Opinion: Beer Reviewing Sites

I kicked off my beer enthusiasm via the internet in the Fall of '04. At that time a simple Google search pointed me in the direction of RealBeer.com, an extremely friendly community of people. I did only a tiny bit of browsing through the site's articles and spent most of my time in the forums asking questions and reading old posts. It took me all the way until February '05 to find the site I use the most now, BeerAdvocate.com (BA)- one of two heavyweights in the beer reviewing world. I didn't get around to checking out the other (RateBeer.com) until a year or so ago, and I don't use it much as I don't like the format.

What I like: The best thing about either of the beer reviewing sites is the fact you can review the beer and it is then listed in your profile. It's an easy way to keep track of all the beers you've tasted/reviewed. I try to review all the beers I taste, even if I'm not taking notes while I'm out at Lucky Baldwin's or Father's Office (I don't take notes anywhere I go), but I don't have much of a problem with that because I am doing the reviewing for myself and not others, and I can remember the general idea of the beer I drank.

What I don't like: I will preface by saying there is some great camaraderie on BA. However, if I took some of the questions I was able to ask and get very thoughtful responses to on RealBeer when I was first starting out, I would more than likely get a thousand smart ass degrading comments on BA. While I find the local group forums (I participate in the Pacific forum a lot) to be very helpful and benign, the more general forums ("Bar Talk" and "News & Opinions") contain quite a lot of junk as far as responses go. Ask a question like "I think the flavors in my X beer seemed a bit off in X way, has anyone else noticed this lately" and you will get smothered with responses of "Bring it to me and your problem will be solved"and other pointless answers - admittedly funny the first time a response like that was every given probably back around 800 B.C. While these sorts of comments don't litter the forums to unreadable levels, they do make the general browsing of forums a bit frustrating.

What I don't like (2): There seems to be an overall jockeying of position by many on the site to announce their own supreme beer knowledge and denounce others'. I can't tell you how many threads I've seen turn into name calling because of the beer terminology or facts they decided to use were "ignorant."

What I don't like (3): Jay at Hedonist Beer Jive has suggested this before, but the ratings are significantly skewed to the aggressive, huge alcohol beers. Why might that be? Is it because the higher alcohol beers need more malt, hops, or both, creating an increase in the overall flavor? Maybe. Is part of it because with this new sort of beer revolution were are going through right now people are jockeying to anoint their palate supreme over everyone else's? Definitely. It's almost to the point where if I ever had a Dogfish Head 12o minute IPA (at 21% ABV) and didn't like it, I'd be cast to the peon level of the beer community just for not having great taste. This is definitely not to say everyone is like this, but a large enough number to skew the results.

What I think is funny: The feud, almost like a cross-town rivalry, between the BA and RateBeer communities. The funniest part I would have to say is from the Dark Lord Day reports. From what I understand there is a general table or area where BA's congregate, and a general area where RateBeerians congregate. I've seen a couple complaints of someone coming from the RB table to the BA table and taking bottles to much disdain. I've also seen BA's describe RB's as unsociable jackals and BA's as some of the nicest people you could meet (might be true).

Overall: In light of the many complaints, I still love BA. The positives far outweight the negatives, which are really more like nuisances. It functions for me as a way to generate an ongoing list of beers I've tried with ratings attached to them as future reference. It also serves as a great way to find out the local news and happenings (ie the "Pacific" forum for me). I also think it does do a good job of giving readers an overall sense of what they might expect in a beer if one is researching before buying. I would have to say I recommend BA over RB just because I think the layout of the site is better, in my opinion.