But I’m not here, sadly, to chat about puffy vests. I’m actually here to discuss one of my absolute favorite cities in the world, Denver, and the upcoming inundation of seemingly unquenchable beer fanatics who will be descending, once again, on the Mile-High City, as it does every year in early October.

It’s time for the Great American Beer Festival (GABF), the largest beer competition and festival in the United States. Hundreds of breweries. Thousands of beers. Pretzel necklaces, tap takeovers, and the delightful madness that comes with putting this many beer fans in the same geographic area. Let the wild rumpus begin, Denver-style.

(READ: What Is the Independent Craft Brewer Seal?)

Admittedly, we’re used to seeing a lot of editorial pop up this time of year about GABF, and it’s almost exclusively focused on new beers, the latest brewery openings, and the general consumer experience around the festival. This is all well and good because it’s an unremitted riot to actually attend the festival as a beer fan, but I’d like to discuss the other half of the festival if you don’t mind. I’d like to talk about the actual competition.

The Great American Beer Festival Competition

Creating a fair, equitable and relevant beer competition of this scale in an industry as dynamic as American beer is like hitting, at best, an extremely fast-moving target. But the staff of the Brewers Association (who put on the festival), along with the cavalcade of trained judges and volunteers from across the country, pull it together every year with an admirable level of grace and authenticity for a competition of this size (and I’m not just saying that because the BA publishes CraftBeer.com). The stakes are high, the entrants prolific, and the scrutiny from media and industry people alike is a persistent reminder that there are some seriously interested eyes on what decides a medal-winning beer.

There are a few basic truths for the GABF competition categories every year — and more importantly, why those categories change with the evolution of the industry itself.

I had a chance to sit down and chat with Chris Swersey, the GABF Competition Director for the past 15 years. Through his experienced lens on the competition structure, you, as a beer lover, can start to understand what’s actually happening at GABF and how experienced judges judiciously dole out those shiny medals to the most deserving beers at the competition.

(LEARN: 75+ Popular Beer Styles)

I was rather impressed with Chris’ transparent and mission-focused message on the competition’s goals around the style categories. The GABF Competition Organizer’s goal, year over year, is for their style categories to be fresh and relevant — and most importantly, representative of a general expert consensus of which styles and definitions make the most sense in that year of judging. It pays to mention the sheer number of creative beers being produced every year that have never been made in the United States before, a tribute to this country’s leadership and influence in the global beer landscape. The competition structure echoes this sentiment and puts a framework under which they can safely and objectively judge the beer.

Beer Style Guidelines

Every year, around April, Swersey sits down with a list of notable names from the BA, including BA President and legendary homebrew champion Charlie Papazian, to sift through hundreds of comments collected over the year from beer judges, beer writers, brewers, and all manner of qualified industry professionals on the beer styles needed for the upcoming competition. According to him, they actually include around 75-90 percent of the comments every year in their assessment and review of the beer categories that are going to be used in that year’s GABF competition.

The guidelines are fundamentally based on the Brewers Association Style Guidelines and the World Beer Cup Styles, which is the guiding light document on which GABF’s competition structure is based

“The idea there is that the guidelines evolve slowly every time,” says Swersey. “We might have 150 different beer styles entered into the competition this year, but we don’t necessarily have that many categories at GABF. Charlie and the rest of the team might recognize the category, but some styles just don’t get enough entries to make it a specific category unto itself. ‘Experimental beer’ is a good example of a grouped category or master category, and the idea there is that the category has enough to be meaningful.”

(READ: Why No Brewery Won GABF Silver or Gold in Pumpkin Beers)

The idea of keeping a fluid definition around beer styles might sound heretical to some of the more dogged style purists out there, but it’s actually the only proper way to give the competition enough wiggle room to adequately bucket the thousands of beers entered every year. Creativity and evolution, a hallmark of our thriving domestic beer culture, is fostered through this fluidity, and the GABF competition recognizes the need for consistent change.

“Think about GABF as a track meet. There are different events like hurdles, pole-vaulting, etc. Each GABF beer category is an event in a track meet.” Chris Swersey, GABF Competition Director

To put a rather explicit bow on this entire point, this year’s upcoming 2017 GABF competition includes 98 beer styles and their sub-categories. I procured a copy of the 2002 Competition Beer Styles and there was (drumroll please) 58 styles and their sub-categories. In a 15-year period, and through the continued growth of our homegrown beer culture, we’ve seen a 60 percent increase in the number of beer styles that will be judged!

