Steven Frank agrees that 3-choice voting (like/shrug/dislike) is plenty. It's great to see someone else suggest it. Maybe we'll see it pop up in a few more places.
BeerRiot solves the specific problem Steven is grappling with (the sea of "average" ratings) in another way, as well: all BeerRiot ratings are personalized. You're less likely to have to deal with a mess of vague ratings on BeerRiot because a social clustering algorithm is being used to sift the wheat from the chaff. BeerRiot can figure out which users' votes are more important for your score, and uses them to give you a clearer picture. This means the score you see is much more likely to be in-line with your impression of the beer, not just the "average community rating."
For those interested, here is my reasoning for keeping the 'neutral' vote around, in opposition to John Gruber's suggestion.
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