Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Beer/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Getting Started

Hi, I'm Daniel11, and I started this Project, with the hope that it will attract lots of people and that we can do a good job of cataloguing the world's beers. First, I should say that I'm not the best organizer, so while I'll do what I can, please feel free to help out with organizing this project, and not just with working on the beers. The other point I wanted to make here is that I'm not sure that each beer should have its own entry -- I don't think an encyclopedia article on, say, Labatt 50, would be particularly notable. I'm not sure, though, whether it'd be better to incorporate the descriptions of each beer (w/ taxobox) into their respective brewer's pages, or whether we should make something along the lines of "Labatt beers" as a separate article for each notable brewer. Add any other ideas relevant to this project here, and we can discuss them. And add stuff that's beyond the idea phase to the Project's main page. Oh, and don't let the fact that my examples above were both about Labatt fool you into thinking I enjoy their beers -- that was just the first thing that came to mind! --Daniel11 09:25, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Pale Ale/Bitter possible merge discussion

Now, I have a serious question. I'm not that familiar with the specifics of various kinds of beers (becides how good they taste!), but aren't the two basically the same? At least same enough to be part of the same article, with subheadings to explain the details of the two? I only mention this because the Bitter (beer) page mentions specifically Pale Ale many times throughout the article. I would propose that a merge of some sort would be in order, to make a more complete history of this kind of beverage. This could also include merging "Strong pale Ale", as it's just a variation on pale ale (not to mention all but a stub). Redirects would always be possible, so that people would be able to find any of the specific kinds of beers that they are trying to find easily. I'd like some input before I do anything, just to flesh out some ideas, I of course will not be to rash and take this one step at a time. I'm sure there are other styles that could also be merged, but this is the first one I found. Radagast83 21:40, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

In addition, I want to point out that both share a lot of the same information, and that the quality of the Bitter page is of a higher quality than the Pale Ale page, which includes some POV. Radagast83 22:27, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree on all counts, Radagast. I've always understood Bitter to be a form of Pale Ale, myself, though the Pale Ale aritcle seems to be offering a half-hearted objection to this system of classification. It'd be nice to get more input first, but if you want to do the merging, I'll be happy to copyedit the finished product, if you like. Drop me a line on my talk page and let's talk it over. —CKA3KA (Skazka) 01:14, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi guys. Pale Ale is a group term for a whole bunch of styles, one of which is Bitter. There's also Strong Pale Ale, American Pale Ale, Golden Ale, Biere de Garde, etc. Though there has been some confusion for people looking at the usage in Britain as Pale Ale and Bitter have been synonymous here since inception, that is not the case in other countries where Pale Ale has developed a whole series of different meanings. So, it's not that Pale Ale should be merged into Bitter, but that Pale Ale should be expanded. If either of you guys want to get started on expanding Pale Ale that would be great. If not, don't worry, I'll get around to it. Cheers! SilkTork 15:10, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Gotcha, well the confusion came about because about 75% of the material found in the Pale Ale page is nearly exactly the same (different wording) from the Bitter page. Since many of the styles are nothing but small stubs, would it be too much to have one page for all the Pale Ale styles, of which when (or if) the distinct style begins to become quite large within the article it be spun off into it's own page? Radagast83 20:40, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

We're definitely going to need seperate pages for different styles discussed here regardless if there's a page for the broader catagory. An American pale ale (APA) really only resembles a bitter in the very broadest sense in terms of taste even though they are historically related. I would actually say a broad "Pale Ale" page that branches off into substyles might end up confusing and difficult to deal w/ in the long run especially since, even w/ just the styles SilkTork mentioned, you're already dealing w/ beer styles from several different cultures. I think that it will be more valuable to focus on what makes the style distinctive than what makes them the same--but more work too, for sure.

Edit: To clarify, I think that the Pale Ale page has been expanded nicely and wanted to encourage more work into expanding the seperate articles at this point. I'll work on getting an APA page up. I can't believe there isn't one. Frank 20:23, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Organization

I've only recently joined the Beer project and haven't really taken the time, yet, to peruse the topics in any depth—so please forgive me if I'm speaking out of turn—but from my limited wanderings, it seems to me that we could use a bit more organization. The Beer style article is a good start, and I really like the brewboxes, but it might be handy if there were some way we could show the relationships between the various styles in more depth, perhaps even graphically. Feel free to smack me down, folks, if the graphical thing is a bad idea, but some sort of transparent organization would be nice so that we could more easily see problems. And example is La Fin du Monde, by Unibroue in Quebec. The Unibroue article lists it as a strong pale ale, while the Tripel article lists it as a tripel. —CKA3KA (Skazka) 01:23, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

A tripel is a strong pale ale so there is no problem there. Strong pale ales appear under a variety of different names.

