Subjectivity of Beer Reviewing

Ug, I don't seem to have any energy today. bleh

One problem with websites like BeerAdvocate.com is that (I think) people discriminate against anything from a large macro brewery. Its funny because large breweries win festivals in blind judging... for example, the Great American Beer Festival. Its not like they can pay off the judges, its a blind test by very experienced certified judges. Lets just take one example: Michelob Pale Ale won gold for the "Classic English-Style Pale Ale" category, a common and popular beer style. Michelob is owned by the same people who bring you Budweiser, Anheuser-Busch. But on BeerAdvocate, this beer is rated as 75 from 22 reviews. 75 is considered "not recommended". 22 reviews isn't a lot of reviews for the site, but enough to be valid. So... a beer considered by professional judges as a gold medal for a popular category is "not recommended"?

I just think that people are prejudice against the larger breweries. I'll admit guilt in that too, of course. And I'm probably guilty of giving higher scores to smaller breweries or lesser-known beers. I think people like to take pride in something that is special... a beer you can only get in your home town has a certain appeal.

Anyway, I think people also tend to not analyze beers by their style, but compared to all other beers. You can't compare Molson Canadian to any other beers other than American style adjunct lagers. I think people tend to give the American lager bad scores because they don't like the fact the fact that it doesn't have much flavour... but the style isn't supposed to have much flavour... so you can't really complain!

Well... thats my rant for today. I also added a review for Molson Canadian (why not? I think its good for its STYLE).