We called it back in June as an upcoming Stone co-Brew participant called out Stone’s Greg Koch by publicly giving Arrogant Bastard a D rating. Once Greg decided to reply, we smelled fish…which was quickly followed by Ryan’s reply and Greg’s reply to Ryan’s reply. Of course it was all revealed as a publicity stunt. All in good fun….I like a good stunt as much as the next guy. 
Unfortunately, what happens next is that all sorts of bloggers (aka online beer publications that happen to also blog), realize the publicity potential and possibilities of getting a brewery to respond in public (aka give them a significant bump)…and they poke goliath. Whether it’s a beer review or a growler poll, everything “we” do starts to be perceived only as a publicity stunt.
I hope the things we’ve seen lately are all done in the name of good fun, and if today were April 1st, I’d be more inclined to believe it…but in the end it only makes me wonder who is really in bed with whom.
I’ll be the first to admit that rating, scoring or otherwise grading a beer is something I couldn’t disagree with more. And I can only hope that my faith in everyone at Stone will be restored if this recent “campaign” actually ends up shining a light on just how ridiculous beer reviews (and reviewers) can be.
In the end I think just about every on-line beer review and every publicity stunt out there have a lot of family resemblance. I can only hope we all see through the fog and decide to taste a beer for ourselves and decide for ourselves what we think is worthy.
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