I agree. I've love to do a lot more work on the beer articles on here, but at the moment I'm really busy with other things. I'll do some work on various articles though. However, I'd to suggest something to the group. While there could be a lot to write on every kind of beer style variation out there, personally I think that to make stronger articles altogether, it would be better to keep most variations in one article until the article itself gets too large or there is enough for an article that stands on it's own two feet. Something like Pale Ale could be a start (though each subcategory needs to be expanded). Radagast83 22:31, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Update

I have updated the infobox with the "infobox" class, which gives it the standard monobook skinned appearance, as per the majority of other infoboxes. ed g2s • talk 02:40, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Beer Mug switched to SVG

Hi there. I've gone through and replaced uses of the PNG version of the Beer Mug image with the original SVG image from Open Clip Art. This allows it to be better scaled to different sizes (see the demonstration at User:Mike Dillon/Sandbox#PNG v. SVG beer mug). There is a remaining problem that there is a lot of extra whitespace in the original SVG, but I'm going to fix that and upload a new version. The only remaining uses of the PNG version are on user pages with custom userboxes. Mike Dillon 21:57, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I've fixed the whitespace issues. The SVG image should now be a complete replacement for the PNG, except that it looks better at different scales. Since MediaWiki already had to scale the PNG image for different sizes, the image size at download size is pretty much identical (possibly smaller for the SVG-derived images because of lack of scaling artifacts). Mike Dillon 22:58, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Looks great to me! Nice work. – ClockworkSoul 00:31, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

List of beers we don't have articles on

I can think of two off the top of my head:

• Kubulli- The beer manufactured on the Carribean island of Dominica
• Balashi- The beer from Aruba.

Why don't we have that things to do with the articles for creation, expansion, etc, like all the other wikiprojects? --Rory096 23:16, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Such a list would be at least five or six thousand entries long... --Stlemur 23:24, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

True, but we could still have a short list of badly needed articles on a template, then have a secondary list of the thousands of articles we should have. It shouldn't be too hard to read a bit on a beer's website and maybe ratebeer.com and write a few sentences on it. --Rory096 23:28, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

If we create 5000 beer stubs, then people will AfD them en masse. Better to put short entries into each brewery's article, then spin off into larger articles only when merited. Indeed, the list of brewers could easily get out of hand in the same way...I say go geographically by, say, US state, UK county, German Lander (e.g. an article on "Breweries & beers of Connecticut") and spin off from there. --Stlemur 00:12, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I did a little research and made a stub for Balashi. Its my first article creation, hope its up to snuff. --Tyreal

There's this -- is that what you're looking for? You could always create something along the lines of a real page with articles to be worked on, assuming still that this is the sort of thing you're after. Also, we could use a real collaboration of the <period> page..... --Daniel11 03:33, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Category Name Change

It has been suggested by User:BrianSmithson that the Beer and brewery categories should be renamed. The proposal has been supported by User:Syrthiss, and supported and expanded by myself. The notion is that the regional categories should follow the format of "Beer and breweries in Africa" /Europe/Asia/North America/South America/Oceania. "Brewers and breweries" could also be renamed "Beer and breweries by region". And all the countries should also be renamed (and merged if needed) as, for example, "Beer and breweries of Germany", "Beer and breweries of Britain", "Beer and breweries of Poland". The word in each case would be beer rather than beers to allow for general articles on beer culture in each region as well as individual beers. Comments, suggestions and objections welcome. SilkTork 08:47, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. --Stlemur 09:36, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. – ClockworkSoul 13:04, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Thirded. It could be even more simply put as "Beer in Germany" as breweries are part of beer culture anyway.Frank 15:09, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

My first reaction was "Yes! Clean and simple." But then I realised that at some point somebody will want to create a category for breweries. Also, I think we should encourage people to create brewery articles rather than short entries on their favourite beer. SilkTork 23:26, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd rather have just "Beer in..." myself, but with human nature being as it is... ;) Count me in. --Kaleissin 17:24, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

