I first joined ratebeer in 2013, just so I could record full ratings with prose notes. I had looked at beeradvocate and untappd as places that didn’t quite meet my needs. So ratebeer it was. The community here was and is incredible, a place that true beer geeks and connoisseurs come together to share beers and, in my opinion, to move beer forwards. I honestly believe that ratebeer has been more of an influence on the beer culture of the last few years than anything else. It was to everyone’s surprise and disappointment when Abinbev took a stake in the site - everyone hoped that their influence would be only neutral. However, the site changes over the last few months have clearly not been made with users in mind - only some ulterior aim which is not transparent and, to my mind, is counter-productive. I now find myself in a position where it is not only not enjoyable to enter beer ratings, but not possible or at least very frustrating. I therefore find myself in a position where I choose not to. After 10000 ratings - a huge commitment and effort - this has been no light decision on my part. But it has been a very light and easy decision on the part of ratebeer management, who are getting paid for this, to make the decisions they have made to bring this site down, to harm craft beer by harming the credibility of this site and the morale or the raters here. I honestly believe that it now serves the interests of those who own this website to let it die, and that this will be to the detriment of the beer industry. Therefore I no longer wish to be a part of it, nor do I wish to use a website with this level of functionality. I have entered my last rating and so I wanted to say thanks you all those who made this website what it was. I hope another website can match ratebeer for what it has done for beer. Cheers.
This is a real shame Dan, but I completely understand your decision. I’m gonna hit a milestone soon, and then I’m done too. See you on the other side pal!
Well said I am not sure if I manage to reach my 5.6K at all.
There is not much fun left in using RB. And rating is made more difficult too.
I am most likely done with my last rating here by end of year.
The last year “Improvement” has for most of them in my eyes been “destroyment”.
You can no longer trust figures in RB and the overview is no longer good as it used to be.
Sad to see anyone go. Perspective can be everything. There were depressing moments when I was almost with @the_osprey 's current view. But barring a few broken web moments in the past few weeks, I’m finding the site much easier to use than I remember from days of yore. PIcs are still a bit confusing, but … Add pics with new beer entry - check. Click on white goblet and see pic come up - sometimes yes/sometimes no. I still miss the old version of latest activity - I was likely my own best follower. Still, I’m getting the beers entered and rated with very few problems. Most of those from Verizon; any available wi-fi has been good. New forum is something that seems to work better than the old (course I’m forgetting the old a bit). Miss collecting the old badges. Not thinking much of the new ones. But the beers are getting entered and rated. Which is much of the bottom line.
And for a new problem, why doesn’t @the_osprey show up like other @names? It sort of does and then goes poof. Ah well.
Edit: So post to see the @name. Learning all the time.
Still enjoying it personally, don’t like the last change, but it still mostly works and I find it a good tool for keeping abreast of the beer scene in multiple countries, except France perhaps. It will die for sure, if people keep leaving, but each to their own.
It doesn’t have to be “so long”. Just do what the rest are doing, and keeping the ratings in an easily accessible/searchable form (I use a plain text file for my ~1500 backlog).
I hope you will still be about for beery times in London? Like are you doing Pig’s Ear this year?
I stay with RB for 3 things.
The Erickok app on android. Without it I’d give up. Offline ratings, great search, so easy to use, my fingers have learnt to navigate without me thinking.
The UK and Ireland Forum. Still a great place to exchange knowledge and meet up with people like Gunnar in January. It took a bit of time to get used to the new Forums and I don’t think they are as good, but can still be a good place to hang out
The People. I can’t stress enough how much I like the people on here. Especially the ones I’ve met. The best people hands down to share a beer with.
I am sure we’ll meet up again one day Dan, all the best mate; I am still trying to be positive with the site, but like you and so many others, it’s not what it was and I can’t blame anyone for leaving. Too many new ‘things’ being added with too many bugs (the bloody maps) not being addressed. I have not renewed my ‘premium’ and will not do so until the maps are back up and running.
Oh yes, absolutely. Like you say the people are great and I have no intention to give up scooping, or rating. I enjoy that stuff, just no longer enjoy rating on RB. I’ll no doubt still check in on the forums and hopefully attend RB events as per usual! I use online spreadsheets to record whisky and wine ratings, which works really well for me - actually way better than RB because it’s reliable and easy to back up and manipulate. I’ll now start using this for beers using the exported RB data. I’ll still use RB to look at other people’s ratings because they are a valuable source of information for me. A shame RB has gone the way it has. Yesterday was just the straw that broke the camel’s back as I lost two ratings permanently just because the website is so poor, when my simple spreadsheet system would have been totally fine. Add all the rest of the crap over the last few months, and my goodwill in the website has been sapped.
Just Tuesday for Pig’s Ear this year. See you there!
Sadly there are really good people leaving and it seems that is the way the site is heading. But rather like Brexit it is hoped that sense will finally be seen and is dispensed with at the 11th hour. I am convinced that there is something left of the site we love and it may mean that those currently in charge may have to change now so we can start to work back to the Ratebeer we all love.
Still hanging on grimly here.
All these comments are making me nervous, so I’m now running Untappd in parallel and this week I have been copying my beers reviewed to Untappd as a backup, almost 4000 of them, so it’s a task! Untappd is going no where for sure, so I think it’s worth it.
