How honest are you when reviewing your own beer?

[itsme_timd]

I personally think I'm critical of my own beers, if there's a hint of a flaw then I really notice it. I've shared beers with friends and told them straight up, this one is OK but not as good as it could be, or this beer is awful and tastes like soy sauce, proceed at your own risk.

However, if I think I beer I made is really good, then I probably think it's better than it actually is. I've had two beers that I thought were medal worthy beers so far, one won a medal and the other is in two competitions in December - so we'll see. I feel like my beer has to be damn near perfect before I'll call it a good beer.

How about you guys?

 

[Calichusetts]

Agreed. I am far more critical of my beer than commercial, strangely enough. My beer has to be able to stand ground with the best of the best commercially before I say its a great beer.

 

[itsme_timd]

Agreed. I am far more critical of my beer than commercial, strangely enough. My beer has to be able to stand ground with the best of the best commercially before I say its a great beer.

Absolutely. If I can't make beer as good as or better than most commercially available beers then I'm just wasting time. OK, that's not totally true as I just plain enjoy brewing. But I really hope to make excellent beer in the process.

 

[eulipion2]

I brew a lot of beer, and while I give some away or enter it in comps, I'm the main (only?) drinker of my beer. I usually do an on-the-fly judging, but the real way I judge my beer is by how quickly I drink it. A good beer goes quickly, a less-good beer hangs around a while. It's been a very long time since I've had a truly bad beer, but I'll try to cellar out the flaws, then dump if they don't improve.

Oddly, some of the beers I've entered expecting low scores have given me the best scores, so I might not be the best judge of my own beer.

 

[bobeer]

I try to be as honest as I can with my beer. If I like it then I tell people it's pretty good and let them decide. If it's bad I try to think why-- process vs recipe wise. If I think it's worth doing again I'll brew it with the changes I deem necessary and see how it turns out.
The thing about beer is it's a very subjective thing. There's plenty of commercial beers that have won medals that I just don't like. Same thing goes with homebrew. I can think one of my beers is meh, ok, and someone else could love it. I could think it's great and another person thinks it's swill. Personally, I try to be honest with myself but at the end of the day if I like it then that's good enough for me.

 

[ABVIBUSRM]

Extremely honest..no point to BS yourself cause you cant get better without being objective

 

[fj605]

I'm pretty critical of my brews. Probably too critical because I can always find something wrong or something that could be better. I've gotten good reviews from people so maybe I'm just too hard on myself. Either way, the beer tends to disappear so at least it's drinkable.

 

[fivepointslow]

Well I downgrade mine. Better to stay humble than to be arrogant and think you are the ****. However my cream ale is tasting pretty good right now

 

[Yooper]

As a pretty strict BJCP judge, I'm even harder on my own beers.

Most people have "ugly baby syndrome". You know what I mean- those doting parents who thing they have a gorgeous baby because they love him, but it's really ugly to others? the same is true of brewers in many cases. There are a LOT of terrible beers entered into competition by brewers who have UBS. They think their beers are great- but there are often off flavors, cloudiness, etc. that the brewers don't seem to notice and are shocked by the lower scores in competition when the beer they love is scored lower than they thought,.

I am a harsh judge of my own beers. I've never given myself a "42" but have done so in competition. My beers might not be very good, but I really think that it's more my harsh criticism of my own beers.

 

[itsme_timd]

Most people have "ugly baby syndrome". You know what I mean- those doting parents who thing they have a gorgeous baby because they love him, but it's really ugly to others?

I've seen this a lot from homebrewers and professionals as well. There's a lot of mediocre homebrew out there. So far the couple/few beers I've had that I thought were excellent others did as well, either in competition or just tasting. I know a few of the pros in Atlanta and I've taken my beers to them for feedback and I've had really good reviews.

However I've had a couple beers that I didn't think very highly of that others thought were great. I guess I'm OK with that. If I say my baby is cute I'm usually pretty confident in that assessment, but I may think one of the kids is a bit homely where others tell me he's not.

 

[JayDubWill]

I've been brewing for 3 years but only in the last 6 months or so have I been comfortable sharing my beers. I recently won silver and scored a 37 average on my first comp ever so I must be doing something right. I joined a homebrew club about two months ago and was very surprised by the number of just plain bad beers others are brewing. The majority seem to be fermented way to warm. It's not hopeless though, there are a few brewers who are doing quality beers. I tend to gravitate towards them in the meetings.

 

[theonetrueruss]

I find it difficult to really judge my own beer though I think over the past couple of years I have gotten better at it. Trying a lot of other folks homebrew helps a lot. My worst beers I know are an issue pretty quickly-especially when there is a fermentation issue or a recipe issue. My best beers I usually know are good but have a hard time picking the great ones from the good ones. I do say I have gotten pretty confident that I can tell if my beer hit the style I am going for and if I think it is very good the general reaction to the beer will be positive. I really haven't done enough contests to get that kind of feedback. Just never seem to have the right beer at the right time ready.