That’s a pretty astonishing increase in such a short time period, and Swersey capped the discussion with a good metaphor on how to think about the categories themselves.

“Think about GABF as a track meet. There are different events like hurdles, pole-vaulting, etc. Each GABF beer category is an event in a track meet. Each track event has its own rules, so each beer category has a set of rules that entrants must adhere to in order for us to properly judge the beer.”

The Taste Experience

Along with the rules and style guidelines, GABF actually gives the brewers and judges a chance to think like a typical beer drinker. It’s easy to get lost in the myopia of misunderstood beer terminology if you’re not in the business itself. Michael Jackson, the infamous beer writer and a personal hero of mine in the beer world, was unequivocally clear about his view on how to approach beer styles. He did our whole industry a huge favor early on and urged us to think about beer the way a consumer thought about beer. He got into the head of “what is that taste experience” and how does that translate for the average beer consumer. Competitions like GABF are essentially trying to capture this ethos.

(LEARN: Beer 101 Online Course)

Purchasing Beer

When it comes to purchasing decisions and consumer behavior, the message on beer styles becomes clear and emphasizes how important they are to the beer industry overall. Just like a judging panel at GABF uses the style guidelines to put guardrails around their judgments, they also provide a unified signal from brewer to consumer on the intended goal of the product in your hand, explicitly offering beer fans around the world a unified vocabulary with which we can discuss, debate and decide on our own preferences. If your beers don’t fit into a style, as a brewer, you have a challenge ahead of you in the market.

This year’s competition saw almost 8,200 submissions from thousands of breweries across the country. When the roughly 280 highly trained judges (from malt suppliers to brewers to journalist, all trained in expert sensory evaluation) sit down to assess these beers in the three days before the big weekend in October, the style guidelines will be front and center to give each entry a fair shot at being tasted well and judged accurately.

You have no idea how thirsty I am now that I’ve finished writing this article. I’m gonna head over to a local brewery here in NYC to try a few of their beers. I hope they’re good.

The post Winning a Medal at the Great American Beer Festival is All About Style appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

“Oh nice, that’s the new one from Vermont.”

“I had a great version of a doppelbock the other night. I want to try this one too.”

“I have to get back to the kids by 5 p.m. I need to keep the ABV down.”

I’m clearly paraphrasing here, but it’s a conversation that I have, with my friends or by myself, quite frequently. A healthy and vigorous discourse about your beer choices is encouraged, and this author won’t hear another word about it.

(MORE: Find Beer Schools)

But this would be a very boring article if I hadn’t skipped one major detail about their conversation that, honestly, irked me a bit.

They finished almost every one of those sentences I just mentioned with a withering and patronizing assessment of each beer’s “pitiful” number of IBUs. The red ale didn’t have enough IBUs. The stout didn’t have enough IBUs. The IPAs — THE IPAs for heaven’s sake — didn’t have enough IBUs.

I will tell you as someone who works as an educator and (amateur) writer in the beer industry, it wasn’t easy for me to listen to this conversation without butting in with a few well-chosen, and polite remarks. I kept my silence, and instead took the time to do a little more research into everyone’s favorite acronym. International Bitterness (or bittering) Units, or IBUs, are undeniably interesting, and as we’ll find out here, often misunderstood in the cacophony of conversation around the modern beer industry in 2017.

IBUs are Everywhere

We’ve all seen it by now, but it pays to mention how often you see IBUs sitting on beer labels, bar menus, and across the various media we all absorb as self-obsessed beer fanatics. They are everywhere. In fact, most modern craft breweries describe the style, ABV, and IBUs on their label artwork and designs, along with a few select mouth-wateringly delicious adjectives to wet your whistle. Juicy. Hazy. Dank. Fresh. Thirsty yet? I am.

I’m picking on IPAs here, which I like quite a bit in all fairness. Their dominance in the craft category has been well documented at this point, but they really embody a lot of the misconceptions around how and why brewers invented the IBU in the first place, and its actual use in today’s brewing process.

Beer, in its modern form, is a beverage meant to satisfy almost all your senses. It’s visually stimulating. The aromas are fresh and evocative. The taste is often complex when you break it down. The carbonation, the temperature, the viscosity…all factors that contribute to a wonderful experience and perception around the product in your hand.

