Styles You Don’t Like and Ratings

Do you rate beers in styles you don’t like? If you do, why? And, do you feel your scores are "fair" when rating this non-desired beers?

Of course... palates change, and Im a big propenent on knowing what you hate. That being said I dont necessarily seek them out but if a beer hits my radar and has good reviews and doesnt cost an arm and a leg Ill give it a whirl. Good example was Lagunitas WTF... not a big brown ale fan but the hop presence and complexity of that beer made me second guess my dislike of browns... As for scoring being fair... its all subjective, some of my friends think sours taste rancid and unpleasant... I disagree but dont tell them they are wrong.

If people only rated the styles they liked, this website would be useless

Originally posted by Ryan82SM
Do you rate beers in styles you don’t like? If you do, why? And, do you feel your scores are "fair" when rating this non-desired beers?

Usually when rating I’m biased. I reflect on the specific beer and if its style it’s representing a style I don’t particularly like; that however will not influence me to give it a good rating. For example, I dislike Brown Ales, most anyway, but I quite enjoyed Bolita Brown. I don’t think of it is as a Brown Ale, I think of it as a beer that has surpassed its boring origins and had actually done something interesting. I have the same thinking for that Dogfish brown ale which was matured on some kind of Peruvian wood or something... inventive!

Originally posted by GT2
If people only rated the styles they liked, this website would be useless

To be fair, this site has a lot of bias on it anyway. But I do see your point. I try to rate some of everything and I try to be as "fair" as possible.

Originally posted by SPDickerman

Originally posted by GT2
If people only rated the styles they liked, this website would be useless

To be fair, this site has a lot of bias on it anyway. But I do see your point. I try to rate some of everything and I try to be as "fair" as possible.

I think this especially goes for Lambics/sours. I usually don’t buy them ’cause I don’t like them and they are mostly way too expensive, but if one shows up at a tasting/festival, I’ll definitely rate it. Just to un-skew the ratings a bit In all seriousness, I try to be as unbiased as possible, even in styles you don’t like there is almost always an example you do like. For me for example Isabelle Proximus (4.4) vs. BelleVue Selection (1.7).

Originally posted by SPDickerman

Originally posted by GT2
If people only rated the styles they liked, this website would be useless

To be fair, this site has a lot of bias on it anyway. But I do see your point. I try to rate some of everything and I try to be as "fair" as possible.

It’s a good point; really, what I want to know has more to do with "how do you (personally) handle this situation?"

For instance, do you go on rating Schwarzbier when you hate the style? Do you buy the beer, knowing you hate the style, and rate it anyway? Do you adapt and rate the beer with a different method/mindset than usual?

Originally posted by GT2
If people only rated the styles they liked, this website would be useless

Not really true , i think you’d get a way better look on the top beers when everybody would just rate what they like instead of also rating beers they don’t like.

I dunno if i explain myself in the right way.
But if let’s say if more people who have access to a certain beer and it’s a style they don’t like you’ll automaticcaly get a negative beer with low ratings , while it may be possible that that certain beer can actually be very good in the style it’s been made ...

and if you only rate the syles you like you’ll get a better perspective in what’s really really good , what’s mediocore or what’s bad , cause it’s not that you like a style that you like every beer in that style ....

It’s like going to a Chinese Restaurant when u actually hate Chinese food there’s no point on doing that ... same goes for beer ....

I was at a festival once were De Dolle Brouwers had a new beer , it was a blond sour ale of 5% abv , kinda lemony and green apples with a tarty taste.
I asked a couple of people i knew what they tought about it and some of them said this is not a good beer !! i even had to pour it away !
So i asked like "gosh, was it so bad that you had to pour it away ? What was wrong with it ? "

so the guy answered " i don’t know , but i just don’t like sour beers" .... so yeah what’s the point of drinking it when u don’t like sour ales.
And you don’t have to do it for that one time it can happen that you do have a good beer of a style you don’t like cause that chance will be less than you disliking most of the beers in the style you hate ...

So it’s really not that good if you go drinking 100 beers in the style you hate and only liking 1 out of them ...

Kinda understand what i mean ?

Wheat beers, fruit beers and Spice/Herb/Vegetables are usually unexciting.
I tend not to buy them.

But if they come up at a tasting, or they are available in a sampler at the brewpub, I try them: one among them many can be good.

My guess is there’s a lot of individual variation with this. I personally don’t buy beer that I don’t think I’ll enjoy, but I will try it if it’s at a tasting, and I’ll rate it too. But for tick chasers, my guess is being good beer or a favorite style doesn’t always have to be a prerequisite.

Well I think this also brings up a factor of why do you rate? When I was rating heavily id rate anything and the score I gave was purely for my records, for example I generally dont like imperial stouts and thats reflected in my 0.7 score on Dark Lord but beer geek weasel was a standout and got a high 4 from me. If i was to just give up on imperial stouts id have never found weasel, therefore its easily justified.