The Bros vs BA Score

This is the review that made me change my thinking on the Bros' reviews. I used to consider them or give them more weight than I do now, but this was a careless, hapless review. Here's the extent of the review:

The review seemed impetuous to me, not thought out, nor complete. It came right after their turbidity article in the magazine and seemed agenda driven. The other aspect that really annoyed me was that it came right after Trillium had reopened. As this thread demonstrates, people do put weight into what the brothers say. To give them a 70 on this beer, right after they reopened, to me, was sandbagging. There are plenty of beers that fit the turbidity bill, but he chose that one at that time. It rubbed me the wrong way.

I do look at both of the numbers that a beer gets, but I've been moving towards reading descriptions more and more. I stopped rating on Untappd because I was so frustrated with the rating system and started focusing on describing beers that I haven't had or revisit. Reviews necessitate more to me than just a number rating. Reviews should be illuminating. Basically, the Vicinity review played a role in forcing me to look beyond the numbers.

 

I tend to follow consensus, if anyone....especially if a New England beer.

 

Seems weird they'd include a review of a 3 year aged bottle in their score. Especially one that ages poorly in their opinion.

 

I do look at the Bros score and then I like to look at reviews by both the Bros and some recent reviews. What I would like to see is another category - review scores. I think an average of fully reviewed beers might show a score much closer to the Bros score. As I understand it the current overall BA score includes reviewed beers and scored beers without a review, often a single numerical rating.

 

Not that I soley base my purchasing decisions on what they say, but I've always thought that the bros should refrain from doing quick scores without an actual review. You never saw Ebert just give a thumbs up for a movie, there was always something backing it. I don't know, guess its not that big of a deal. Just a thought

 

Probably an artifact from when the 5th category used to be "drinkability". There was quite a lot of debate about that exactly that meant, and it was then changed to "overall", but all the scores staying the same.

 

All in all they seem to rate the lesser known beers higher since I believe they are not caught up in the hype which is a more honest review and often rate the big boys slightly lower for the same reason.
After saying that I can't for the life of me figure out the 70 rating for trillium vicinity??

 

Disagree. Heady Topper is an excellent beer that is notoriously opaque.

The easiest elements of a beer to identify are the visual - it only takes a pair of eyes. Reviews I trust indicate knowledge beyond the obvious and the brothers often come through where less experienced reviewers do not.

 

I don't look at their reviews. Not because they are good, bad, or other. I just don't look at them...

 

I usually agree with the Bros more often as well.. http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/257/718/

I agree with this Bro on this score versus the popular Consensus.

 

This is something I've never really thought about. I supposed I've usually went with the BA score over anything else. Not sure why. I'll probably pay closer attention to the Bros score from now on, though. Good thread.

 

Both review types are the same...one isn't naturally better than the other

 

I tend to value their score a bit more. Most cases where there's been a disparity, I find myself agreeing with them much more. This is especially true when it comes to non-stout/hoppy beers as those styles are the darling of this place and almost all else falls by the wayside. I think they're much more fair to beers like Budweiser, I don't like it but its not nearly as bad as many here would think, you can do much, much worse. They also don't get caught up in the hype of some beers. Zombie Dust is a perfect example to me where I think 90 is the right rating, it's not a 100 to me.

I consider both though.

 

Where do I send my resume?

 

I noticed today they rated Tired Hands Hop Hands a 62, A 62!

Hey everyone is entitled to an opinion but if the beers that were popular that I didn't care for showed up in its own box I'd put more weight to that than how they feel about any particular beer. I use all reviews as a guide until I try it myself then that's the only opinion that matters.

 

What qualifies as a "review" though? I was reading through reviews for Tree House's Haze last night and there's a lot of short one or two sentence responses that tell me absolutely nothing about the beer. To me, those aren't completed or full reviews.

 

Good point. There may be a way around it but I doubt BA would want to make the effort. I think there are some excellent reviewers on BA and if a way could be found to come up with a composite score from those reviewers we might have some useful information. I find it interesting when you see separate reviews from the Brothers and they differ markedly. My reviews are mostly a reminder of what I liked in a beer as I don't have the palate to provide meaningful information to others but those scores get averaged in with the others.

 

In my opinion I find the Bro's tend to rate a beer based on the style and the merits of that beer alone. I see a lot of people rating a good beer poorly because it doesn't taste like their favorite IPA.

 

because they do this for a living and very few here can say they do?