Beer Criticism: Are You Doing it Wrong?
(Photo by Jon Page)
Pour a beer. Take a sip. How does it taste? Would you tell me?
This beer sucks.
It may be a muddled pilsner, or a timid saison, or a bitter IPA with no aroma, but it sucks, and the world needs to know. Dismissive words hit cyberspace, Twitter spreads the splash. The brewers snarl, then maybe they laugh.
This beer’s the shit!
It’s a juicy IPA, it’s a piercing sour or a funky farmhouse, but it’s freakin’ beautiful, and the world needs to know. Hot gushing praise shoots all over Reddit; hoarding and trading commence. The brewers react with a grunt and maybe a high five.
Hmmm, this beer’s an 84.
The number is folded into the Beer Matrix. Over time, a trend appears. Brewers grunt and tweak the boil time.
This beer is No. 26 on our list of the 125 best IPAs in western Oregon.
Faint praise, something about having fallen short of the glory, move on, and press agents copy the copy for their boss. Clicks pile up. Brewers sneer and change nothing.
What is the purpose of all this? Why do people write what they think about beer? Not just the folks who post the thousands of reviews and ratings on sites like RateBeer and BeerAdvocate, or apps like Untappd, but the pros and semipros as well. Why do we do it? Could we be doing it better?
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Sometimes it’s for ourselves, to keep records of what we liked and why we liked it, which is why I started evaluating beers back in 1986. Maybe we want to get better at tasting, and that’s how you do it: Drink the beer, think about it, write down your thoughts. We keep track and thereby figure out what it is we like.
Some of us do it for others. From the earliest days of this emerging beer community, it’s been about sharing information and experience. Try this, skip that, go here; that’s worth the money; talk to this brewer.
Some of us took the lead of guys like Michael Jackson and James D. Robertson and wrote reviews for print, in books and newspapers. Now, thanks to the internet and Google, everyone’s reviews are accessible … and that presents us with the Spider-Man issue. With great power comes great responsibility! Well … some responsibility.
If you want to be a more responsible reviewer, when you share a review or a critique, ask yourself four questions.
1. Do I know enough about this type of beer to criticize or praise it?
2. Is my critique actually about the beer, as opposed to the place, or the type of beer in general, or the politics or ownership of the brewer?
3. Who is my audience: myself, the brewer, other drinkers?
4. Is my intent to be objective, helpful, amusing or badass?
The first one is self-protection. You look like a nitwit if you say something like “not hoppy enough for a festbier,” or “this lambic is infected.” You don’t have to be an expert, but get up to speed before sharing.
The second one: These are all valid, but you should present them in the proper places. So if you don’t like the bar’s atmosphere, for example, don’t slag the beer on Untappd, but diss the bar on Yelp. If you don’t like brown ales, consider sharing why you think browns are a waste of malt on Facebook or Reddit. And if it’s the politics of the brewer, that kind of thing is now done on Twitter, apparently.
Audience shapes the review. For yourself, you can keep it brief. For sharing with other drinkers, you can be more expansive and more comparative: “more malty than Beer X, and less expensive, too.” If your audience is the brewers, and you really want them to take you seriously? Write them an email.
If your intent is to be objective or helpful, you can err on the side of “I maybe didn’t get this, but you might,” which might get your review consideration that “This sucked” wouldn’t, but there’s a lot to be said for simply being honest. If you want to be amusing, or badass, or both, then don’t hold back. It ain’t funny if it ain’t over the top.
Just keep in mind that the review that brewers pay the most attention to is the monthly sales report, and the reviews that drinkers value the most are their own, and regardless of who you think your audience is, it’s most likely yourself, and maybe the brewery’s public relations agency.
Lew Bryson
Lew Bryson has been writing about beer for more than 25 years and is the author of Tasting Whiskey. On Twitter @LewBryson.
Some of my favorite experiences have been with excellent examples of beer varieties I don’t like. It gives me a chance to examine what I do and not like about the variety without having to wonder whether it’s a good beer. Thanks for writing an article that explains why good reviewing helps folks like me.
I have been home brewing for 17 years. I was surprised how many elements of this article that I related too! What I am enjoying the most is how this article has me thinking and things to think about from now on! Thank you Lew Bryson.
Royce
Excellent article. I still have trouble gagging down an IPA. But I know what a good one is supposed to taste like, what it is about them my friends who like IPAs are looking for. So even though I didn’t like it, my friends may find it to be their new “go to” brew. I also do not like barleywine or barrel aged beers. Once again, they are the rage for a lot of folk in the winter months. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it is bad. No if it tastes like chlorine, or has no carbonation, then that is worthy of a critical comment. Also, is it off because it was served from contaminated lines, a bottle that was no stored properly, a one off batch? If you have ever homebrewed, you know how hard it is to make every batch exactly the same.
Very valid and that’s the reason why a comment by saying its not good on social platform casually it maybe, exhibits ones shallowness in so many shades.
Nice reading this one.
What one may like someone else may dislike it’s as simple, we shall not stick our opinions, as it may be unreasonable for the enterprise.
I really wish more people would actually leave feedback on untapped, I try to use it if there’s a beer I haven’t had and want to find out info about it. Too many people just rate and never leave any feedback, you might like a malty IPA where I like a juicy one.
Years ago I was judging beer at the Sonoma County Fair. Before judging, the head judge had a talk with the judges saying that their goal was to improve the quality of each brewer’s product. He said, “Comments like ‘This beer tastes like cat piss’ were not helpful to the brewer, and how do you know what cat piss tastes like anyway?”