The key to that last paragraph was “perception” because that’s really all the matters to me as a beer drinker. Ostensibly, the heuristic assessment of a given experience is almost completely dominant when you think back on it one, two, or three days/weeks/months later. Did you enjoy it? Did you like it? Would you want to do it again? These are the questions that really matter. It’s sort of like a great wedding — you may not remember the color of the napkins or the way the asparagus was cooked, but you do know you had really great time, and that perception will stick with you forever.

I’m generalizing here, so let’s wind it back for a minute.

Origin Story of IBUs

I wrote a separate article on this very subject for my site a few years ago, which inspired me to get a few industry experts on the record to hear their take in 2017. But before we can go any further, I should quickly define what an IBU actually is.

Actually, let’s have Dr. Tom Shellhammer, one of the world’s leading hop researchers and the Professor of Fermentation Science at Oregon State University, define what an IBU actually is. I was able to catch up with him briefly to get the most accurate definition. Full disclosure — this gets really science-y.

“International Bitterness Units are a chemical/instrumental measurement of the number of bittering compounds, specifically isomerized and oxidized alpha acids, polyphenols, and a few other select bittering chemicals, that make your beer taste bitter. The IBU correlates well, in most cases, with the sensory bitterness of beer, and this is why brewers use it. Almost all the beer you’ll ever drink will have a measured IBU between five (which is a very low measured bitterness) up to 120 (which is a very high measured bitterness). Most beer falls in a narrower range within these parameters (between 15-80ish), but that’s the gist of it.”

The Craft Beer Industry

You can’t talk about IBUs without asking some of the American breweries that pioneered great quality control techniques in craft beer over the past 30 years, and their subsequent use of IBUs to determine consistency and bitterness batch over batch.

Meghan Peltz, sensory manager at Sierra Nevada, exploded my brain a little bit when I asked her about the calculation methods used to determine IBUs and Sierra’s use of them during their brewing process.

“There are a few ways to measure IBUs,” said Peltz, “But it’s not a strictly regulated statistic in brewing.”

Peltz continued, “You can make a fairly good educated guess on the number of IBUs based on the alpha acid content of the hops used in the brewing process. It’s a quick calculation based on the volume of hops and the conversion rate of the alpha acids in the kettle.”

So what does Sierra Nevada, with its robust quality lab and expert staff, use to measure IBU counts?

(MORE: CraftBeer.com’s Big Glossary of Beer Terms)

“We use the Spectrophotometric method,” said Peltz. “This measures all of the bittering compounds in the beer quite accurately.” This includes those oxidized acids and polyphenols we mentioned earlier. It was a method invented in 1950’s, and here’s how it works in a nutshell: You take a sample of beer, which is full of bittering compounds. The bittering compounds are “hydrophobic,” which means that they are not necessarily happy to integrate into the surrounding liquid, which is mainly water.

Peltz goes on: “You add some acid to the beer sample, which really makes them not want to stay in the beer. On top of that, when you add a non-polar solvent to the mix, it causes all of the bittering compounds to move from the water/beer phase into the non-polar solvent phase. You shake it for 15-30 minutes to ensure good mixing and make sure the bitter components are in the non-polar phase, take a sample of the nonpolar phase (which now has the bitter compounds in it) and then put it in the spectrophotometer. The spectrophotometer shines a specific wavelength of light through the sample, in this case, 275 nanometers (which is in the UV range), and measures how much light was absorbed. That absorbance value multiplied times the factor ’50’ is the IBU.”

Badabing, badaboom — you’ve got the measure of IBUs in your beer, using industrial grade acids, polar solvents, and a spectrophotometer.

Another West Coast brewing stalwart, Stone, has a similar take on their use of IBUs in the brewing process. I spoke with Steve Gonzalez, senior manager of Small Batch Brewing & Innovation at Stone Brewing Company.

“IBUs are really interesting, but for the most part, we try not to emphasize them too much in anything consumer-facing,” said Gonzalez. “It’s not really relevant to your enjoyment of the product, and we’re constantly hearing about IBUs across the industry being used an important stat when describing beer. Stone uses IBUs as an important quality control too, like most breweries, and while the consumer certainly wants to see it, we’re not making new beers to hit a certain IBU threshold.”

CraftBeer.com: Deconstructing Craft Beer from Brewers Association on Vimeo.

Perception vs. Reality

So why does this all matter anyway? IBUs, which started as a quality control tool, have evolved into a stalwart of consumer statistics over the past 10 years, and what would seem to be a vital marketing tool in the arsenal of numbers plastered on the outside of any new beer entering the market.