 

[wardens355]

I am very critical of my beers and tend to look for flaws when I pull the first few glasses. My goal is to make clean, great tasting beer, and the only way to achieve that is to be the leading critic of my own product. Plan, brew, taste, find flaws, review procedure, research, repeat. Never ending cycle of my homebrew.

 

[Kblandfo]

I think I have a bias towards my own beers. In 6 batches I’ve only made one I didn’t like. However, others have. I am not very trained up on detecting off flavours in beer and am not well versed in different styles (how do I know how this style of beer should taste if I’ve never had it before). I have started to review the BJCP style guides and am trying to figure out how beers should look, feel, smell and taste. I am very much absorbed into my new hobby and would like to keep learning and improving. I am also easy to please so many beers taste good to me. I have had professional beer that I didn’t like.

 

[Qhrumphf]

I'm quite critical of my own. Outside of a few that I brew regularly that I've tweaked multiple times to be exactly what I want (and I do think those are phenomenal), rarely do I think a beer is good enough. I think I brew some good beer, and my competition record backs me up, but it can always be better.

 

[Hamaki]

I'm probably not terribly critical of my beer and I know I don't have an educated palate. I don't often detect off flavors, per se, but do refine a recipe for the next time around. I target what I like and I'd say that over half of my brews turn out as much or more to my liking than anything I've bought. I don't belong to a club and probably never will. Have never and likely will never enter a competition. I don't give away much beer but my sons and a couple of their friends help me drink it. As long as I make what we like I'm happy.

 

[number40fan]

If I don't like it, it gets tossed. I won't waste my liver on drinking something that I don't enjoy. When I do like it, I absolutely won't share it.

 

[ChelisHubby]

As I am starting out I am trying to get the process and recipes down and will soon go to all grain. I find it difficult to judge my own but as others say I am able to address what I don't like!

 

[Jsamp]

I'm critical of everything I make. I do a lot of cooking and I often try to find things I could have done differently even though the family chows down on it and tells me it's good. Judging my beer is no different really. Hell I'm drinking PBR right now so as long as it's better than that I'm doing good lol.

 

[Qhrumphf]

If I don't like it, it gets tossed. I won't waste my liver on drinking something that I don't enjoy. When I do like it, I absolutely won't share it.

There's a difference between "don't like/don't enjoy" and "not up to my standards".

I like almost every beer that I brew. When I don't, it's usually brewing a style I don't like just for learning's sake, or using a process/technique/ingredient I haven't used before and didn't do it right, or I made some hefty procedural error. And in that case, yes, it might get dumped.

But I'm not going to dump something that I enjoy drinking simply because it's not up to my rigorous standards of "good enough" or I'd be dumping almost everything I brew.

 

[wrm]

Like my cooking, my beers are always stunning. I'm 100% honest on this.

 

[mdbrewer1]

I think I have a bias towards my own beers. In 6 batches I’ve only made one I didn’t like. However, others have. I am not very trained up on detecting off flavours in beer and am not well versed in different styles (how do I know how this style of beer should taste if I’ve never had it before). I have started to review the BJCP style guides and am trying to figure out how beers should look, feel, smell and taste. I am very much absorbed into my new hobby and would like to keep learning and improving. I am also easy to please so many beers taste good to me. I have had professional beer that I didn’t like.

I'm probably not terribly critical of my beer and I know I don't have an educated palate. I don't often detect off flavors, per se, but do refine a recipe for the next time around. I target what I like and I'd say that over half of my brews turn out as much or more to my liking than anything I've bought. I don't belong to a club and probably never will. Have never and likely will never enter a competition. I don't give away much beer but my sons and a couple of their friends help me drink it. As long as I make what we like I'm happy.

This is pretty much where I'm at too. I have 7 batches under my belt and have gotten good feedback on all but the first (used old extract from a starter kit it took me 2 1/2 years to get to). My palette isn't very refined though and I never know if people are blowing smoke up my butt. Most of my friends and family are similar to me though, and we're pretty much the only people who drink my beer, but I'm always striving to make it better if I can.

I may start doing contests to get some outside feedback, but some of the posts on widely varied competition feedback have me questioning how much I'll get out of it. My family's busy schedule and my introverted personality make it unlikely I'll ever join a homebrew club, so that really isn't an option at this point.

There are so many different beers I'd like to try making, and not enough time to brew them, that it will probably be a while before I get around to doing the same beer again, so that really isn't an option for feedback either.

TLDR version: This is a great hobby and I like my beer. I'm trying to incorporate as many lessons from here as I can to try to improve, but there aren't a lot of feedback mechanisms that are good options for me. I will continue onward in my quest to make great beer (and soon to be wine and cider too)!

 

[seefish]

I think I'm pretty honest about taste of it, but my palette isn't refined enough to correctly judge it.

 

[Melana]

I am very critical of my own beer. I will even hand someone a sample and tell them that i think it is not very good.

