Number one beer in America.....

[Johow]

https://www.beeradvocate.com/lists/style/116/

I understand that this Julius by Tree House is an extremely popular beer but how can it be rated the number one beer in America when you can only purchase it in person at the brewery? It seems to me that only a very small segment of beer drinkers have even had a taste. It cannot be purchased currently except at the brewery and according to their website, is not even available on tap anywhere else.

 

[Teromous]

It is the "top rated beer" in the style category on a website and not the "number one beer in America." There are only 472 people who have rated it. 13.915 people have rated Bell's Two Hearted. Don't get angry at weighted statistics, websites, or algorithms.

 

[Johow]

Still, even as the top rated "American IPA"? That seems to exclude a lot of American IPA's that can actually be HAD by the population. Maybe I'm just mad because I can't buy one....

 

[FirstAidBrewing]

It's like that with all the "White Whale" beers (pliney, heady, etc). There is a hype component and the fact that people are more likely to rate it based on the difficulty to get it.

 

[davou]

In what way does a beer being widely distributed equate to quality? Coors, Molson, Budwieser, Hineneken, do they get quality points and favorability ratings because they're easy to find

 

[dmtaylor]

Rating systems are inherently flawed, because the ratings are provided by VERY biased consumers.

 

[csurowiec]

Spend any time looking at the ratings on that site and you will find that only a minority rate to style. There are plenty of mediocre ratings on very well made beers but because the the beer doesn't have the latest "it" hops in it or it wasn't barrel aged with unicorn tears it gets a meh rating. Also apparently many avid reviewers there can "taste the rare" in a beer and that difficulty in procuring it improves the flavor and ratings. I use the site but mainly to tick off new beers that I have had and to assist with deciding on what to buy. It doesn't matter if you are looking at reviews of beers, hotels or restaurants, always be wary of the ones with high reviews but not many reviews. The small sample size doesn't give you an accurate picture.

 

[specharka]

It's like that with all the "White Whale" beers (pliney, heady, etc). There is a hype component and the fact that people are more likely to rate it based on the difficulty to get it.

Pliny and Heady are much easier to get than Julius. They are brewed year round and see limited distribution circulation. Julius is brewed maybe once a month and if you get lucky enough, wait at the brewery for five hours prior to open doors, you might get to snag a growler. It's ludicrous.

Having a cult following doesn't necessarily mean that a beer is impeccable. It just means that enough people bought into the hive mind mentality to keep demand going. Just think about it...who else is going to drive 3 hours to wait another 5 hours for beer that they aren't totally excited to drink? It's confirmation bias in check.

Tree House is planning an expansion soon, so once their beer becomes more accessible and widely available, I imagine those reviews will normalize a bit.

 

[dallasdb]

I've had Pliny from the bottle and on draft. Both times I thought, "Meh... it's good but what the heck is up with all the hype?"

I think the hype ruined it for me. I was looking for it for about 6 months before finding it was on draft routinely at a bar nearby.

I think if I would've never heard of it I would have appreciated it more.

 

[kristiismean]

Based on those ratings,

Tree House & Trillium are the best breweries in the World...

tilted ratings are tilted ratings. It's like when you vote your your friend/family member at a talent show, even though you know there were better....

BUT #30, fatheads Head Hunter, very very good beer...

 

[dmtaylor]

People people people.......... there is WAY more to life than IPA. WAY more.

 

[bobeer]

Beer advocate... I take all their ratings with a grain of salt. From my experience it's just a bunch of people who buy into the hype and make getting decent commercial beer a pita. IDK. I feel with IPA's it's so easy to make a juicy hop bomb I just can't bring myself to play the game.

 

[mongoose33]

I think the value of sites like these is more in identifying beers to avoid as opposed to identifying the "best" beers. A friend posts to, I think, RateBeer. He's got something like 500 beers on there, and he's an aficionado, not a beer snob. He can, usually, identify how accurately a beer meets the style guidelines, but not always. He didn't know what to do with my California Common--he hasn't had any.

As I've gotten into this brewing thing, I've been surprised by the focus people have on matching style guidelines. So many people brew to try to match a style rather (it seems to me) than trying to brew a beer that they like. I get a bigger kick out of watching someone's face when they try one of my beers for the first time than matching some guideline.

Seems to me a better guideline would be "Do I like it? Do I want another?" To me, I'm hoping my beers pass the second-helping test: does the drinker want another?

My 2 cents. YMMV.

 

[Homercidal]

Can anyone prove that it ISN'T the best IPA right now?

 

[mongoose33]

Can anyone prove that it ISN'T the best IPA right now?

Nope. They also can't prove the opposite, that it is.

Would they have the same rating against others if those others were being brewed and served in the same way? I don't know.