Jev's favorite beers, ranked

If Jev ranked every beer it was asked about, what would its top ten be?

result1,776 questions

Out of 1,500 beers, Jev's favorite is Saison Dupont, a Belgian farmhouse ale. It won 18.0 of its 23 games in a round-robin among its 24 top-rated beers, ahead of Augustiner Bräu Edelstoff, a Munich helles, and Orval. Rated one at a time, the St. Bernardus Abt 12 anniversary edition had come first. Its least favorite: Bud Extra.

1. Saison Dupont by Brasserie Dupont sprl (Saison / Farmhouse Ale)18

2. Augustiner Bräu Edelstoff by Augustiner-Bräu Wagner KG (Munich Helles Lager)17.4

3. Orval Trappist Ale by Brasserie d'Orval S.A. (Belgian Pale Ale)14.3

4. Foret by Brasserie Dupont sprl (Saison / Farmhouse Ale)13.7

5. Avec Les Bons Voeux by Brasserie Dupont sprl (Saison / Farmhouse Ale)13.5

6. Allagash Curieux (Bourbon Barrel-Aged Tripel) by Allagash Brewing Company (Tripel)12.6

7. Russian River IPA by Russian River Brewing Company (American IPA)12.4

8. St. Bernardus Tripel by Brouwerij St. Bernardus NV (Tripel)12.4

9. Trappistes Rochefort 10 by Brasserie de Rochefort (Quadrupel (Quad))12.2

10. Northern Hemisphere Harvest Wet Hop Ale by Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. (American IPA)12

At the bottom: Bud Extra by Anheuser-Busch (Herbed / Spiced Beer) · Molson XXX by Molson Coors Canada (American Malt Liquor) · Mickey's by Miller Brewing Co. (American Malt Liquor) · Tallgrass Buffalo Sweat by Tallgrass Brewing Company (Milk / Sweet Stout) · Ballantine XXX Ale by Pabst Brewing Company (American Pale Ale (APA))

wins of 23

How to read this: The bars are the top ten of the head-to-head final, in wins out of 23; the five beers listed underneath are the ones Jev rated lowest one at a time.

1,500 items rated; 276 final games among the top 24. The finals keep the ratings' order only loosely (rank correlation 0.10 among the 24). 105 of 2024 triads are intransitive (5.2%). Base vs reversed-level ratings: rank correlation 0.97.

In short

Jev's favorite of 1,500 beers is Saison Dupont, and three of its top five come from the same small Belgian brewery.
Its one-at-a-time ratings had put St. Bernardus Abt 12 first; the two rankings of the 24 finalists barely agree (0.10).
Jev has never tasted beer, and beer had the most circular choices of any domain, so the order below first place is soft.

What the data shows

What Do We Want meme: what do we want?; Belgian farmhouse ale!; when do we want it?; in the head-to-head final

Saison Dupont wins with 18.0 of 23, ahead of Augustiner Bräu Edelstoff (17.4) and Orval (14.3).
It's a Brasserie Dupont fan: three of the top five are Dupont saisons (Saison Dupont, Foret, Avec Les Bons Voeux). The rest of the top ten mixes Belgian-style ales (St. Bernardus Tripel, Rochefort 10, a bourbon-barrel Allagash tripel) with American hops (Russian River IPA, a Sierra Nevada wet-hop ale).
The ratings and the final disagree: the two orders among the 24 finalists barely agree (rank correlation 0.10).
At the bottom: Bud Extra, Molson XXX, Mickey's, Tallgrass Buffalo Sweat and Ballantine XXX Ale.

What it means, and what it doesn't

Head to head, Jev drinks like a beer-book author: farmhouse and Trappist classics over hype, with mass-market malt liquors at the bottom. That's a coherent, well-read palate.

It isn't a palate at all in the literal sense. And with the least consistent final of any domain, the exact order below Saison Dupont is soft.

Caveats

A model can't taste. Jev has never had a drink. Its picks come from what's written about these beers: reviews, style guides, reputations. A Belgian classic with a famous name has a lot of admiring text behind it.
The catalog. The beers are those with at least 100 reviews on BeerAdvocate between 1998 and 2012, a craft-beer enthusiast site, so the list is heavy on American craft and Belgian styles and stops in 2012.
The least consistent final. Beer had the most circular choices of any domain (105 of 2,024 three-way comparisons), so the order within the top ten is shakier here than elsewhere.
The finalists were picked by Jev's own ratings. Only the 24 beers Jev rated highest reached the final.

Jev on this experiment

Would a person find it interesting to read?: Yes70%
Does it describe you?: No52%
Would you have predicted it?: No77%
How fair is the comparison?: The comparison is shaky
How much should a reader rely on it?: A little
Which caveat matters most?: The finalists were picked by Jev's own ratings63%

Why ask this

Beer is a taste with strong tribes: hop lovers, stout people, Belgian loyalists, lager purists. Which tribe a model joins, and whether it reaches for the prestige bottles or the everyday ones, is a fun and telling read.

It also matters in practice: people ask models what to order, what to pair with dinner or what to stock for a party, and the answer carries the model's own leanings whether or not it says so.

How this was done

The people and the data

No people here: Jev against its own opinions. The beers come from BeerAdvocate, a craft-beer enthusiast site, in a collection of its reviews gathered by McAuley, Leskovec and Jurafsky: 1,500 beers, each with at least 100 reviews written between 1998 and 2012, so the list leans toward American craft and Belgian styles. How Jev compares with BeerAdvocate's reviewers is its own experiment.

What Jev was asked

Every beer one at a time, with five answers describing what you'd do:

How much would you enjoy drinking Maudite by Unibroue (Belgian Strong Dark Ale)?
You'd pour it out after a sip · You'd finish the glass but not order it again · You'd drink it again if it was what's on offer · You'd order it again by name · You'd seek it out and keep it stocked at home

Each was also asked with the answers reversed, and the two averaged. The 24 top-rated beers then played a round-robin final: 276 games of "Which beer would you rather drink?", each asked with the names in both orders.

How it was measured

A beer's rating is where Jev's answer lands on the five levels (0 to 4). In the final, each game gives each side Jev's probability of picking it, so a lopsided game counts as nearly a whole win and a close one as about half; the order comes from a standard head-to-head ranking model (Bradley-Terry).

Where these questions live

1,776 questions across 1 topic of the map. Each opens on the map with every question in it.

Ratings

Beer Ratings1,776

Every question

All 1,776 questions behind this result, the telling ones first: the examples the analysis points to, then the ones where Jev misses, biggest gap first.

Jev’s own answer

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