A new rating system for beer based off the Michelin 3 star guide
We were sitting upstairs at our apartment in Oakland, CA. Alex, Dan, and I were finally meeting up after 9 months of not seeing each other post-shelter-in-place.
So, naturally we picked up 8 beers from the bottle shop across the street, Howden Market (which separately is such a cool building and quaint grocery store).
As we were sitting upstairs, and being 3 engineers trying to figure out how to rank the beers, it hit us that the Michelin Rating scale is actually pretty interesting.
In 1931, the Michelin (yes of Michelin tires), made up a restaurant rating system.
The three stages are (were):
- 1 Star: A very good restaurant in its category.
- 2 Stars: Excellent cooking, worth a detour.
- 3 Stars: Exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey.
We tried to attribute this 3 star model to a 10 star rating, and realize that the Michelin system doesn’t afford for anything below their 1 star (obviously), but we wanted a metric to also classify beers that fell below the “1 star”.
We decided to classify at a general inflection of intent to drink beer vs no-intent.
OK — so getting to the scale:
- 9–10 : No intent. Worth a special journey to pick up the beer
- 7- 9: No intent. You’re at the grocery store, you weren’t going to buy beer, but you’d buy it
- 5–7: Intent. You’re in the mood to buy beer, you see the case, you should buy it
- 3–5: Intent. Looking at this particular category (style) of beer, you should buy it
- 1–3: Intent. You’re looking at a case of beer, don’t get this one.
- 0: Just don’t drink it. If you’re at a party and are absolutely forced to — then go for it.
For fun, here were the beers that we drank and the ratings we gave to it. By no means are we cicerones or probably have a palette of true beer aficionados, but just take the below as our interpretations of the beers. :)
Wild Barrel — Vice Pink Guava:
- Dan: 4
- Ravi: 5
- Alex: 3
“We can definitely taste the guava”
Laughing Monk Brewing — Why Kiwi Be Friends:
- Dan: 2
- Ravi: 2
- Alex: 2
The Kiwi tastes a little fake, kind of like a Jolly Rancher.
Original Pattern Brewing — Spaceballs: The Beer!
- Dan: 3
- Ravi: 6
- Alex: 4
It’s toasty.
BTW — the Original Patterns Brewery, is right by Jack London Square, and an amazing place to grab a pint and some dumpings in Oakland. They also have an amazing vegan menu. :)
Original Pattern Brewing — Citra Squeeze
- Dan: 5
- Ravi: 6
- Alex: 5
Kind of has this Fieldwork Brewing funk, the bitterness is actually balanced.
Half Acre Breweries — Pony Pilsner
- Dan: 5
- Ravi: 7
- Alex: 6
- Anja: 5
A light pilsner — some talk about how this would be good with tacos, and how it would be better cold.
Original Pattern Brewing — Uncommon Matter
- Dan: 3
- Ravi: 4
- Alex: 4
- Anja: 4
Didn’t get a quote on this one — after about 5 beers, we’re starting to get a little sloppy. ;)
Original Pattern Brewing — Marto
- Dan: 4
- Ravi: 5
- Alex: 6
- Anja: 4
Super red, almost looks like a red tomato, or cherry.
The takeaway?
I don’t really have a takeaway, but Alex mentioned an interesting point around mental models. There are specific models everywhere around us: people, organizations, countries — we’ve seen them everywhere. The interesting experiment is if you can untangle the specificity and turn it into a general model, and then project it on the problem you’re trying to solve. It’s funny how there are solutions to your problem(s) all around us.
This is day 1 of my #90DayOfProse challenge.