Remember when I mentioned perception? The actual enjoyment of the beer in your hand?

The jury’s still out on my opinion here, and I’ve heard a lot of valid arguments against this idea from very notable figures in the beer industry, but the main issue with touting IBUs as a marker of a “good beer” according to that group of guys I mentioned at the beginning of this article, is a very basic one: IBU counts do not a great beer make, and what’s more, your perception of these IBU counts are often completely at odds with the actual measurement of the beer.

(MORE: What is the Three-Tier System in Beer?)

Since I spoke with Sierra Nevada, I’ll use their style-defining American Pale Ale and their stout as a perfect illustration of my point. My perception of Sierra Nevada Stout is that of a rich, roasty liquid with bitter and sweet balanced out relatively well. My perception of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is that of bold, bright pale ale, with a great balance of its own, but obviously hop-forward.

I wouldn’t personally describe Sierra Nevada Stout as “hoppier” or “more bitter” tasting than Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. And therein lies the rub:

• Sierra Nevada Pale Ale: 38 IBUs
• Sierra Nevada Stout: 50 IBUs

Their stout has more bittering compounds, and is empirically “more bitter,” but I don’t personally perceive it that way. Certainly, the stout has a notable bitterness, but I would say that the bitterness of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, according to my palate, is more apparent, and the beer was obviously designed to be that way in the first place.

I can point to many, many examples of how IBUs would mislead your initial conception of how a beer should taste, at least according to the general population’s common misconception of what they mean and how they’re used. Meghan Peltz and the team at Sierra Nevada use them as a very important factor in checking consistency at the brewery.

“IBUs are important for us to check against the recipe that had been planned. Our brewers will target an IBU count and target a certain alcohol, malt bill, and flavor to really deliver on what the aim was when we started. It’s good for quality, and by checking multiple batches, we can check the deviation in the batch itself,” she explains.

For a brewery like Sierra Nevada or Stone, and their national distribution footprint, this makes perfect sense.

(MORE: 2017’s Great American Beer Bars)

Why it (doesn’t) Really Matter

Beer drinkers’ fascination with IBUs, in all their glory, seem like they’re here to stay, but that might miss the point.

The point of great beer, any great beer, is that you enjoy the liquid in your hand and understand the true vision of the brewer with every sip, along with the story behind the brewery and their motivations for making the product in the first place. Beer, in its science and its art, is the composition and combination of balance and intention. Water, malt, hops and yeast in perfect unity. Poetic stuff.

To that end, great beer is about your perception, and on the topic of bitterness and hoppiness (which are, by themselves, very different), perceived bitterness is very different from actual, measured IBU counts in a lot of cases. I don’t hate IBUs by any means, and I do think they can be generally indicative of how “hoppy” or “bitter” a beer will be in a lot of cases, but I think a more judicious use of them on our beer labels and in our conversations will help us truly appreciate what we’re consuming, and why it even matters in the first place. At the end of the day, IBUs do not indicate flavor, aroma, perceived bitterness, or really any other factor that allows you to actually enjoy the beer your drinking, but they are part of the industry, and it’s worth knowing a little more about them.

Hopefully, this piece helped you understand a little bit more about why they’re used, what they mean, and how they impact your enjoyment of all the great craft beer available right now.

And to the guys at the bar who wouldn’t drink anything under 70 IBUs: drop the pretense, ask the bartender for a quick sample, and call me in the morning.

The post Last Call for IBUs: Fact, Fiction and Their Impact on Your Beer appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

During my trip I sat down with the director, producer, and creative force behind a new documentary about the positive effects of craft beer in the region. Her name is Camden Watts, and the film, Brewconomy, carries the weight and energy of North Carolina’s explosive craft scene perfectly.

Watts, a North Carolina native, tackles quite a few big ideas in the film. Great beer is a big deal in her state, and it’s becoming big business too. Brewconomy traces the social, political and economic forces that gave rise to the local craft beer industry, from the “Pop the Cap” legislation that opened the floodgates for brewers to expand the styles they offer; to North Carolina’s newest crop of breweries, maltsters and hop-farmers; to all manner of local businesses and nonprofit groups benefitting from the growth of craft beer in the state.

“The film is about how beer affects the local community,” Watts explained. “All the things that happen when you drink a local pint.”

What I love about Brewconomy is that it offers a simple, anecdotal narrative of the economic engine powering craft beer in North Carolina. Local farmers teaching themselves to grow hops and grain, instead of legacy crops like tobacco. Local malting houses turning that grain into world-class malt, ready for the brewing process. Local breweries understanding their sourcing methods to support this cycle in the first place.

