What Exactly Is A 5.0 Beer Rating?

There have only been 2 proper 5 star beers for me, though i rated more that many.
First was my La Trappe Oak Aged. It was my first barrel aged beer and it changed my perception of what beer could be. Second one was BCBS '14 for pretty much the same reason, except for it being the first one of course. At that point in time there just weren't (m)any BA stouts around in The Netherlands or i just wasn't into beer enough just yet to find them/seek them out.

 

Just look at my all time top 8 list ... I realize it only seems like perfect beer can not be made again. My point is the BEST beer I had in 2020 was an 2012 Bourbon County regular gifted to me by an incredibly generous VA BA. Not because it was 8 years aged, because it is still the best beer ever made, so much more interesting than today's beer. And held up remarkably well, 8 years young. Because it is so much better than anything made today. I am actually crossing the bridge today to get an Victory at Sea High Westified, the 2015 Laguntas High Westified was some great barrels, and such an great beer. I have had the Victory at Sea once or twice, I'm seeking perfection, again, though I didn't think it perfect when I had it, just very damn good.

 

So what makes/made 2012 bcbs so perfect? What elements of that beer aren't available in beer broadly anymore?

 

The argument I was making is that the scale you are referring to above is really a scale of people's personal preferences rather than how well a beer meets style attributes. Weihenstephaner Hefeweizen has a score here of 98. The Hofbräu Hefeweizen has 88. Does the Hofbräu Hefeweizen not objectively meet the style description compared to Weihenstephaner? Does it only meet it 88% of the way? Since the Weihenstephaner is the highest rated Hefeweizen here, does that mean that there is no Hefeweizen in production that fully meets the style criteria? Of course not (to all of the above). If these two beers do not fully meet the style description, then the description is faulty. An actual style description does not describe a "perfect" beer, it describes a large group of beers.

I'm not saying that subjective ratings are bad or that every beer should be considered "perfect." I'm saying that the idea of rating objectively to style is a fantasy if the results have most beers not fully achieving the criteria of the style. I get that some people might use 3.0 as achieving the criteria of the style (for example), but then beers shouldn't be rated higher than 3.0 in varying degrees if objectively rating to style. Everything above a 3.0 becomes strictly a scale of personal preference.

I know I sound confusing but I honestly think that it's a simple concept that just feels strange in the context of this site. To illustrate what I mean by this, the following statement is relatively straightforward:

"This beer is a Hefeweizen, and according to my preferences, I'd rate it a 7 out of 10."

And this statement is more of a head-scratcher that can even be a contradiction:

"This beer is a Hefeweizen, and judging how well it is an embodiment of a Hefeweizen, I'd rate it a 7 out of 10."

 

Well I do think that is why BA wisely chose to suggest that people rate "with style in mind". Like you say, rating " to style" should produce a situation with a whole bunch of 5s or else the style description is flawed. Rating subjectively, with the given style "in mind", avoids that trap.

 

So, I did the experiment tonight. I used your recipe although scrapped the olives as i hate olives. Being someone who likes to eliminate variables I used the same sampling glasses, same martini glasses, and of course the game gin: Bombay Safire 50mL at freezer temp (stored for several weeks) and Bombay Safire 50mL at room temp.

I started by pouring each into a taster sampling glass. There is zero doubt nor debate that the freezer storage has completely changed the properties of the gin, namely the viscosity. It’s thick, syrupy, slightly opaque and even has a strange bubble form. I took a small sip of each one, which confirmed what the eye saw, the freezer bottle was thicker (albeit less than I would have guessed based on the appearance) and had a quite unpleasant consistency.

I took the remainder of these small pours and made mini martinis. The freezer bottle one was made to your recipe minus the olives (so essentially straight gin to a glass in with Angostura wash), the room temp shaken slightly over ice then also into a glass post Angostura wash. They are of course very similar overall, I will say the frozen bottle one does have slightly more prominent flavors, but I can’t get past the syrup like nature of it and overall I prefer the room temp shaken over ice option. Of note: these were very small martinis so the frozen bottle never even got to room temp.

Side note, not sure if I’ve ever seen this done but perhaps shaken over whiskey stones (ie those rocks you freeze then drop in whisky to chill without watering down), may be the happiest medium of all the options.

Anyways, was a fun little experiment, thanks for the inspiration! But I will not be making a habit of putting my liquor in the freeze.

Cheers!

 

Lol, nice to try. I’ve never heard of whiskey stones. But the thing is I can let it warm a bit until to viscous goes away, and it’s properly chilled and not 30% water from shaking, better to stir. So more spices do come thru. I’ll have to look at the whiskey stones, I’m always up for experimenting. Thanks for the update, lol, the person who might be off might be .... me.

 

I’m going to look today, so whiskey stones replace the ice, and chill without watering. So then instead of the freezer I could store it at 50 degrees in my beer cooler. I get a nicely chilled martini unpolluted by 25% water. Seems like a good idea to me, that’s my bug having a martini out, you shake it over ice there’s so much water added to Oz of gin there virtually no gin influence. Stirring is a bit better, but not enough that water isn’t an issue. Nice, I learned something I never though of before, I used a hammer using my freezer, and there’s another option.