How we Rate and Tier Breweries
How We Rate
Going to a restaurant isn’t just about food, and visiting a brewery isn’t just about the beer. Sure, a brewery may have a 4.0 as it’s average Untappd Score (a metric that can be misleading), but it may be in a warehouse in the middle of nowhere in a hot climate with no AC. I still may go there, but I’ll probably complain. “Man, this Vienna Lager is amazing, but can’t they put in a few AC units?!”
We rate the entire experience on 6 categories: Quality, Selection, Site, Setting, Service, and Spend. Sigh, I tried so hard to make them all start with an “S”.
Every brewery is rated 1-5 on each of those categories. Combine the scores to get aggregate Brewery Rating. Some categories are more important to the score than others. It goes like this, but more math-y…
Beer Quality > Selection > Site = Setting > Service > Spend
At the end, we’re attempting to quantify how good a brewery experience is. This will be somewhat subjective and it might only be one visit. But it should give people like you, intrepid reader, a place to start from.
Check out Reviews!
Tiering and Ranking
Importantly, we use the rating Tier each brewery (Tier 1 best and Tier 5 worst). We’ll also do Rankings, but I find doing Tiers better. Everyone has personal preferences so the brewery Tier is easier to come to consensus.
It is worth noting that just because a brewery is in a lower Tier doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth visiting. Few breweries I’ve been to left me feeling like I wasted my time. Some of the lower Tier breweries I will likely go back to in order to ensure it wasn’t just a bad day.
I take Breweries, Math, and Rankings VERY seriously.
Check out the Rankings page!
