Shit! We are dying…
Exactly. So two annoying clicks instead of one.
So you think UT users appreciate beer more than us here? I disagree with that. The people I know who use UT can largely be split into two groups: people that do exctly the same as you described in your post about RB mega tastings (actually doing less as they don’t even produce an actual rating / review but just a score/click) and the group that’s using UT because they like “beerfacebook” and / or simply because it’s popular. They still chug beers but not solely lagers anymore. Or they still go for the highest ABV.
So if I look at this, I don’t think you can say ratebeerians appreciate beer less than UT users. In fact, imo, judging a beer on the 5 attribute scores makes you think about the beer more accurately and more / longer in general, so those scores mean much more to me especially if the beer has decent (as in: useful) reviews. Someone has probably said it already, but a 1000 reviews mean nothing if the people who gave those scores have no knowledge of the subject, or might have knowledge but don’t accurately use it. In that case, personally, I prefer 10 RB ratings over those useless 1000. Yes, there will be some of those 1000 who do have knowledge, for sure. But their 10 scores have little impact as they’re dominated by 990 more or less random clicks.
Anyway. Just my 2cts.
2 Likes
Benzai all I’m saying is lets not pretend we are great experts who are better than UT users because we appreciate beer and they don’t.
You have your perception about UT users, my experiences differ from your perception. Maybe thinking too highly of ourselves got RB in this situation in the first place.
I agree with don’t say / pretend we are experts. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say that. But I do think in general RB users are more knowledgeable than UT users. I want to emphasize “in general”, so the average user. Not all RB users have more knowledge, not all UT users are random clickers. In general though, being forced to write a rating / review and weighing 5 attributes about the beer will eventually make you more knowledgeable imo. It’s also my own experience since I started with only basic knowledge - if any. But you’ve heard that story before (from me).
Indeed I have that perception of UT users in my surroundings yes. And indeed I extrapolate my experiences from that group to all UT users. I don’t think I’m far off the truth though. I can’t see how UT users in Croatia would be very different. And if that is in fact the case, I really wonder why?
When it comes to appreciation I agree with you that neither RB nor UT is better than the other or worse. But as I mentioned earlier I do think on RB the beers are judged in a more accurate way. Not more professional, but more accurate (as in more thinking about different aspects / more deliberation). But that’s also something we have discussed in these forums before.
1 Like
Actually some of the most knowledgeable and enthusiastic people in Croatia use UT - it’s where most folks are @, and it had a nifty, easy to use app when we didn’t, and they couldn’t be bothered to start all over again when RB’s app showed up or rate desktop - which is a legit thing. Or they are just too lazy / not bothered to write anything down, which is also okay. We still have a huge number of active RB raters per capita - actually I’d really love to see how we fare compared to the rest of the world. There is a high awareness of RB, respect too, but hey, most people use UT for convenience’s sake, including more and more randoms. Some beer places advertise it.
Some actually try to utilize the 160 character limit to the fullest… which is a self-imposed limitation since they clearly want to write and some just miight make the shift to RB, but hey, the RB app came so late and UT’s concept will draw comments, toasts and whatnot which they find cool.
1 Like
Bizarrely, y pure coincidence I’ve just encountered a company that apparently wants to do away with all seriousness:
I can agree that average RB user will be more serious about beer than average UT user. However UT will have more serious users rating per each beer because their total number of raters is way higher.
Which makes me wonder if ratio of casual and serious users depends on type of beer. Will the average supermarket beer have relatively more casual users than some more expensive/harder to find beer? Probably yes.
As Marko said we do have pretty strong RB and untappd community in Croatia. Other two guys in my tasting group use untappd and we discuss each beer pretty much like I’d do it with RB guys. Also had numerous tasting sessions with other untappd users and It’s very similar. Almost all the Croatian RB users use untappd as well.
Also during my travels and festivals I’ve meet a lot of untappd users who are quite serious about beer. Met those who don’t use either app and I could learn a lot from them about beer. So l’ll save my judging for the beers 
I think generally everyone agrees that there are serious and contemplative UT users, but you have to dig through pages of @bro this beer is so dank or even less than that.
2 Likes
Then again, the percentage of serious ratings will still be lower
That would be interesting to know!
Can you define appreciate? A tremendous number of Untappd users like every beer they drink and this is obvious by looking at the ratings of any beer in the database with a few dozen ratings.
As with art, or food, or clothing, or anything in life where there is a variety, I believe you cannot appreciate things unless you can distinguish good from bad; quality or lack of quality; or have some appreciation for the rare and unusual.
Untappd users, according to their ratings, do not have an appreciation for these things. They may like beer, but they do not appreciate it like Ratebeer raters do.
OP defined appreciating like this
This is a bit strong statement for my understanding of appreciating beer. On the other hand what’s the point of focusing 100% on 0,01 dl of beer. Or can you focus 100% on 50 beers in four hours?
So my definition would be more loose, closer to paying attention to the beer in your glass, giving at least some thought what you like or dislike about the beer.
I’m not sure I follow this. You’re saying beers with low number of ratings are liked by everybody at UT? Or beers with at least few dozen ratings?
Earlier you’ve mentioned garbage beers score 3+. Well if you look at the averages and scoring at UT you’ll realize 3 is not that high avg. I agree if you check all ratings you’ll find some high ratings for garbage beers.
For example Stella has UT avg of 3.26. Last 15 ratings there are 3 ratings of 4+. On the other hand avg for 43 of my friends is 1.99.
Here it has a score of 2.94, two 3.8+ in last 15 rates, 4 of them in last 25 rates. So guess what - people give high scores to shitty beers here as well. Not as often as on UT, but it still happens.
But why would someone care about shitty beers? What’s the difference if shitty beer has 2.95 or 3.25? I’m interested in beers which score 4+. I’m not buying anything below 3.75 on UT if I have any choice. Top lists at untappd work pretty good, you won’t see Stella or Bud in top 50 of anything and that’s what matters to me. New and good beers are way easier to notice.
1 Like
The UT users I know ticked twice as much as the most intense RB tables during one session at MBCC. 220 checkins in one 4 hour session, literally taking pictures and nothing else. So I dunno, there’s all sorts of users on both pages I guess. And yes, you can also take your time and discuss the beers during tastings with them (maybe not during MBCC though) - but you can also do that with the hardcore tickers on here.
1 Like
I reckon that UTs ratings match BAs ratings more closely since both rate on a 5 point scale vs RB.
Looks like the fella uses it fairly often.
All craft beer drinkers are dying… 
But since they eat organic food, play sport and don’t seem to be assembly-line workers, they should resist and stay a bit alive…
The visual representation of 41.5% feels off.
4 Likes
Funny, here I see women @craft beer places almost as often as men. I’d say it was 60-40 or 70-30.
the data is about employment in the industry. 25% in the total beer industry, 4.4% in the craft beer industry (the survey for the latter data was made among members of the American Homebrewers Association).
Among drinkers, it looks different (and varies a lot by location: in Portland, for instance, 53% of craft beer drinkers are women).