We already have this. Category:Scottish beer is the general category with articles about local styles and history, containing Category:Scottish breweries. Someone broke America, but thats easy to fix. Justinc 10:16, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Good thinking -- I fourth. --Daniel11 02:56, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Nice idea... I support it, but maybe it'd be better to put as "Beer in <country>" --Angelo 15:47, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

As in - "Beer and breweries in Europe", then "Beer and breweries in Germany". Agreed. That would be more consistent. SilkTork 17:07, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed -- Gordo 16:01, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, sorry I don't have time to help implement this change. —Sean κ. + 16:15, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

This (the actual renaming) sounds like the perfect job for a bot, though. --Kaleissin 17:24, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Seems like a good idea. Gentgeen 16:21, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Gotta admit, sounds like a great idea. Radagast83 16:29, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good, go ahead. Gryffindor 18:07, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I like it too. dewet|™ 18:15, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Add me to the list of affirmatives. —CKA3KA (Skazka) 18:48, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Got my vote. --Pypex 20:29, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Agree, feydey 21:16, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Fifteenthed :)  ALKIVAR™ 21:26, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

The advantage of separating them is for parenting on the category system. Breweries are companies and therefore appear under the Companies in Germany etc categories. Beer and breweries is strangely parented from this point of view. One solution would be to put the beers in categories under the brewery (so you have Category Budweiser containing Bud Light or whatever).Justinc 22:17, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Good idea! I have one amendment to suggest, however: for German beer, the category should be further divided into individual states ("Länder"). Germany as a nation did not exist prior to 1870, which is very late in beer-history terms. The difference between, say, Bavarian beers and those from Schleswig-Holstein is as wide as that between Belgian and Dutch beers. Owen× ☎ 23:34, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. It does make sense to divide when categories become large, or when there is a useful grouping to be made. But it might be worth considering further the way a category is split. Sometimes countries' internal political regions are not the best way to divide up subjects. For example, at the moment we have Britain divided into Scotland, England and Wales, when these countries share roughly the same overall beer history and beer style, though regions within Britain (and England) differ. Arguments could be put forward to divide along the Southern, Midland & Wales, and Northern & Scotland lines, as there is an accepted, if slight, difference in beer traditions between these regions (use of a sparkler in dispensing beer, tradition of Mild, for example). SilkTork

There's a huge difference between Scottish and English brewing -- Scotch ale and Gruit aren't produced at all south of the border as far as I can tell. There is probably a reasonable case for subdividing England regionally, and given the number of breweries we'll have to pick something, but at least in the case of Great Britain we're not talking about "regions" when we talk about Wales and Scotland and England but separate countries that all happen to be ruled from London.

Meanwhile, I think it's worth pointing out that for most traditionally beer-producing countries, the number of breweries will always be large. There are dozens of breweries in the Netherlands, at least a hundred in France, hundreds in England and the US.

Finally, given the intrinsic arrangement of Wikipedia we don't have to limit ourselves to one categorization scheme. We could just as well have German beer by Lander, German beer by style, German beer by ABV... --Stlemur 09:17, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I dont know why this has got in to a regional discussion, but English beer and Welsh beer and Scottish beer are quite different historically. Scotland doesnt grow hops for example, so beers have very little as it was very expensive. Just because of internationalisation, and the fact that there are lots of countries without local beer histories doesnt mean that there were not agricultural and climatic reasons why the beers of Britain, Belgium, Bavaria, Burton on Trent and Bohemia are the way they are. These are the important encyclopaedic articles that we need to write more about, articles that help people understand beer. May as well put everything else in Category:Industrial lager as it makes no difference what country it comes from anyway. Justinc 09:34, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Ah. I haven't got around to finishing my edits on Scottish beer and Scotch Ale. Scottish Ale was a name Bert Grant used in 1982 for a pale ale he brewed using American hops. Such a beer has never been brewed in Scotland, but has proved to be very popular in America. Hops were very heavily used by Edinburgh brewers - and there is plenty of evidence for this. Scotch Ale or Whiskey Ale is a style of beer brewed in Belgium and France using smoked malts. Douglas Ross of the Bridge of Allan brewery has recently made the first Scottish example of a Scotch Ale / Whiskey Ale for the Tullibardine Distillery. I have a bottle in my cellar which I plan to open very soon! The features of Scottish brewing that have been most different to the rest of Britain has been a) the early exploration into lager brewing and b) the use of bittering herbs lasting until the end of the 1800s in remote places. Neither of these things are very remarkable, and other regions of Britain have stronger claims to differentiation - such as those I briefly mentioned above. SilkTork 17:24, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like it's worth discussing. Jordanmills 01:14, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Ok I have looked through the category system again, and aparrt from some misclassifications I cant see the problem. Everything is divided into Category:German beer, which covers the regional styles, culture and so on (and can be subclassified for smaller regional divisions), and then that contains a breweries category. As long as people dont classify breweries into the beer category (which they tend to, but its easily fixed) this works well, as the first thing you see is the overview of the regional styles and so on. Some of this is a mess: American beer is a subset of American breweries rather than the other way round, so no wonder people are confused. Also some articles on individual beers which shouldnt have them have proliferated - these need merging back into the breweries. Breweries are verifable companies which can have references. Very few beers are. I spent a long time removing stuff from Category:Brands of beer and much of the stuff there is actually beers that are culturally or historically notable outside the context of the brewery that made them. Justinc 10:13, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

