Dear Beer Advocate(s): Stop It.
Let me preface this rant by saying that I’m a big fan of Beer Advocate; I visit the site often and I subscribe to the magazine. I enjoy seeing how my opinions of beers jive with other peoples’ reviews. I appreciate the site and I especially appreciate the people who let me know what beers I might really be missing out on. But I have something to say to a certain segment of the craft beer drinker population, one that is very well represented on Beer Advocate: stop the the unnecessary suds snobbery; stop the ale affectation; stop the pretentious pint talk; stop the beer bullshit; just stop it.
Let me clarify: beer reviews are great but only if you can relate to them. Additionally, there’s no need to make things up in order to sound knowledgeable about beer; that’s what we have wine snobs for. For example, I recently saw a Wine Spectator review of a wine that mentioned notes of graphite and underbrush. Why should anyone know what those things taste like and why is it necessary to talk over the heads of regular folks who might be trying to get into good wine? It’s pretentious and obnoxious so why do so many beer critics strive to be just as showboaty and inaccessible?
I recently reviewed the Avery Fifteen and after typing up my review, I headed over to Beer Advocate to see what other beer drinkers thought of it. While I had tolerated snobby beer reviews on the site before, the ones I came across for the Fifteen, really burned my ass not only because some of them were snobby but also because some of them were clearly made up. One guy had a review that was long enough to be a full page spread in a newspaper while other say things like “Taste is dominated by the mild leather…” Nobody knows what that means. Still, others quite obviously developed their reviews by taking notes from those who had posted before them and a few just plain made things up based on what they read on the bottle label (I don’t care what you say; you didn’t taste white pepper and hibiscus; chances are you don’t know what white pepper tastes like and neither do most people).
While I’ll admit that my beer reviews on this site can be a bit lengthy and perhaps overly descriptive, I like to think that I remain generally accessible. I’m not going to tell you that a beer tastes of candied orange peel and verbena when I saying that it has some citrus and floral notes makes more sense to most readers (also, I don’t know what those things taste like). But there are quite a few regular reviewers on Beer Advocate who will write things like: “The flavor is dried woodsy evergreen, pine-scotch, with a medicinal lacquer type of alcohol presence…” when nobody knows what pine-scotch is (I’m assuming he and the next guy who copied the term meant “scotch pine” but their misuse of it makes me even more skeptical of their ability to identify it as a flavor) and they could have just written that the beer was piney and medicinal. Don’t get me wrong; I’m an advocate of using the right words for the right situation and I’m not advocating dumbing down beer reviews but I am saying that some of this is just embellished BS.
Let’s be as accurate and descriptive as possible while still making our reviews ring true, original, and accessible to other people. If we really want to expand the craft beer community, we’re going to have to stop acting like those wine elitists and start acting like the people we are – knowledgeable and passionate beer enthusiasts who want to spread the Word.
Still don’t get what I’m talking about? Watch this:
Filed Under: Beer Musings
I disagree that reviewers on Beer Advocate should use simpler adjectives to describe beers. I wrote a blog post in response, and if you would like to see an alternate point of view, you can check it out here : http://www.winobeerofoodo.com
http://www.nonsnobbeer.com have good reviews and keep the bullshit low
I don’t disagree with your comments – but I think some people comment on smell as if it were taste. Assuming something like pine needles or a pine cone taste as it smells. I’ve never eaten leather but I think I know what it would taste like in my mouth based on it’s smell. The problem with relating that to beer is that there is a lot more going on in the liquid state of beer than in the solid state of leather or pine needles etc. At the very least the carbonation alone can bring many varying tastes/flavors/sensations to the palate depending what you last had in your mouth or even smelled in the air.
Nice discussion. I wouldn’t be so quick to jump on people relating scent to taste however Jeff. The two senses are hopelessly entwined, not co-dependent but mutualistic in nature. To quote the University of Conneticuit Health Center on Taste and Smell Disorders – “Taste and smell are two separate senses. However, both contribute to the experience of flavor”. You are correct in saying beer is a complex medium, as is the brewing process which with the incorporation of different ingredients at different times in the brewing process plays a large role in if they are mostly for the taste or the smell of the beer.
On a curious and semi-tangential note, from anatomy and my research lab I feel that artichokes taste, how formaldehyde smells. I still love both though!