Legislation has also played a role in making North Carolina more brewer-friendly. It’s now legal to brew and sell beer up to 15 percent ABV, expanding the range of styles that can be produced. Smaller brewers can self-distribute, allowing breweries to make local business connections and distribute a fresh product with relative ease. And perhaps most importantly, breweries can now open taprooms where they can sell beer directly to thirsty patrons, capturing valuable margin for the business and giving customers the full experience of understanding and visiting the brewery. It all adds up to a better business environment, more tourism dollars, and an appropriately modern view on the needs of the people.

Supply chains and regulations are the backbone of business, but are often overlooked by consumers. After all, there’s nothing particularly sexy about a committee hearing or a field of barley. But Brewconomy is a reminder that how we get the material we need in order to produce the goods, meet the demand, and do it efficiently and sustainably, is just as important as the beer we get in our pint glass.

Ultimately, Brewconomy brought me more questions than answers. I think this was a deliberate move on Watts’ part, to make viewers think harder about a consumer product they might otherwise take for granted. We’re so used to things just showing up on a shelf, or at the door, that we rarely take the time to consider the effects of simply making a purchase. Brewconomy looks through the lens of craft beer to ask: What would happen if you knew more than that? What if you knew the producer of the raw goods, and you knew the manufacturer, and the distributor, and the retailer? How would that change your attitude toward that product? Would you love it more or less? Would it actually change your buying behavior?

For Watts, and for me, the answer to that last question is most definitely “Yes.” Seeing the supply chain and its people from start to finish, and understanding what local businesses are doing to provide a better product using fewer resources—that can fundamentally change your perspective.

With this simple, potent message, Brewconomy lends an intimate transparency to the current evolution of craft beer in North Carolina, and by extension, the rest of our country. It’s a big story, but voiced perfectly through the humble mouths of small business owners, farmers, and brewers. Watt’s film is a passionate tribute to the invisible effort connecting the dots between these businesses.

It’s also an example of the power of regional consumerism, great storytelling, and a commitment to a better way of doing business. We see the same story unfolding in almost every state: Breweries sourcing local ingredients, consumers demanding local beers, and the resulting relationships becoming critical to a truly sustainable economy.

My recent weekend in Asheville highlights this theme perfectly. I walked a total of one mile and was able to stop at least eight breweries near the city center. Pioneers like Highland Brewing Co. and Green Man Brewery have paved the way for Burial Beer Co., Catawba Brewing Co., those sorcerers of sour over at Wicked Weed Brewing, and many more.

Not only do you find a booming craft scene, but also a vibrant community proud of its brewing backbone. Conversations with locals always end with something like “…And make sure to check out that brewery I mentioned. They have awesome beer.” Asheville is representative of so many communities riding this curve.

If you count yourself as a craft beer fan, then keep your eyes peeled for Brewconomy, available on digital release later in 2015. Great beer is worth the time it takes to be a more informed drinker, and I’m happy to see North Carolina holding the torch for a national industry already centered at the heart of local communities.

The post <i>Brewconomy</i>: North Carolina’s $1.3 Billion Craft Beer Industry appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

I’d like to give you an opinion, and I hope you can understand where I’m coming from. But first I’d like to give you a quick anecdote.

Witnessing a Feeding Frenzy

I was visiting my hometown recently and I stopped into one my favorite markets. It’s the crunchy, hippie, green, (insert your favorite “local” themed adjective here) grocery store in the middle of downtown. In a number of important ways, it epitomizes the entire city.

As you might expect, it also has a tremendous selection of craft beer. I ordered a fresh breakfast sandwich from the deli and proceeded to take a lap of the store, absorbing the vibes that can lower blood pressure like nothing else.

As I took my lap, a hush started to fall over the store. It was bizarre. Whispers reached me: ”It’s here…” ”Right over there…” “They just got a shipment.” What the heck was going on?

(READ: What Is Craft Beer?)

Then I saw it. An entire cart full of freshly delivered cases of a not-to-be-named-but-quite-famous beer. This beer was the stuff of legend in the craft community and there was a lot of it sitting right in front of me.

The grocery clerk proceeded to clear out a solid third of the craft beers on the cooler’s shelves, displacing some extremely good brews in the process. He then loaded up the empty third of this enormous beer cooler with the beer from the cart. Just one kind of beer. Probably close to 100 cases of the famous four-packs. A wall of 16-ounce cans of pure craft ambrosia.

