I was thinking that RB will always be the choice for beer snobs compared to Untappd. Probably this has already happened, or has always been true in any event, but even despite raters dropping off of this site and going to that site, or boycotting due to sell out, I think it’s still true that 1 ratebeer rating is usually worth 100 ratings on untappd. If for no other reason than only 17 or our 2215 ratings for Miller lite are 5.0 and most of those don’t even count anyway because they are from ratings who only rated that beer.
Anway, just a rant. I’m sure arguments could be made for BA as well on that front, though I’m not on that site.
Worth to who? Untappd is probably a much more representative sample of the totality of the beer drinking population. I’d argue that their ratings are much more useful than ours.
RateBeer is useful if you want to know what a handful of guys in London and Denmark think about beer.
I like that analogy. The truth is somewhere in between sometimes. I usually check both UT and RB now to get a rounded view, especially if RB only have a few rates of a beer.
Ya I think this was the point I was trying to make. (It was after a few beers). If there are at least a few ratings on RB, it’s much more reliable because everyone doesn’t just give a 5 stars to every beer.
I guess it’s the difference between box office sales and siskel and ebert.
The only people reading reviews on RB are other RBers. No one outside this bubble cares what we think. The argument that one rate on here is worth a hundred on UT doesn’t make sense, when no-one else actually reads it.
Weeeel, don’t forget to fight the good fight. When in a discussion in a venue, ask if they’ve heard of RB. If not, offer a text or a scrap of paper along with the value as you perceive it.
Film reviewers are a good comparison. I have no idea what’s going through the minds of most of them, only a few seem to correlate strongly with my own opinions, but I’ve been fortunate enough to find one who’s almost always a very close match (Mick LaSalle, S.F. Chronicle). It’s harder to find a beer rater whose reviews I give as much weight to as that. Not always true, I know a couple who I disagree with strongly on almost everything, so their reviews are very useful indeed! Fortunately there aren’t so many ticks around that I really have to chose - I gotta tick them all no matter what anyone says.
Where I live there are too many new beers all the time (local and shipped in) for me to tick them all (unless I drain pour good beers), so the reviews are sometimes useful for me.
Plus I’m now consuming my “cellar”, so new ticks are way down.
From my experience, that is actually very much not true. Surprisingly enough, a bunch of people I’ve met, in industry and not in industry actually do that. A lot/most don’t, of course, but still.
I honestly don’t know anyone, outside of people already on RB, who uses RB. I know dozens who use UT. In the UK you’ve got the London crew. The Scotland crew, and a sprinkling of random users between those two. It will never grow, because despite what the OP states, snobbery isn’t a massive selling point for most punters.
I know some people using RB for places or beer scores, but I highly doubt any of them actually reads the reviews. Frankly even I read them very rarely for some beer I have special interest in. Also I’d say most of the ratings here (mine included) are pretty much worthless, don’t see a point reading them.
I’d go a step further - there is a bunch of people here who are impossible to please. For example rates from 4.5 to 5 constitute 13% of a scoring range. Out of over 12k beers rates you have scored only 7 beer within that range which is 0,05%.
Why would you expect distributions of scores to be uniform. Human adult males range in height from 55 cm to 272 cm. So the same 13.3% range would be those 243cm or taller. Or about 23 people ever.
Hm not sure I get the analogy. I’m talking about something highly subjective. So I’d expect for beers you liked the most to be in that range. I understand if someone wants to reserve 5.0 for that one perfect beer he may never find. But can’t see a point of not using 10+% of rating scale. Even if you have rated something within that range it was years ago. This seems to be widespread thing at RB, especially for long term users (also Eastern Europe and Baltic) and I don’t understand why.
Is it the no beer is good enough for me mindset? I’ve tried it all? Do you find beer exciting anymore? Are you fatigued? Are you miserable? Would be an interesting study.
I know I’d stop rating and trying new beers if I couldn’t find any thrill in it.