"I spent a long time removing stuff from Category:Brands of beer" You and me both! Seems we are both in accord on that! SilkTork 17:28, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

In my country, the Philippines, there are only two brewers, and one of those two only produces only one brand of beer, the rest being licensed. - Obin 3391 15:14, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Units for production numbers

Hi there. I just got done reverting about 30 edits by User:Bobblewik to brewery pages that changed hectolitres to litres. Since this seemed to be a bit of a standard, I was surprised there isn't anything said about units of production on this project's page. While cleaning up these changes, I saw one person had already reverted one of the edits with a comment that the European Union beer regulations use hectolitres, not litres. I thought I would start a discussion here and then point Bobblewik here with the request that he get some concensus from the Beer project before continuing. Mike Dillon 17:17, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for pointing me here. Since hecto is a prefix meaning 100, it seemed odd to use it when discussing millions. For example Palm Breweries says '1200000 hL'. Prefixes are not units, they are supplements to the basic unit. You can use mega rather than 10,000 hecto. I understand the argument that specialist domains use specialist conventions. But Wikipedia is not a specialist publication so terms should be accessible outside the specialism. I am interested in what people have to say. bobblewik 17:48, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

We measure racehorses in hands, right? --Stlemur 18:08, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I do not understand. The discussion is about litres and prefixes, not horses. Can you explain what you mean? bobblewik 22:04, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Bobblewik does trojan work in standardising units to SI, but I think there has to be some flexibility to use the normal units used in the relevant domain, even if they're not strict SI (like hectare) or if they seem clumsy to a purist (like "X million hectolitres"). BrendanH 22:14, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm fairly neutral on the issue, although I do feel that Bobblewik (talk · contribs) can be a bit, erm, intrusive/agressive with his changes. I also do feel that, since it is an industry term (note, not "specialist"), and the prefix is fairly easy to figure out, it does not make it inaccessible at all to those "not in the know". So put me down for "hectolitre" preference. dewet|™ 05:36, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Why are hectolitres used? Is it because it's about a barrel? Rich Farmbrough 14:41 11 April 2006 (UTC).

No, barrels are as far as I know most common for petroleum products (also in Europe!);

In wikipedia I'd keep to hectoliters as most common/standard for expressing production quantities of alcoholic beverages like wine and beer in Europe (and also mention the quantity in the most common unit in the Americas or elsewhere, if there's a really "common" non-SI unit there). --Francis Schonken 15:35, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I do not know the history of the hectolitre and it is an interesting question. One hundred litres of wine fills 133.33 (recurring) bottles. Bizarre. bobblewik 15:46, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

The hectolitre predates by a long shot the standardization of wine bottles at 750 ml, which didn't happen until the U.S. adopted that standard in the 1970s. When I was in Germany, the standard German or French wine bottles were 700 ml (or 1000 ml, which is also still used though 700 ml is not). Various other "standards" were used throughout the world at that time, such as the 1/5 U.S. gallon or 1/6 imperial gallon one (both likely filled the same way no matter which label was put on them). Gene Nygaard 12:56, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I think the barrel equivalence is quite likely. A defined British barrel is 36 gallons, or around 165L, and one (of many) US barrels is around 120L, and it is still used in brewing (google for "brew length bbl" for instance). [1] has some good info. BrendanH 21:55, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

As someone not familiar with the topic, I have to say I find a notation of "thousands of hundred-litres" kind of annoying. I can understand using it in production, but would you put it in a report to some outside agency? In an encyclopedia? This will be read by a lot of lays, so unless it contributes substantially to the topic of the article, I think it should just be mentioned as an industry standard, and more transparent prefixes be chosen.

