A profile of RateBeer’s quiet leader, Joe Tucker
If there are any clear distinctions to be made between contemporary beer and wine cultures, perhaps one of the most immediate is the very different role critics play in each. The beer world, despite the innovations and heightened public regard achieved over the past few decades, still has no equivalent to a Robert Parker or Stephen Tanzer or Eric Asimov. Even the most influential modern beer writer, the late Michael Jackson, never held such sway over the market. Instead, for better or worse, the major market drivers in craft beer culture tend to be user-based websites—like RateBeer.com.
Worth a click! >> via North Bay Bohemian.
Not sure I’d have it any other way, really.
I understand that there are a number of brewers who don’t care for the anonymous rating of their beers, but to me it seems the RateBeer system is fairly fool-proof. If beer were more like wine and a handful of a high-profile beer reviewers had the power to make or break breweries, I would see that as a much larger problem. At least this way, one or two bad reviews don’t destroy someone’s reputation. I use RateBeer quite a bit, and for me, it kind of works as a catalog of the beers I have tried, so I can go back later and see what I thought of something and decide if I want to try it again.
On sites like Ratebeer and BeerAdvocate the ratings only matter to the tickers who post them. Most of them don’t care about their reader getting a sense of the beverage they just consumed, they only care about the numbers. Because, as we know, the one with most reviews knows the most about beer and is king.
In this capacity they don’t matter to the brewers very much at all as the vast majority of people that review the beers that they drink don’t know what they’re talking about. They either aren’t literate enough to express what it is that they’ve experienced or don’t have a palate that is developed enough to sense what is going on in the beverage or both. These are just “average joes”, not beer writers with sophisticatedly developed palates, so it’s really not their faults.
What matters to the brewers (or at least what should matter) is the vocal minority that pimp certain breweries and denigrate others. Either fairly or unfairly, this is why the online beer community(s) has the sway that it does. It’s in how many ISOs that a certain beer has, not how good it actually. It’s all about the hype and JoeT has very little, if anything, to do with that. That is why he’s not been given the credit for it. It’s because he doesn’t deserve it.
“On sites like Ratebeer and BeerAdvocate the ratings only matter to the tickers who post them.”
Hasty generalization. Judgmental language.
“Most of them don’t care about their reader getting a sense of the beverage they just consumed, they only care about the numbers.”
Hasty generalization.
“Because, as we know, the one with most reviews knows the most about beer and is king.”
Appeal to ridicule. Thought-terminating cliché. A bit o’ hasty generalization tucked in there for good measure.
“In this capacity they don’t matter to the brewers very much at all as the vast majority of people that review the beers that they drink don’t know what they’re talking about.”
Hasty generalization. Ad hominem.
“They either aren’t literate enough to express what it is that they’ve experienced or don’t have a palate that is developed enough to sense what is going on in the beverage or both.”
See previous.
“These are just “average joes”, not beer writers with sophisticatedly developed palates, so it’s really not their faults.”
Hasty generalization. Ad hominem/abusive fallacy. Appeal to ridicule.
“What matters to the brewers (or at least what should matter) is the vocal minority that pimp certain breweries and denigrate others.”
Hasty gener– (Do I even need to write it?)
“Either fairly or unfairly, this is why the online beer community(s) has the sway that it does.”
Causal oversimplification. Circular cause and consequence.
“It’s in how many ISOs that a certain beer has, not how good it actually.”
See above. Nested causal oversimplification.
“It’s all about the hype”
See above and above and above.
“and JoeT has very little, if anything, to do with that. That is why he’s not been given the credit for it. It’s because he doesn’t deserve it.”
Actually, that’s true. Joe T.’s a great dude.
@ Ken Weaver
Why not tell us specifically (in a non-generalized and non-oversimplified manner, of course) what YOU thought of the article and of RateBeer’s sway on the brewing industry?
Everyone’s palate is wildly different and opinions regarding beers are hugely subjective. Someone’s “1” might be someone else’s “5” and vice-versa Therefore, other than for the purposes of general conversation, I’m not sure assigning a rating to any beer is relevant or meaningful.
However, if the process of rating beers is here to stay then I believe the only way to accurately “rate” a beer is to spread the analysis over a large sample group so the most accurate “average” rating can be achieved.
In addition, I would suggest that the ratings be hidden from view until a minimum number of rating had been tabulated so as not to influence any individual ratings. If the average rating was withheld and kept secret until 100 people had rated a beer, then I believe a fairly accurate rating could be achieved.
The main thing, in my opinion, is to try as many beers as possible in order to find the one(s) that appeal(s) to your personal palate. And, if you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all. Remember, this is a very young industry despite all the great beers out there. Nothing can be gained by tearing dow a beer, a brewery, or a brewer. The sum of all parts will make the craft industry a true, enduring winner!
“Why not tell us specifically (in a non-generalized and non-oversimplified manner, of course) what YOU thought of the article and of RateBeer’s sway on the brewing industry?”
Shifting burden of proof (approximately).
I wrote the article, so its sentiments are pretty in-line with my own.
Having spent the last few years trying to fully wrap my head around how Ratebeer is perceived in the larger beer community and why such a robust democratic database is subject to so much public scorn, I think much of it has to do with the fact that things like the Top 50 list have been marketed as “The Best Beers in the World” as opposed to something more nuanced and less divisive. The list has become the most public aspect of Ratebeer, and people inherently are obliged to agree or disagree with whether or not those really are the best beers in the world. That’s about as far as most people get in attempting to make sense of what’s ultimately a pretty foreign concept: an entirely open reviewing system. In turn, vehement disagreers attempt to insult the whole Ratebeerian community, marginalize it, label us things like “extremists” (Oh, Martyn…), etc., and do everything their angry, often logically oblivious internet voices can to marginalize and undermine what’s ultimately a concept that I think many people could otherwise get behind if they bothered to look a bit more carefully at what comes out of the process (style percentages and so forth). Honestly, Ratebeer could also do a much better job of public awareness in this regard.
I’d have liked to have gone into that in the article itself, but it was neither the time nor place.
@Ken Weaver
“Honestly, Ratebeer could also do a much better job of public awareness in this regard.”
Indeed.
The problem with an entirely open reviewing system is that it fails to take into consideration the level of expertise of the individual reviewer. Not only their overall experience, but their experience with individual styles. Add to that batch variation and freshness and you’ve got essentially four problems that neither RateBeer nor BeerAdvocate has addressed. You’ve got raters who may be unfamiliar with a certain style, raters who review styles that they don’t favor, and raters who review beers that they know to be past their prime, etc. all of which skew the overall rating. This all may even out when a particular beer has enough ratings, but what happens until then? They could handle the experience issue by using a weighted system much like that of the BJCP and it would remedy the problem relatively quickly. As to batch variation and freshness, those too could be remedied relatively simply. The point of this is that for overall ranks of beers to be accurate, you must take into consideration who, exactly, is rating them. Is it someone who is rating their first beer or is it someone who has rated thousands? The difference between a Novice and Master BJCP-wise. In the end, I don’t begrudge JoeT or The Bros. for creating places for the beer community to congregate online. What I do begrudge them for is not making appropriate changes as those communities evolve.