I just noticed in fonefan’s review of the beer below that RB admins say the variants of this series should be categorized as the same beer (he rates different variants in his qualitative review of it). That is ridiculous. The adjuncts and abv both vary, and the brewer’s intent is clear: they are “a series of super small-sized batches of experimental beer that allows us to be creative and gather feedback.” They are also advertised by the brewery as unique beers (see their current fb page).
If the name of a beer makes all of its variants one entry, then every beer in Side Project’s Derivation series should be merged into one beer, and there are plenty of other series that should as well. If the admin that made this decision can substantiate their rationale for listing the nearly 30 variants as one standalone beer, I would love to hear it. And if not, I would like to see it switched. As it stands, I will be entering three new variants of it being released on Saturday, but I figured I’d start this thread before doing so.
First I don’t see any additional entries for variances of this beer on the site that have been merged, so I’m not sure how an “admin” can say they are the same without them being entered for verification. Second we have several series on this site with adjuncts, barrels, ect which are separate beers, so why this one would all be considered for separate entries makes me wonder.
Signed one of the RB Admin that is hearing about this for the first time.
Not to diss whoever initially handled this, but they should step up and discuss this internally with us, just to see their arguments as it looks one-sided so far.
Honest mistakes happen, let’s not generate misconceptions and/or bad blood out of this, as nobody wants to intentionally do them and nobody is worse for sometimes making them.
Not that I follow or reach a verifiable conclusions from untaped but they have “What Could Be” 1-26 added I’m surprised no one else has added any of those variances here.
Thanks for looking into this. My rating looks like it’s on the right beer judging by the adjuncts. There was only one version on at my visit but fonefan was also there a day earlier.
Cheers to the (too few) hard working admins who keep chugging along.
Thanks, @marko and @SHIG . I don’t know who the admin is/are that fonefan referenced in his review, but I’m glad to know it was a rogue decision, and I appreciate both of your work on this. I will work on entering additional variants moving forward.
@fonefan you can divide your reviews of the variants now if you’d like (they are both under #20).
Honestly, it could be someone following a certain set of rules that might or might not apply to a situation like this, made in a vastly different beer market, that may or may not have been scrapped since then, and that was largely been disregarded in all but highly specific situations (the cask rules). Some legacy rules made sense in a 2007 world, less so in 2023. We need to focus on situations like these and make decisions that will make sense to the end user, and be to the satisfaction of the raters we still have here, without losing what credibility we have.
