Customer Reviews

The Beer Lover's Rating Guide: Revised Edition

5 star:		(57)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(47)

 

 

Page 191: Orval scores 2.1; Pabst Blue Ribbon scores 2.1. If this sounds about right to you, then by all means buy this book. Otherwise, you are better off trusting your own judgement when tasting beer instead of this "guide".

Now we'll get to see if Bob has tried to make his reviews more than a few colorful, useless adjectives based on one bottle or draft sample. While I commend the quantity of beers sampled, it would be nice to see him do a good job comparing and judging beers this time. If he really still thinks that a large number of mass-produced American Light Lagers are better than *objectively* better (read: no additivies, adjuncts or fillers) lagers and pilsners from smaller breweries, let alone some of the best beers in the world, well, he's entitled to his opinion but any semi-serious beer judge would laugh in his Brussels-lace-covered face. I'll be looking for this book in the local B&N before I plunk down any money, here or elsewhere -- given the uselessness of the 1995 version, I suggest the same caution for anyone considering the purchase of the update.

After forcing myself to read every single review, I felt the need to review this book in order to help others confused by the previous 5 star or 1 star reviews. The truth is somewhere in between. Klein does think he is reviewing wine with all his flowery words and he is inconsistant with clearly comparable brews. However, the hard info defining the different types as well as bringing to light new brands and even known brands with unheard of products deserves some entertainment value. Which brings about the most important part of this review. Buy this for entertainment purposes only! Don't take the reviews seriously as they are absurdly overstated and inaccurate!

Okay, enough of the childish name-calling here; let's just stick to the facts. The reviews in this book rely on verbosity rather than intellect. True, the tasting of beers is subjective. But Klein gives disparate reviews to virtually-identical beers, and writes as if he's being paid by the word. His ratings are all over the place--darts may have been used. One might be able to use this book to garner an idea as to whether they might like or dislike an expensive beer, but otherwise it's pretty lame and out of date by now. I recommend the Simon & Shuster Pocket Guide to Beer by Michael Jackson, much more up-to-date and useful.

This book is years out of date, many of the beers and breweries reviewed are no longer producing, and since '95 many new breweries have opened. But that's beside the point, even if it was up-to-date, Klein's descriptions of beer are so laughably uninformative they might as well be about non-existent beer.

People. The only reason this book keeps getting reviewed here is because beer-lovers with a gram of knowledge are enraged by it, and because a small group of people are having fun posting ludicrous 5-star reviews. Can we get past this? Klein's book is out of date, thoroughly unoriginal, and marred by numbers of questionable reviews... but mostly it's out of date. If you've come on this for the first time, please look at the great reviews and note how many of them imply that Klein has a great body of work. Then hit the Amazon Keyword Search and try to find any other Bob Klein beer books. There are none, just the calendar that came out after this book. Grow up.

Weak and watered down are some words that I use to describe this book. Moreover, I am totally confused by some of his ratings. He appears to give very low ratings to what can be considered benchmark brews. Take Samuel Smith's Pale Ale, he gives it a 3.0 when most experts will tell you that it is one of the finest examples of the style. A similarly confusing rating is fixed to Fuller's ESB - many Bitter producers use Fuller's as a target to shoot for. Meanwhile, Miller High Life gets a 2.4 [....].

Basically, if a beer is a Trappist or an Abbey ale it is automatically a good beer according to Klein; yet other ales are questionable in the book. I am a huge fan of Trappist and Abbey beer, but the world of beer is much broader than Klein's book would lead us to believe.

Pass on this book and buy Michael Jackson's books; he is far less nebulous and capricious when it comes to describing different beers.

With so many better beer-related books on the market (e.g., anything ever written by Michael Jackson) it would be a shame if anyone fell for the hype surrounding this book and actually bought it. This book is filled with loads of both dated and flat-out misinformation not to mention an astounding number of head-scratching reviews (the author rates Miller Lite higher than classics such as Sierra Nevada Bigfoot, Hoegaarden Grand Cru, and Thomas Hardy ale). The discerning reader should also note the large number of faked awards that some previous reviewers of this book have attributed to it. It makes me wonder what the reviewer's motives were.

the author is definitely a commen(sic) tater, as in his commentary resembles what you might expect from Mr. PotatoHead. San Fransisco Beer Institute, sheeh.

I thought this was badly done, thoughtless, and insipid commentary. It certainly doesn't deserve the mindless positive reviews that pack this page and serve no other purpose than to insult your intelligence. I do not recommend this book and I hope readers interested in beer will do themselves a favor and check out any of the books by noted beer author Michael Jackson instead.