I think "1200000 hL" is hard to read anyway, and most style guides recommend cutting the number of digits down to four or less. Still, like Dewet, I'm kind of neutral because "hectelitre" is easy enough to figure out. My point is that it probably shouldn't need "figuring out".

Hectelitres is interesting in that it's like centimetres: a hundred and a hundreth. They're both discouraged because the other prefixes are integer powers of a thousand. Except, (as in the Village Pump right now), for hat sizes and skiis. —Daelin @ 2006–04–11 23:26Z

Hectolitres are indeed sometimes used for this purpose, and an occasional mention of them may be merited. However, they are not a worldwide standard within the industry. The U.S. barrel used for U.S. production figures for beer is 31 U.S. gallons (not the 31.5 gallon standard liquid barrel), or about 117.35 L. The use of megalitres is probably more common in Australia than it is anywhere else.

Even though we do still waste far much time teaching kids useless prefixes such as hecto-, most people don't find it easy to figure them out. Even the similarity with hectares isn't much help; in most of the world ares are rarely used without a prefix or with any prefix other than hectare, so there is no strong association with the number 100 because of the word hectare. Gene Nygaard 13:03, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

This is interesting. In some parts of the world production is measured in barrels, while in other parts it is measured in hl. I'm not familiar with production being measured in litres. The debate is not litres v. hls, but should hls be used in place of barrels for regions, such as the UK, where production figures are given in barrels. While I am in favour of consistency across Wiki - there are times when such consistency is not possible. Converting imperial measurements to metric to create a uniformity is inappropriate. When giving production measurements for a brewery it might be more appropriate to use the system in place for the brewery's region, and create a wiki link to the unit of measurement which would explain it for those not familiar with the term. This would be in keeping with the Wiki use of British and American spelling: British spelling for British topics, American spelling for American topics. SilkTork 09:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

It might be a mistake to allocate the barrel as the single 'regional unit' for the UK. Ordinary British Wikipedia readers will see a litre-based volume in their daily lives much more often than they will see a barrel-based volume. British sources appear to be unapologetic about using litres:

• scottish-newcastle.com: "volume approaching 50 million litres"
• J D Wetherspoon: "800 million litres of beer a year"
• UK government: "breweries producing up to 3 million litres of beer per year"
• plantautomation-technology.com:"production in the plant per year approaches 131.9 million litres of beer and soft drinks"
• cognex.co.uk: "produces more than 300 million litres of beer"
• euromonitor.com: "sales of lager reached nearly 27.7 billion litres"
• BBC: "seized 1.6 billion cigarettes and 5.4 million litres of beer"
• packaging-technology.com: "produces over 30 million litres of beer"
• Telegraph: "produces two million litres of beer annually"
• Computer weekly: "550 million litres of beer and non-alcoholic beverages"
• Evening Standard: "Asda said it sold more than four million litres of beer"
• megasoccer.co.uk: "25 million litres of beer during Euro 2004"
• ketteringtoday.co.uk: "There are only 260 people working in the Carlsberg beer production, and each Northampton worker produces 1.6 million litres of beer a year"

bobblewik 00:30, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, SilkTork, this discussion is indeed in large part about litres/liters vs. hectoliters.

In the U.S., I'm pretty sure that you will see liters more often than hectoliters.

In fact, it is pretty common overall. Google:

beer "billion liters" 10,200 hits

beer "billion litres" 16,500 hits

beer "billion liters" 30,600 hits

beer "billion litres" 66,700 hits

beer megalitres 802 hits

beer hectolitres 65,500 hits

beer "million barrels" 124,000 hits

It isn't exclusively one unit anywhere.