Then they pounced. A feeding frenzy like no other.

In no more than five minutes, all of said beer was gone. All of it. A sad looking beer cooler was left to recover its dignity while the people dispersed like a bunch of startled pigeons in Central Park.

I was flabbergasted and, admittedly, giggling audibly (imagine a 6-foot-7 man with a beard giggling). I knew I wouldn’t see that happen again in my life.

(LEARN: Get to Know 75+ Popular Beer Styles)

Then it happened again. The man came out with more cases. The scenario played out precisely as it had before. He refilled the entire portion of the empty cooler, and it was devoured by the locals once again. The normally laid-back citizens had been turned into a pack of beer piranhas.

How could this be happening? What was making people react to this beer in such a ferocious fashion? Regardless of the reasoning, it was a sight to behold and certainly a great entertainment while I scarfed down my bacon-egg-and-cheese bagel.

But I think the explanation for this phenomenon is simple. Popular beer websites had ranked this particular beer “the best beer in the world,” and now the brewery can’t keep the consumers at bay.

Now here’s the opinion part that I mentioned earlier.

Beer Ratings: The Good & The Bad

I do not like the way the ever-connected, online beer community is obsessed with rating beer. They rate beer on websites, phone apps, and all manner of platforms dedicated to placing a number on the beverage they’ve got in their hand, seemingly at the expense of good, healthy conversation around the same topic. I don’t think this is good for the craft brewing industry, and in all honesty, I don’t think that most people care about your personal numerical rating of a particular beer. Your opinion is important, but it can’t be reduced to a supposedly “objective” number.

Now, I’d like to make sure that you’re not mistaking this author’s humble opinion for hating. If it weren’t for a lot of these digital platforms, there would be millions of people out there who probably wouldn’t have gotten into craft beer. And most of the apps and websites aren’t just about beer ratings. In fact, they’re mostly a fantastic resource for the craft community. They’ve had a noticeable and beneficial effect on the industry.

(LEARN: CraftBeer.com’s Big List of Beer Schools)

Anecdotally, I can speak to the ubiquity and popularity of these platforms amongst my group of friends. Beer ratings speak to our natural desire to compete and be “the best,” creating a pervasive legend and mythology around craft beer. It’s appealing in the most primal way, and in our hyper-competitive society, I can’t say that I don’t understand why.

And therein, as the bard says, lies the rub. The beer mentioned earlier is a fantastically good one. I absolutely enjoy drinking it. It’s huge and complex and lovely. That brewery managed to make an outrageously flavorful beer that a lot of people like, which is an admirable achievement and should be touted as such.

But…in my opinion, it’s not that good.

Craft brewing is not about numbers. It’s a labor of love.

No beer is that good. I know breweries all over this country that are making famously delicious beers, and most deserve the majority of their accolades. We all love a good legend and a great beer. But most of those beers didn’t receive their notoriety the way this particular beer did. This beer was put on a pedestal, and the rest is history. The brewery in question was brewing that beer a long time before the online community got wind of it, and it’s been a very good beer the entire time. But who knows what kind of organic growth it would’ve had without the infamy of a top-notch online rating?

Beer ratings should not drive consumer demand the way they currently do. Just like most things in life, I’m probably going to like some things you don’t, and vice versa. We should continue to build a craft community around a healthy and opinionated discourse, relishing the occasion to imbibe with friends and soon-to-be friends. But let’s not let that discourse fit neatly onto a graph or devolve into an irrelevant single-digit ranking of the beers we’re consuming.

(VISIT: Find a U.S. Brewery)

Craft brewing is not about numbers. It’s a labor of love and a point of pride for most breweries out there to say they made the beer you’re drinking, and you can trust me on this one, folks: They would love to tell you all about it. Most of these breweries laid down a lot of sweat equity and leveraged a lot of real equity to build something they hoped other people would enjoy.

It’s a big craft world out there, and we should let ourselves discover it with an unfettered view of its flavors and stories. Take yourself away from the critical, polarizing lens of beer ratings and approach your next beer with an open mind and a little background on the brewery that made it. Don’t let your phone tell you what your taste buds already know about your preferences. If you’re up to it, learn what went into brewing the beer. Find out about the brewery, and by all means form a personal opinion on the beer.

Just don’t try to pin a number to it.

The post How Beer Ratings Could Be Holding You Back appeared first on CraftBeer.com.