When The Average Isn't

A recent conversation with Cavalier Distributing's Mat Gerdenich about our scoring system led some of us into thoughts of revisiting the scores we've assigned in the past. While some sites and beer competitions rate based on how well a beer represents a style, we've never thought that way - our scores are based purely on personal preference. As a result a beer in brown ale style is likely to never be a high scorer - there's just not enough flavor or complexity in a traditional brown ale to wow us.

What's interesting is to go through our scoring history and see where our personal scores average out. Thanks to the hard work of Gina and the wonders of the spreadsheet, the knights now have that information in hand.

The joke amongst the knights is that I (Mike) traditionally hate beer, and by checking the average of my scores, there's an obvious discrepancy - but not as large a discrepancy as my fellow knights suggest.



It's interesting that Gina and I have close averages - we generally have the same tastes (dating 13 years does that to people). What's more interesting is that Chris and Jason have startlingly close averages* - which means that their foresight in bringing in four more knights was not just clever, it may have been necessary.

The other interesting thing is that the knights' average isn't really average. The average beer score for the site is currently 3.58 mugs - well above the 2.5 most of us use for an "average" beer.

Interested to see everything laid out in columns and rows? The spreadsheet, with scores by knight and by brewery, is available here for download (click free and wait 45 seconds).

*Averages so close that you wonder if they're secretly holding hands under the table.