So where do you stand with your ratings?

Just took a look and a quick glance tells me that I am surprisingly average. Out of 350 rated beers, a little over 100 are higher rated than average (with at least 50 of those being within 5% of average), another 100ish are right at the average (probably meaning that not many of us have rated that beer), and the last 100 and some are rated below the average.

I do tend to think, lately, that I am overly generous with my ratings because I definitely have the feeling that 3 is bad (not average) and so will give beers that are middling examples of their style 3.5/3.75 in a category. Something about setting out to rate a beer also seems to add a bit of gravitas to the beer itself in my experience. Like I have some sense that the fact that I'm even taking the time to review the beer means it MUST have something going for it. I also like to think that I seek out and drink above average beer in general, another bias that I'd suspect is wide spread. Either way, I've been thinking lately that I should go back and re-review all the beers I can that I've reviewed over the years and see how things have changed for me.

But I also don't think I can ever take that perfect 5 away from Old Rasputin. I don't care how naive I was when I did that, I still remember my first ol raspy shared in a parking lot at the ripe ole' age of 19 with some weird and wonderful people and that will forever be the moment I realized that there was something to all those beers in the other coolers...

 

I tend to overrate almost every beer on here, and by overrate I mean rate well higher than the BA avg score. Part of the reason why I signed up to contribute to this site is because I saw what I thought were unjust ratings and reviews, where people might leave a nice detailed review and give a solid beer what I thought was a low score, so I wanted to try to "correct" that with my own ratings and objective reviews. That score system seems pretty accurate and about right to me. There came a point during my ratings when I realized I needed to have a standard for a 5, since it took me so long to try beers of that grade I never knew what the best possible taste a beer might have was like, until I tried some mind-blowing beers and I realized "it doesn't get much better than this". I frequently give out 4.75s if a beer is hitting top grade notes for me, that is intense natural fruit flavors from hops in an IPA, or just typical intense characteristics from different beer styles. I give out 5s when I think it's not going to get too much better than that aroma or flavor or look or feel, imo. I'm fine and happy overrating beers because I know a lot of people will rate them lower and so it usually evens out to a fair average from my perspective. Nowadays I mostly just rate Trillium beers anyway or some other highly rated beers so the rating is usually over 4.5. I even rate lagers and saisons 4.5 typically if it has a solid flavor, and maybe even a 4.75 or 5, because why not if you think it's that good? A score lower than a 3 is for Budweiser and friends, no craft beers I've been near... and Wild Blue isn't craft beer.

 

I can still see that my earlier ratings (first few years) are no longer as "true" as my more recent ratings (past few years), like, the DIPA that got a 4.5 seven years ago probably wouldn't get a 4.5 today. I attribute this to my changing tastes, of course, but also my improved ability to evaluate beer.

In terms of my overall rating approach, I'm a beer optimist, and usually choose beers I think I'd enjoy... I have more than twice as many beers rated higher than the rDev than below it, though that is less true the past few years than it was for years prior.

 

Excuse the naïveté here, but how can I find my overall rating percentages? I remember a few months ago looking up where I stood overall and getting that breakdown, but since then I haven’t been able to figure it out—or dig up the directions how to do it!

My hunch is that I rate more generous than the average, and that this has skewed positive over time. I do my best to rate to style, as I think it’s a shame some of the worlds greatest beers just don’t get much (ratings) love sometimes. A 5 on anything, much less across the board, is simply mindblowing, but a 4 is still “good”—a B average, if you will.

Overall, most days I liked what’s in my glass, and it shows in my ratings and reviews. There’s nothing objective or scientific about this.

 

My approach is that the first 4 categories are in individual vacuums, and the 5th, is where we can apply our personal biases.

So: a beer can look great, but taste and smell bad, and be a rough drinker. Give it a a high score on looks, middling scores on aroma and taste, but, it didn't flow nicely across the tongue. Well, the overall is gonna be low.

Often, I find that beers that I find lacking in the individual categories, end up being an enjoyable beer overall. Sometimes, the sum is greater than the total of the parts.

 

I never gave a 5 stars rating, excellent beer is 4 to 4,75. A good beer is 3,75, and everything under 3,75 is average meaning not to buy again. The only reason I rate is to know what beers I should buy again because my memory can deceive me. I realize that my rating have change with my tastes over the last year since I have become an IPA fan.

