Stone Old Guardian: Why a separate entry for each year?

Help Discussion in 'BeerAdvocate Talk' started by Orca, Jun 6, 2012.

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  1. Orca

    Orca Grand Pooh-Bah (4,710) Sep 18, 2010 Washington
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    #1 Orca, Jun 6, 2012
  2. allouez86

    allouez86 Pundit (999) Jan 24, 2009 Wisconsin

    I believe the recipe for old guardian is different each year where the others you listed follow the same recipe every year. Probably a more specific answer out there but that's the gist of it.
     
    #2 allouez86, Jun 6, 2012
  3. moonknight31

    moonknight31 Savant (1,162) Aug 23, 2009 California
    Trader

    yea i believe that the old guardian recipe is slightly different every year, u can tell by the fact that they all have diff abvs
     
    #3 moonknight31, Jun 6, 2012
  4. Pahn

    Pahn Initiate (0) Dec 2, 2009 New York

    stone IRS also apparently new recipe each year (though i don't think it has separate listings).

    whether or not a beer gets new listing each vintage is a little random, but personally i don't think it's a huge deal.
     
    #4 Pahn, Jun 6, 2012
  5. minnesotaryan

    minnesotaryan Initiate (0) Dec 27, 2010 Minnesota

    mmm beer.
     
    #5 minnesotaryan, Jun 6, 2012
    BlackBelt5112203 and Orca like this.
  6. chinabeergeek

    chinabeergeek Pooh-Bah (1,837) Aug 10, 2007 Massachusetts
    Pooh-Bah

    actually i believe it's really as simple as the bros or other site admins not having gotten around to merging all the entries.
     
    #6 chinabeergeek, Jun 6, 2012
  7. kzoobrew

    kzoobrew Initiate (0) May 8, 2006 Michigan

    Yep, it has even been mentioned that the entries will be merged. OG is pretty much the same beer every year, any recipe changes that do happen are really big enough to justify a new entry.

    To answer the original question, Why a separate entry for each year? More ticks.
     
    #7 kzoobrew, Jun 6, 2012
  8. Pahn

    Pahn Initiate (0) Dec 2, 2009 New York

    i don't think it's so cut and dry.

    stone old guardian 2012 uses a different variety of hop than previous years (not just cascade, since old guardian's been around longer than calypso as well).

    most beers on this site probably have serious batch variation given the nature of the breweries (small, up and coming). you don't want a new entry for every one, but should old guardian really have 1 big entry? if GUBNA, a single hop beer, was released using something other than summit hops, should it be listed as the same beer?

    i honestly don't think there's a good answer. i'm fine with the ad hoc way it's been dealt with in the past, b/c i think finding a serious answer to "when should there be multiple entries?" is more trouble than it's worth--if it's even possible.
     
    #8 Pahn, Jun 7, 2012
  9. Orca

    Orca Grand Pooh-Bah (4,710) Sep 18, 2010 Washington
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    You might be right. However, one reason this might matter is that the way Old Guardian is handled (and perhaps other beers that are classified by year rather than all lumped together) virtually ensures it will never make a Top 100 list, or even the "top of style" list. Not that that's a huge deal in and of itself. But it might be to Stone.

    Take Old GnarlyWine for example. It's on the top American Barleywines list with a 4.08 rAvg. And the lowest-scoring Top American Barleywine has a score of 4.01. Now if you merged all the Old Guardian scores under one listing, I'll just bet it would have a higher overall score than either of those...
    1999: 4.60
    2000: 4.30
    2001: 4.48
    2002: 4.25
    2003: 4.26
    2004: 4.20
    2005: 4.20
    2006: 4.12
    2007: 4.09
    2008: 4.04
    2009: 4.04
    2010: 4.12
    2011: 3.69
    Even though some of those early vintages had only a few reviews, I think the numbers might still average out in Old Guardian's favor. And in any case, the sheer number of reviews added together means it would probably appear on the main American Barleywines page. Separated out by year, though, it doesn't.

    So, for people who pay attention to these lists (new to craft, mostly), they might skip over a beer like Old Guardian because it doesn't have the name recognition that these lists generate, in the same way that Bigfoot or Old Ruffian or any number of other similar beers do. And arguably, that's solely because there's a separate entry for each vintage.

    I know that when I first saw Old Guardian I had no idea what it was. But I had heard of the others. In that sense, I think it does matter.

    EDIT: I guess a loose analogy might be that a candiate can win the American presidency by winning the most electoral votes, but not the popular vote...
     
    #9 Orca, Jun 7, 2012
    Duff27 likes this.
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