000 breweries not 900.

 

lol have you been dying to find an appropriate scenario where you could whip out that phrase? Because this ain't it.

 

Say what you will, but 75% still want changes...

 

...and participation trophies.

 

and some prefer strawmen.

 

Well. There could also be a "Hall Of Fame" List.

Beers over 10 years old that have endured the test of time and stayed at the top.

 

Personal preference would lean towards something even more powerful and geeky. Full database, sortable by any number of filters including all existing ones, the ones suggested and more. If necessary for speed and size, cut off what is displayed to 250 results.

It'd also be nice to be able to view snapshots of the lists as they've existed throughout time.

 

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/fame/

 

Don’t thank me. I’m just a beer advocate.

 

Tangential at best, and probably too difficult to implement to ever exist, but in the vein of the idea of regional top lists, I think it would be interesting to see ratings by users either within or explicitly outside of a brewers region... ie seeing the ratings for x well regarded PNW brewery by folks with locations listed in WA/OR/AK (or Kiribati...), Etc, vs the ratings for the same brewery from users listed elsewhere (just to use my own back yard as an example). Still far from perfect but it could help assuage the availability concerns as well as helping to temper some of the hype-concentration inherent in regional ratings.
Or at the very least it could make for some interesting datasets to compare when one has too much free time...

 

Some of you seem to be forgetting that this isn't Untappd. BAs don't tick the same beer over and over again. If we've rated or reviewed a beer once, that's going to be it unless we delete our original review and then start anew.

Most of the beer most of us are reviewing regularly anymore isn't just hyper local, but it's even draft only.

Only when this thread pinged everyone and their mother did a larger volume of BAs get all up in arms that the Top 250 exists over other types of lists. And then they didn't even realize that most of the lists they were asking for already existed. It's just that users have been too careless or lazy to look for them--especially lazy since they're only one or two clicks away--but now they suddenly care because by golly SNPA isn't #1!

So shifting focus away from Hall of Fame type beer (long lasting well rated beer that is still regularly produced), and Top 250 type beer (highest rated beers in the world that aren't retired and produced at least once a year or every other year), let alone beers by style (a helpful list, to be fair, if not laser focused), trending beers (often one-offs), new beers (often one-offs), and popular beers (a different take on beers of fame, disregarding quality ratings, with Sam Adams Boston Lager at a #24), then what do we have?

If we were to change the actual Top 250 craft beer in the world as deemed by active beers rated by BA users, to something like regularly available, "Year-round" beer that is getting rated or reviewed actively and frequently, it would be just as hard to attain as the Top 250 unless you happen to live in or be traveling through an area, and you might not even be able to get it packaged. I mean, how would you filter out this hyper local beer, and how would you pull in beer that is widely or regionally distributed and grocery store accessible? Partner with the leeches in the middle, *for a nominal fee*? Give me a fuggin break.

What is being asked by the "75%" here is to dumb down the list and put mediocre beer in its place because the Top 250 are too hard to acquire. If you actually had any experience with any part of this list outside of just being made aware of it via this thread, you'd know a lot of these beers aren't that hard to get ahold of if you try, especially compared to top rated whiskeys and wines. And you'd also know that the chase is worth it, especially because there's a lot of other great beer that gets swept up in it.

 

You know, I never looked at that list before. Giving it a glance now, it honestly seems like the best list of the bunch for someone who wants a BA list to tick modern classics. A bunch of people who posted in this thread should give it a look.

Although the metrics don't take "quality" (score) into account (as you pointed out), the list still indirectly reflects score to some extent because people are likely to rate beers they like... and buy/rate beers with a good reputation. It's amazing that Westvleteren 12 is on the list. The Most Popular list feels like someone took the Beers of Fame list, removed a bunch of imports that are currently incredibly difficult/impossible to get in the US (except that Westy ), and then added a handful of culturally relevant but low-scoring macros (Budweiser, etc.) - which would be just as important (to put it conservatively) for tickers to tick as anything else if they are trying to get a better lay of the beer land. Even the oft-mentioned Sierra Nevada Pale Ale shows up as number 12 (and I don't even think that beer made it to the Beers of Fame list).

It's remarkable how well it works as a "top beers" list while being structured around a stat that isn't score.

 

Two lists sound good but I would hate to see the current list discontinued. There’s a real sense of accomplishment when you can chalk up another beer on that list.

 

I think after this post we can lock it down. I didn't even connect my own dots but zid really hit the nail on the head.

We not only have more than enough lists, but we already have a list that accomplishes what many of the Yes votes here were asking for in their posts.

Now whether they actually use that list is another story altogether, because it's clear they've never bothered to look at any of them in the first place.