 

First, it strikes me that this thread really belongs in "BA Talk". What say you, @Todd ?

SeCANd, I (kinda) know this answer. If you click on "Beers" on your profile, you will get your listing of reviewed and/or rated beers. To the far R of the headers of the columns is another tab marked "rDev". Click on that & you will get a sort by rDev from highest to lowest. That's great if you have a manageable number of reviews/ratings, but tough for us older users since I would have to click multiple times in increments of 50 to get to my median.

If there is an easier way, I'd like to know, especially since I am a Society Member & mebbe have access to stats of which I am unaware & ignorant. Again, Fearless Leader ( @Todd )?

 

I agree - though there have been a few exceptions, where I've changed an old score without having the beer again...

That's also similar for me - a 4.75 is my high-water mark for a beer - and a 4 is my personal dividing score between a beer I'd return to and one that I won't..

 

I don’t quite understand this:
“ style. So maybe my below norm rating is due to the fact that I don't view hazy IPA's, desert stouts or kettle sours as superior to other styles”.

If you were rating to style you would rate a hazy or pastry against all others Hazies. You wouldn’t rate it against lagers. That’s the true definition of rating to style.
Maybe I’m not understanding you. Open to hear your thoughts, I’m sincerely not trying to be argumentative.

Cheers

In regard to my ratings. I’m all over the board. Some higher some lower. I try not to rate I’m hype is all.

 

4.75 is my highest. I would say my buy again cutoff for non aals is probably around 3.75. Because I am careful with what I buy, I don't get a drain pour very often. Some of my lower scores may have more to do with my palate than the quality of the beer itself.

 

Looks like you've been rating since 2013 and a member since 2005, so you predate the Uber era. That's notable because there's now a cultural mentality that 5 stars is the norm and only actively bad experiences receive below that. Many younger people when rating start from a 5 and work downward, usually not dipping very far, instead of starting from an average point and working downward or upward as appropriate. I think that's a real factor in ratings shifting upward in all platforms.

I don't know if BeerAdvocate uses a 0 to 5 scale, a 1 to 5 scale, or something else, but I think people should think of the average beer as a 2.5 in the former case and a 3 in the latter and should try to have their scores reflect that in a theoretical roughly normal distribution (the standard deviation may vary by the rater, but the theoretical mean really shouldn't). Now, I know people are more prone to rating "good" beer in the first place; they seek it out and are more likely to rate it, so many people's actual (not theoretical) ratings naturally should skew upward. Nonetheless, anybody whose average rating is higher than the mid-to-high-3s usually is massively overrating beers in general, in my opinion.

Unfortunately, I think that's the norm, especially here and at Untappd. Ratings skew about half a point lower at RateBeer, and I think people tend to overrate even there.

 

I tend to rate to the mean, with many beers rated in that 3.6-3.8 range. I think like most, I buy and rate beers that I tend to enjoy which keeps ratings higher. Only one "5" out of 2,600+ ratings.

 

I will review and describe beers, but I do not presume to judge them on a numeric scale. Never have and I just don't feel the need. I do read ratings and find them interesting.

 

I don't set out with any particular purpose other than to describe what I'm drinking. Often my rating will be fairly close to the average but that's something I only notice afterward. Except for Lagers which simply don't very high ratings around here.

 

The question is what is your definition of an average beer that should be looked at as a 2.5 or 3? There is a lot of room upward from there.

Imo Sam Adams beers are rated in the 3-3.75s generally and those are beers that I don't seek out, I just tried and didn't think it was that bad, but definitely nothing great. A 4 is a pretty good beer to me, and anything real good is above that. We all have our scale though.

 

Turns out 36% of my overall ratings are above the average, 1.5% are at average and the rest under.
I am a little surprised because while rating a beer I often think I am being too generous. This probably results in an unconscious temptation to tamp down the numbers. I usually attribute the desire to rate high to the fact that the beers I rate are not random selections, but a curated selection of beers or breweries with a good reputations.
Unless I looked at BA ratings prior for purchasing decisions I try NOT to look at other's reviews before I do mine.

 

Usually a 3.0 to 3.5 to me is mostly not so good to mostly OK, rather then mostly good. I guess it is a matter of perspective-