(with thanks to Tandleman for the idea)
When we welcomed the explosion of beer writers brought about by Blogger, did we imagine we’d end up with so many of them? Did we imagine them all to be good? Is it as though just Blogger has caused this, or is it that ratebeer (RB) has lead to an increasing (or decreasing) number of opinions on a beer? Do some bloggers exist solely in order that their opinions reach a wider audience than the RB faithful? Are some of these opinions rather desperate in the extreme, harsh and cruel towards their subject matter simply in order to get noticed in the crowd? I talk to quite a few of them, and they all pretty much agree – it’s a desperate cycle of tasting ever more beers to keep their RB numbers ahead of the game, so much so that valid opinion is heavily discounted along the way, along with any literary quality.
Of course, the other side of the coin is that there are some beer writers out there making excellent judgement calls, writing really well and getting read widely. These bloggers have no need to write harshly about this beer or that, such is their reputation. Here we are talking about the Dredge’s & the Chunk’s of this world, but for many it is a relentless slog, attempting to string a decent sentence or two together, to get noticed amongst the throng of fellow bloggers.
Are there half arsed bloggers about? Of course there are. Why don’t they shut up? Well, does anyone listen to them anyway? Anyone?