Value beers (part 2)…
I want to illustrate the rating system with a beer that surprised me. I took my wife to dinner at the French bistro Brasserie Ten Ten in Boulder for her birthday. (Or was it she who took me there for my birthday?) I generally drink beer, not wine or mixed drinks, even in a French restaurant. The beer list didn’t look too interesting. But I asked the waitress about “Old Chub”. She said it is a Scottish ale, and I ordered it.
Old Chub was delivered in a can! I was quite shocked, and my expectations were immediately quite low. I also wondered why they would charge $6 for it—it was the most expensive beer on the menu!
Well, Old Chub is a great beer! It pours medium brown/copper with a thin, quickly dissipating head. The nose is smoky, sweet malts, with hints of chocolate and caramel/toffee. This is a true Scottish ale, with chocolate hints and sweet malts playing against a slight burnt wood taste. The malty finish has a very high alcohol burn, but not as much as one might expect given that it’s 8% abv. My scoring is below:
| Aroma | Appearance | Flavor | Palate | Overall |
| 7/10 | 4/5 | 7/10 | 4/5 | 17/20 |
Now, let’s compute the measure of value:
Oskar Blues’ Old Chub is available at my local reseller for $6.99 for six 12oz cans. That’s $1.17 per beer.
Ratebeer has Old Chub in the 92nd percentile. That makes the flavor-price (92/$1.17) ratio very high—78.97. That means there is a lot of bang for the buck in this beer. How much? Well, we have to compare to some a sample of other great beers. That’s the next post on this topic.
January 24th, 2007 at 3:12 am
I think you are on to something here. No system for measuring value will ever be perfect since each individual person has their own tastes and preferences. However, I think everyone can agree that a higher score from qualified judge compared to the retail price provides a good starting point. I may have to test this theory across a wide range of beers myself!
January 25th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Thanks, Jack. I do think that for people getting started in beer tasting, it’s a great way to identify beers to try. It’s easy to drop a lot of money on craft beers that are just average.