Is there a consumer's beer contest?

What they showed on the special was Garrett Oliver hand bottling some of his normally draught-only Brooklyn Brewery beers.

You missesd some important detail. Aside from those brewed and bottled at Matt's, the Brooklyn Brewery beers are draught at the brewpub. Garrett was simply bottling those beers so they could be submitted. Its nothing special.

Yep, now theere's your consumer beer contest. Beers are sampled mostly as is from store shelves and draught in bars. Of course most have the decency not to rate a beer thats obviously past its prime or has been mishandled, but for beers that are prone to those kinds of off-tastes, the consumer ought to know that, and it will be reflected somewhat at ratebeer.

Its also a large representative sample, except it doesn't really represent people who drink beer but don't like it (i.e. the swill chuggers of the world)

horseshit when there IS such a contest. The US Beer Tasting Championship ....

We were just trying to wake you from your slumber. Thanks for that URL--it is a very USEful award list because these are beers that people can actually FIND somewhere!

Expletive Deleted wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@linc.cis.upenn.edu:

Plus, as someone else will likely point out, Ratebeer tends to attract a majority of people who like big, aggressive beers (including me). Pilsners fare comparably badly against, say imperial stouts. That being said, from a pure data standpoint, it's got the most beer-related data points of any place on the planet I know of.

On Mon, 13 Oct 2003, it was written:

yup, and even with that kind of bias, if one wants to know what the best pilsners are, one can search by top ratings in that category and get good information.

best pilsners are, one can search by top ratings in that category and get good information.

True. It's still a cold shower to see all those top ratings at about 3.7 on a 5 point scale where other styles are well into the 4's. It makes you wonder what's wrong with those other styles!

And as regards 'big' beers, I picked up a six of Dogfish Head 60 Minute the other day, and it is knockout. Completely delicious. Makes me weep. It has all the flowery complexity that I like in Bell's Two-Hearted, but with even more intricate gothic zooming, yet it scores below other IPA's that are impenetrable walls of hops.

"Douglas W. Hoyt" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com:

Ah, fine choice. I tend to waffle between that, Hop Devil, or Dominion's New River Pale as the finest IPA/APAs I've ever had. Still like the monsters, as stuff like Ruination and Dreadnaught have lots of complexity, love the battle between the mega-hops and huge malts.

When I first had 60 Minute IPA on draft, I loved it. Now that I can get the bottled version, the draft just isn't as good any more. Something about the character of the bottled version makes it incredibly unique, doesn't seem to carry over to the kegged version. Would love to try it casked, would be great to compare it directly to the bottled to see the differences.

Actually, the first time I had 60 Minute on draft, I was amazed at how much like the bottle it was. It's still good, but hasn't been like that since. Dunno what happened.

Scott T. Jensen blurted:

Well, if you saw it on TV, it MUST be true!

fr0glet

I recall my first and only sampling of the 60 minute: from cask on a Friday the Firkenteenth at the Grey Lodge sometime in 2001. It was lovely...as was the Flying Fish Farmhouse ale. Dangit I miss that! Now I gotta put up with stuff like that silly ass beer dinner in the other thread.