Another cool...

Might just be the best beer you've ever had.

Of the top 50 beers on the Rate Beer dot com site, I've had a mere 13 with Rochefort 10 being the highest rated at number

4.(Hmm, I personally found the 8 superior) Westy 12 is rated at number 2, just behind Alesmith Barrel Aged Speedway Stout.

Best regards, Bill

Ack, one of my pet peeves. Those ratings have zero statistical relevance, in a rigorous sense. All they do is tell you what a self-selected sample of web site users who care to rate the set of beers presented think. While chances are pretty good that the top N (where N is at least a couple dozen) listed beers are pretty good, individual ratings are meaningless for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is individual preference.

Anyway, end of rant. Carry on. ;-)

(I like the Rochefort 10 better than the 8, FWIW.)

Rant on, me bucko.

I use the top 50 list as a reference point. The only thing that really matters is, like you said, my personal preference. If I really like something and it ain't on anybody's most highly rated list, that's just too f'n bad.

Of course, recommendations made here by the knowledgeable beer drinkers are a different matter. I've yet to be disappointed.

Best regards, Bill

I wouldn't say zero relevance. The ratings are calculuated using Bayesian weights that attempt to normalize the range and account for the number of ratings any particular beer has. On top of that, given the 300,000 ratings, the fact a great many in the top 50 have over 200-300 ratings each (and Celebrator with nearly 500 ratings), you've got a statistically reliable ranking of beers.

The main issue as you correctly state is that of self-selection. While this rules out the probably that any one person randomly selected from the population is going to love the current Top 10 beers (Alesmith barrel aged Speedway, Westy 12, 3F Dark lord, Rochefort 10, Alesmith Speedway, 3F Dreadnaught, Dogfish WWS, Free State Imperial, Westy 8, Bells Expedition) is rather low, there is a good probably that randomly selecting a *beer geek* will result in agreement with the top 10. Thus, its not a site meant to provide the "general consumer" with advice on what to buy so much as it is an aid to the beer geek, or the person who wants to become a beer geek and wants to be able to know whats "good" and whats not.

If i cared a half-wit about wine, I could use a resource like that. When i sometimes buy a bottle of california cabernet or zinfandel, I'll glance at rows of $8-$20 bottles and have no idea which one might be crap or an absolute steal. Of course usually i resort to the shelf labels that report such and such wine got a 94 from Wine Spectator or whatever.

Places like ratebeer take the place of an "elite few" who get to report on whats good and whats not.

This is also my reply to the other guy's "Word Beer Review" who complained that I shouldn't flame him for simply attempting to advance the word of good beer. While a valid comeback, I still think the point of view of one person alone can likely cause more misinformation than the collective points of view of site that has well over 600 people with 100 ratings (and a few thousand members overall).

And to anticipate a comment about how ratebeer's top 10 overly represents imperial stouts and other bold styles, a better way to view the best beers at that site is to do so by style. Thus one can still see George Gales Festival Mild in a top list.

Ah, but each beer is ranked using a (potentially, probably) different set of subjects. Can they be internally consistent, especialy among a shifting subject set? I look at it this way: if you get a set up 300 beer geeks to sit down at rate a thousand beers, and I matched my ratings against that data set, I would have a fairly good idea how my tastes mesh with the numbers. And that's about it.

What that tells me is that a lot of beer geeks really like big, complex beers over all else. Quality may be there, but there's something missing. Looking at the rating of that severely underattenuated mess they call 120-Minute IPA leads me to doubt the ratings even more.

At the expense of getting ratings from people who really don't know a wide range of beer. (Or people like me who occasionally go to such sites and vote "yay" or "nay" on individual beers.)

Ah, but that simply points up a huge flaw in that kind of rating system. Excellent though unassuming beers should be rated as highly. That's like saying in a homebrew competition some styles should only merit a maximum of 30/50 points.

This, imho, is a key point. Rating by style. I absolutely refuse, for instance, to say a nice Pilsner like, umm, Prima, Pine Mountain, or Blue Paddle is inferior in any way to a nice IPA like, umm, Hopdevil, Two Hearted, or Stone's.

Best regards, Bill

"Bill Becker" wrote in news:c0ba6b$148ai6$ snipped-for-privacy@ID-128382.news.uni-berlin.de:

Well, that's a common point of debate on RB. Rate by style or rate for the overall impression. I'm in the latter camp. I'm one of those big beer people who tends to rate more complex stuff better, because I happen to like it more.

To me, if you rate a beer by style, then how do you rate the world's best macro American Standard? Does MGD or Bud or whatever get rated high, because it has the ideal taste of corn and rice?

Yes, yes, the ratings slant towards particular styles, but that doesn't invalidate rating sites as a good source of beer information. Will it match your tastes necessarily? Nope. I found absolute crap that's rated highly on RB (my recent experience with the astoundingly-disappointing Avery The Czar being a primary example). That being said, RB is still a good place for information. I don't think it's the only place for it, but it's a heck of a place to find beer stuff.

I don't consider macro American standard as a style so I don't have to rate the shit at all. I also don't have to drink the shit.

Bill

Sippin on a nice Pine Mountain Pils as we "speak".

I wouldn't debate that point. I just have a problem with relying overly much on "top beers" lists made from random rating systems and raters. (I spent three minutes looking at rateb**r.com, and saw one fellow who was surprised that Bigfoot was bitter...)

LOL! Celebration is bitter. Bigfoot is sweet.

Best regards, Bill

Thank God someone agrees with me.

LOL! It looks like you and Joel are in the majority. For me, the 10's alcohol taste was a bit too dominant. With the 8, I tasted a much more complex range of spices in the flavour. Oh well, it's not like my palate has stopped at the end of the line and there's no room for any variation what so ever.

Best regards, Bill

Nah, there's a LOT of people out there who agree witcha, Bill. That's why beer's so neat: everyone gets a little something different out of it. Kinda like food. Kinda like wine. Kinda like drama. Kinda like music. Mostly like people. Different is cool.

I go back and forth on that point. Most of the time, I probably lean toward the 8. But, it's also been eons since I've tasted both next to each other. Now that the 8 has finally made it to SoCal (weird, because the 10 was out here all along), I may have to do just that.

-Steve

I guess I'm a damn waffler, Lew: I love 'em both, but prefer whichever one I happen to be drinking at the time. It is mighty convenient that you can buy gift packs with four of the Rochefort 8, with glass, at the duty free shops in the Brussels airport. BTW rumors that Rochefort 8 tastes better within the walls of the Abbey are just that. The beer tastes great no matter what the setting....Cheers, Chuck C.

Okay, I can live with that, too!

me too.