 

[unionrdr]

The artist is always the most critical of the self. It's the nature of the beast, myself included.

 

[Brettomomyces]

I try to be critical of what I make, but even as a new BJCP judge (passed in april) I still miss the forest from the trees sometimes.

I recently brewed a SNPA clone, but I decided to do a 1 hour hop stand with the flameout hops last minute (mostly because I could). For the next month I was totally convinced I had brewed a pretty close clone, until I went to enter it in a competition and really sat down and tried the beer. This is when I discovered that I had really brewed a caricature of the original beer, and that mine was far hoppier. It was kind of a small mind f***, like, how did I not notice this for an entire month and going through a whole keg of it. It has all the same flavors, but an enhanced hoppiness, kind of reminded me of my struggles to cook spicy food that both me and smwbo enjoy (she has a far less tolerance).

 

[NickTheGreat]

I'm REALLY critical of my beer. In fact, of everything I make/do

 

[brick]

Add me to the brutally self-critical list. This is a tendency that I have in general. Not that I've made many beers that I thought were "bad" but I can find something that should have been better about every single one. I remind myself to RDWHAHB whenever I drink a well-regarded, fresh, not cheap, local brew that tastes astonishingly like something that once came out of my own fermenters. In turn that reminds me to chill out about the non-brewing stuff that I'm probably criticising overly harshly. Ergo, brewing is probably saving me a boatload vs. having my head shrunk.

 

[userzero]

I am very critical as well. Problem is my two first batches were very good. I don't know if the people around me like me enough to lie about this, but they all said the two batches were very good. So I am left wondering if my taste isn't so good and they are just trying to be polite, or if it is in fact as good as I think. Since I learned by myself without any outside help. I don't know any experts who could help me improve my beer.

Still, I like it a lot and would be happy to drink this forever.

 

[Malty_Dog]

Like my cooking, my beers are always stunning. I'm 100% honest on this.

I'm with you buddy, my beer kicks ass.

 

[eatmorefrogs]

I'm pretty critical, but apparently I have no taste. All the beers that I write off as substandard are actually the ones that guests single out as their favorites. The ones that I enjoy aren't nearly as popular. I guess that works in my favor.

 

[masskrug]

I'm pretty honest. The beer I am drinking now has extract twang and I sucked too much yeast into the bottling bucket. Malty, yeasty and sugary, but those centennial hops shine through. Not my best, but better than anything I would buy in the store.

 

[beerme70]

I have to be honest, I think my beer :rockin:. I, like many other home brewers, have become sort of a beer snob. Let's face it, nothing tastes better than a good, natural, non-gmo, unpasteurized, non-FDA regulated beer. I have several buddies at work that enjoy good (read EXPENSIVE) beer. One, in particular, is a hard core stout guy. I gave him an oatmeal stout of mine, and he said he enjoyed it more than any other stout he's had. That's quite an ego boost, if you ask me. Now, don't get me wrong. There is a little, and I mean A LITTLE, humility, but when you have honest feedback, it's hard to question it.

 

[FarmerTed]

I think I know when my beer sucks.

 

[thaymond]

I'm critical with my beer. I have made some duds, but I learn where I went wrong to make improvements. I'll share the beer that I think is okay. I made a few that people really enjoyed, but I didn't like at all. I've also made some that I liked, but others did not. At first, I thought that all my brews were gold, until I reviewed my process and upgraded equipment to control fermentation Temps.

 

[Zekk]

I'm probably too critical, or just paranoid. I always think there's something wrong with it, whether it's watery, twangy or has an off-flavor. I just assume I messed up somewhere, even after getting score cards back saying there were no off-flavors.

 

[Billy-Klubb]

I'm less than honest. if I was completely honest, the world would be breaking down my door for the most super wickedly awesome beer ever made. I have to keep skunks tied up outside and run around my house scaring them every time I pour off a keg or open a bottle to keep the neighbors away. and I keep honey badgers in my basement high on PCP as an added deterrent.

 

[itsme_timd]

I'm pretty honest. The beer I am drinking now has extract twang and I sucked too much yeast into the bottling bucket. Malty, yeasty and sugary, but those centennial hops shine through. Not my best, but better than anything I would buy in the store.

You think your homebrew with extract twang is better than any commercially available beer? If so I'm gonna go ahead and say you're not as honest as you think you are when reviewing your beer!

 

[m00ps]

I just disregard my opinion of my own beer. I generally just regard them as drinkable and undrinkable. I've invested too much time and effort to have anywhere near an objective opinion. I only regard a brew as good if the people I give it too enjoy it and don't find any flaws.

 

[eulipion2]

I just disregard my opinion of my own beer. I generally just regard them as drinkable and undrinkable. I've invested too much time and effort to have anywhere near an objective opinion. I only regard a brew as good if the people I give it too enjoy it and don't find any flaws.

Agreed! As long as my grandparents (the folks who started me down this path) like it, that's all that matters