| Blogs - My Two Shillings |
Whether you rate beer on one of the craft beer websites or you take notes for your own satisfaction, let me be bluntly honest. You’re fooling yourself. Don’t think for a moment that you’re objectively rating a beer or that the value you give it has much of a relation to the one you drank a week ago. Or even yesterday. Definitely not a month ago. There are just too many ever changing variables tagging along with your tastings for them to be comparable.
I can already hear some of you now. “My palate is so refined, that I can tell the difference between two-row and six-row malts in the beer I drink. Therefore I can detect all of the different flavors in a beer and be able to describe them, making my ratings perfect.”
Well, aren’t you just precious, Johnny Jack? Color me green with envy. Make it pea-soup-green, though, ‘cause your attitude’s making me sick. How are you mistaken? Let me count the ways. Better yet, let me just describe them. I’ll just do a few, as I don’t feel like going all aleph-null on anyone.
Temperature: Most of us know that certain styles of beer are supposed to be served within a specific range of temperatures. Without even getting into the geekdom of those who take the time to do this, what I’m actually referring to is that the temperature you had American pale ale #1 at is not the same temperature you had American pale ale #2 at. Even a difference of five degrees (that’s Fahrenheit, I’m typing this in the U.S.A., get over it) can have a large impact on the flavor profile. Did you record the temperature? Hells, did you check the temperature? (I’m really hoping you’re saying “no” right now.)
Food: I love pairing food with beer. Do I record the types of food I ate with a certain beer? Did I go through all of the different proteins, carbs, fats, and a sundry chemicals? No, I didn’t, and neither did you. This goes for food you ate at breakfast, lunch, and supper. If you didn’t completely neutralize the tastes, it’s going to affect your tastes on your beer. And you know that curry you had last night? It burnt some of your taste buds right off. Do you really think the tastes you’re getting today, with your freshly scorched tongue, is the same as you got a few days ago?
Psychological Issues: I had to lump this one together or I’d have been typing all night. Have you been really looking forward to this beer, saving it for a special occasion? You’re over-rating it. Did you travel three hours and spend five times more on this beer than you would have for a comparable beer? You’re over-rating it. Was it made by a huge corporation that has quality control in aces, but taste in deuces? You’re under-rating it. Did your spouse just leave you? What the hells are you rating beer for?! No wonder he/she left, you anal retentive goon!
Scientific: I’m going to go all statistician on ya’ll right now. I’m going to introduce something I like to call “The Poisson Process of Beer Tasting.” Without going into the theory – I imagine all of you would be running away right now – I’ll give a brief example. You’re having a porter tonight, English style. You also had an English porter last night. And another last week. The tastes you got last night may still be with you enough that you can make some comparisons, even with all else being equal (and we know it’s not, don’t we, Johnny Jack!). But that porter you drank last week? Even with your notes, the actual tastes, due to the whole psychological perception of that beer, has faded significantly. My theory boils down to this: the longer it’s been since you last had that style, the less probable is it that you’re going to have any real objective comparison between the two beers, and not much of an accurate subjective one, either. Even with a simple rating system! (I’ll leave my thoughts on the rating systems for another blog post.)
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying rating beer is bad. I do it myself. I just don’t fool myself into thinking that all of the beers I’ve rated can really be directly compared to each other. To be honest, I don’t even care about the actual numbers any more, but rather just get them in the range of the grade I think they deserve. To be honest, I’ve thought about making my own system that would go: Will-Always-Drink-This; Will-Drink-This-On-Occasion; Will-Drink-This-If-Someone-Is-Buying; Will-Drink-This-To-Keep-From-Hurting-Someone’s-Feelings; and Lords-And-Ladies-Get-That-Horrible-Swill-Away!
I’ve also stopped taking notes on the beers I enter into the website I frequent. I could care less if my tasting and my review are days apart. Due to the reasons above, and many more, even if I’m off a bit, it’s highly probably that the score I give would’ve been the score from another day anyway. As long as the tastes are fairly close, I’m good with it.
I’d much rather just enjoy my beer, whether it’s on my own, as I sit on my back deck and smoke my pipe, or when I’m with a group of friends having a good time. The whole reason for me having a pint in the first place was so I could just have a good time.
I know most of you will continue rating your beers. I will be, too. Just don’t be fooled into thinking that you’re giving a comparable rating. Even if you have the styles down to a tittle, the tastes you perceive aren’t the same as they were with the last beer you had. It changes way too much over time.
Until next time, fare ye weel, ye brutes.
...I would like to start taking notes, not rating, but writing down how I feel about the beer.
That's what I'm thinking about doing. Or maybe go with my "drink," "maybe drink," "don't drink" system.
IOh, and if preferring to drink beer out of the proper glassware and at the correct temperature makes you a snob..... Well, I guess I am a snob.
I guess the question that I should ask, to see where (I think) you fall is: does taking the time to check the temperature ever lowered your enjoyment of drinking the beer or made it harder on you to socialize while drinking beer with others? Or will you, depending on the circumstances, not stress about the temperature for the sake of what's going on around you?
And remember, what I think shouldn't matter to anyone... kind of.
Last Updated (Saturday, 08 May 2010 20:44)