Mmm...
Beer.
A lot of people seem to forget that brewing beer is, or at least can be a craft akin to an art form performed by people whose knowledge, energy and time are dedicated to it.
The aim of this site is firstly to recognise that proper beer is - and ought to be - produced by craftsmen and ought to be appreciated as the product and end of a process of craftsmanship and to appreciate the varieties of styles and flavors that enrich our drinking experience.
Its probably a pointless exercise to rate all the beers we've tried without any kind of way to compare them fairly. My tastes have certainly changed over the years and quite often we're a bit drunk and not necessarily in a good state to rate them accurately - not that there is an objective way of rating them anyway - its really just a way of saying if we liked the beer or not. Basically, if its lower that 2.5 its probably something we didn't enjoy that much, if its lower than 2 then in future I'd avoid it all together. At the other end of the scale if its above 3.5 that means it's something we'd definitely want to drink again and if its above 4 I'd actively seek it out. However we haven't always worked according to that scale and looking at Beer festival programmes over the last few years show a significant variation in methods and trends, probably due more to my own inconsistency and shifting tastes than a change in the quality of the ales. I sure as hell can't remember what everything tasted like 4 years ago so please feel free not to take our word for it.
I merged the bitter section with the ale section because it seems a bit arbitrary to have them separate, I'm sure that all stouts and bitters could be included in the Ale section because 'ale' such a vague term, and most ales could equally be in the bitter section because bitter seems like a shit term that people use to describe almost any beer that falls somewhere between Stout and Lager. We could also have a dozen new sections like Milds, Dark Milds, Porters, fruit beers, IPA, Barley Wines...et cetera. We're just trying to keep it simple.
Please note, we are biased. We are more likely to give a Stout a higher score, because we like them more. In fact, if it is a lager, it starts with a bit of a stigma surrounding it already. The thing is, we know this and we don't really care. Lagers are only here to provide a fuller picture of our opinions. In reality we rarely drink them out of choice.
Also we'll try to list the beers alphabetically, however one issue arises. Real Ales which are often brewed by small producers who take pride in their work and often produce many ales on a small scale, for that reason it makes sense to list them according to the name of the Brewery which is effectively a brand name. Lagers on the on the other hand are more often produced industrially on behalf of corporations and as such it would be misleading to talk of breweries, these products will be listed by brand(beer) name.