I don’t really like beer reviews. I find most of them unhelpful and many of them rather pretentious. I recently read a review on Beer Advocate that suggested star fruit notes were present in the aroma of a beer. Really? Star fruit? Couldn’t think of anything more obscure? I seem to recall trying star fruit sometime when I was on vacation in Hawaii, but I can’t even remember what it looked like, much less tasted like (turns out it looks like a star). Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Beer Advocate very much for its wealth of information (BeerFly is great for traveling). I look up almost every beer I try on BA, but usually to get a general sense of the beer and learn more about the brewery. In fact, I am about to dive into a Tin Whistle Black Widow and happened to come across this excerpt in a recent review:
The initial sweetness soon becomes backed by a sourness that is not as easy to look past as it was on the nose. Dark pumpernickel-ish breadiness balances the sweetness (as does a touch of sour). The bitterness is low to nil. The chocolate is in the way of cocoa powder. The dark fruitiness is of plum and dates, in a mild sort of way. There’s some “wet cardboard” that is not too interfering. This has some potential if the maltiness were bigger, I suppose.
I’ll have to watch out for the pumpernickel and wet cardboard then. I mean, do people really find this kind of stuff in tasting beer? I’m sure there are a few odd ducks out there with super palates, but I really feel like there is a lot of BS being thrown around in the average BA beer review. It is for this reason that I got a real kick out of this Beer Review Generator I found while blog surfing. With a few clicks, you too can have your very own beer review. To be honest, I can’t really distinguish the generated reviews from the typical serious reviews I read online, which I find sad. Here is one of my generated reviews:
Pours an opalescent amber with a soft, pillowy head. Heavy lacing. Intense flowery aroma, with overtones of rosewater and orange. Lovely boozy flavor, punctuated with strawberry and chocolate. Creamy mouthfeel and long finish.
Not bad, eh? Now I must say that I do love tasting different beers and comparing perceived flavor notes. Discussing the characteristics and subtleties of a beer can be great fun, but you lose me when it gets to picking out specific undertones like rosewater, star fruit, pumpernickel, and wet cardboard with certainty. You are probably losing a lot of people really, and likely not helping put forward the craft beer movement. Beer isn’t wine, why try and elevate our prized brew to the same levels of snobbery and exclusivity?
Cheers,
Chris
Hey there, it’s nice to see a local beer blog! I was just curious to comment re: the wine thing. I personally love both beer and wine and think that they are equally complex, and that wine doesn’t have to be snobby!
I do agree that those crazy huge lists of descriptions aren’t that useful, though. But I also think it is possible to train the palate to discern a lot of different flavours and aromas that one might not notice initially. I’m just finishing up a 5 month stint down in San Francisco and I guess all the beers down here have challenged my preconceptions about the complexity of beer. I think it can definitely be equal to wine!
Cheers.
Equal to wine? I wouldn’t stop there… What I am really taking exception to are the five paragraph beer (or wine) reviews that list many obscure flavors and don’t make a whole lot of sense to most people. I agree that beer and wine can both be very complex with many discernible flavours and aromas. I do enjoy tasting beer (or wine) in a group and discussing, but written reviews need to be understandable to be effective.
Oh I don’t disagree with that – although reviews without enough information are also useless! Although I have to admit that I personally find analytic reviews by people who have spent time developing their palates to be somewhat useful in helping to discern the general style, the niche a beer fills within that style, and how well it executes.
I do think, though, that lots of people into beer have an unfair bias against wine and that this might colour perceptions of an attempt to ‘review’ beer like a wine.
That could be the case, but you have to admit that certain wine snobs can be pretty annoying. Here is my official stance: I enjoy consuming both beverages and I don’t enjoy pretentious reviews of either!
Sounds good to me!
I would suggest taking a review as a guideline, not as gospel. People’s palates are different and the context in which someone drank a beer can be very different from yours, resulting in a different experience.
That isn’t to say you shouldn’t evaluate a beer like a wine. I think you ought to go through the steps. The more you do it, the more automatic and fluent it will become. Why? Because if you really enjoy a beer, then you can give a person a more considered answer than saying, “It is good.”
It can take a few tastings to getting a proper gauge of a beer. However, in the beginning, I wouldn’t get too caught up in searching for as many flavour components as you can distinguish. You can build up to that.
Nevertheless, I take Bill’s point to heart: “How useful are these wine-talk screeds about beer?” It’s not so much the process but the presentation that’s at issue. If you speak to people in everyday terms without getting too caught up in hyperbole, then they may not think of you as snob.
I agree with you mostly.
The wet cardboard one has merit though, as it’s a quality that can be found in oxidized beer, and beer judges can be taught to look for that as a flaw.
However, “The chocolate is in the way of cocoa powder” is a ridiculous sentence. IMHO.
I did not know that wet cardboard was a distinct odor that judges look for, good to know. Also, Rick, I don’t really agree with you. In my opinion, saying that a beer “is good” suffices in many cases, but I’d usually add a “give it a try”. Rest assured that I don’t take any reviews as guidelines because my tastes and everyone else’s are different. I do definitely go through the beer tasting process whenever I taste a beer and will actively discuss a beer with anyone willing. This doesn’t change the fact that most beer reviews are a bit ridiculous.
Cheers,
Chris