Beer Advocate vs RateBeer

I thought this would be a good exercise, since I just sampled and ranked six different beers, to compare them to the two big beer rating sites. I thought it would be interesting to see how Mark and I compared to national averages, potentially seeing which site would be more useful in determining if I would like a beer that I haven't yet tried.

The beers listed below are in order of my preference. For this exercise, I'll put a ballpark number in bold as my rating. All ratings are out of 100.

Maple Nut Brown - Tommyknocker Brewery - Idaho Springs, CO (93)
Beer Advocate: 78
RateBeer:  33

Twilight Summer Ale - Deschutes Brewery - Bend, OR (90)
Beer Advocate: 84
RateBeer: 68

Major Tom's Pomegranate Wheat - Fort Collins Brewery -  Fort Collins, CO (87)
Beer Advocate: 74
RateBeer: 29

5 Barrel Pale Ale - Odell Brewing Co. - Fort Collins, CO (75)
Beer Advocate: 86
RateBeer: 79

Honey Brown Lager - Dundee Brewing Co. - Rochester, NY (65)
Beer Advocate: 72
RateBeer: 17

Agave Wheat - Breckenridge Brewery - Denver, CO (25)
Beer Advocate: 78
RateBeer: 37

As you can see, for me there was a top three, a middle two and one bad beer.

Let's breakdown how Beer Advocate sees them:

5 Barrel - 86
Twilight Summer - 84
Agave Wheat - 78
Maple Nut - 78
Major Tom - 74
Honey Brown - 72

And RateBeer:

5 Barrel - 79
Twilight Summer - 68
Agave Wheat - 37
Maple Nut - 33
Major Tom - 29
Honey Brown - 17

What is interesting, is that both sites had all six beers in the same order. Unfortunately, it didn't line up with my tastes really at all. (Mark thought 5 Barrel was his least favorite).

It seems as though neither site is a helpful guide to determining if I will like a new beer. So I guess I'll have to figure it out the old fashioned way.