If barrels are used, they should be specifically identified. Right now, barrel (storage) is overly parochial, saying "Although it is common to refer to draught beer containers of any size as barrels, this is strictly correct only if the container actually holds 36 gallons." Good grief, it doesn't even identify those barrels as imperial, nor does it give an equivalent in liters, and it doesn't mention the 31.0 U.S. gallon beer barrel at all. Barrel (unit) does specifically identify both the U.S. beer barrel and the 36 imperial gallon barrel. Gene Nygaard 04:04, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Is hectolitres really standard? If it is, then it remains industry/specialist/whatever-you-want-to-call-it, and should probably be explained either at the top of the article or on its first use — even if it is a standard prefix. Something like "12 hectolitres (hectolitre = 10,000 litres) is sufficient, and on that note, no, I can't remember what "hecto" means because it's not a power of three.

Here we might hit a context-within-context situation, where some articles which go really deep need to have "hectolitres" because otherwise they sound really wrong to someone that knows about the subject, whereas others which aren't so deep are better off with "million litres" because otherwise they're overcomplicating the topic. I guess you have to weigh them up. I don't know anything about beer, so I don't know what the standard is, so this is the view of a layman. Neonumbers 06:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I expressed myself poorly and made some errors. I'm not arguing in favour of hl over litre. I'm not really that familiar with EITHER hl or litre as measurements of beer production. I'm personally not that interested in such things. I am aware, however, that beer production is measured in barrels among the cask ale brewers of the UK. I'm sure that the global breweries who have plants in the UK do use litres or hls when talking about how much lager they have spewed forth upon the world, but more traditional brewers talk in terms of barrels or gallons and pints - litres is not a figure most British cask brewers would be using, and it would be highly inappropriate for an editor to convert barrel production into litres. So, my point was that we should not be talking about which single measurement should be used for all articles which refer to beer production, rather we should be allowing some degree of flexibility for varying methods of measurement to be used. Or for no mention to be made if it is not felt to be important. Even though some brewers release figures on how much beer they have produced, an editor should feel no obligation to use this information unless the editor regards the information as important or significant - for example, as a figure to support the claim that SABMiller is the world's second largest brewing company by volume. I should add now, that I'm not advocating that we don't include production figures (they are popular with many people) but that we shouldn't be gripped by any necessity to be consistent for the sake of it. SilkTork 15:22, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

That seems reasonable to me. bobblewik 16:05, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm an American, but I must say I have no idea what a hectolitre is. Litre, however, I know, though I spell it liter. So just based on that, I say don't use hecto. --Awiseman 06:02, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Hey everybody

Wikipedia:WikiProject Cocktails

Just started!

Good luck User:Hailey C. Shannon. SilkTork 09:08, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Largest Yearly events by consumption =

Not that it's really that notable, but I've heard the top three events every year in terms of barrels of beer consumed are the Kentucky Derby, Princeton's Reunion, and the Indianapolis 500. Anyone else ever heard or can confirm this?

I can't imagine that is true. What about the super bowl or NCAA final four or soccer world cup? I would imagine a tremendous amount of beer is consumed on those days. I would be interesting to find some information on consumption per event though. --Judzillah 18:02, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, assuming that it is true, I would imagine that it's because they have larger crowds at the site (counting only people in the stadium for the superbowl/NCAA final game), and they all last much longer. The superbowl and NCAA final (Final 4 is 3 seperate games) are several hours long. The two races last all day (from when fans arrive to when they leave) and princeton's reunion is an uninterrupted weekend long affair that every Princeton grad is invited to-not just from a specific year. Note, this is in the us, so world cup is out. Still though, this is all iffy, and it would be interesting to see some sort of facts on it. Leppy 18:25, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I have heard of something similar: That since the Indy 500 went dry Princeton Reunions is the recurring event which makes the largest Budweiser purchase. I assume that the Superbowl, etc. only count the stadium itself; it is also of note that Princeton Reunions lasts for three days. Dgadala 18:35, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Oktoberfest and GBBF are huge dedicated beer drinking events. And Europeans tend to drink lots of beer. If someone is interested in doing research on beer consumption around the globe, including individual events, I think there may be a place for it on Wiki somewhere. SilkTork 07:57, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Beer style pages

Hi everyone. I was poking around the beer pages, and thought that the style pages could use some help. I think some work could be done to try to standardize the beer style pages. I am not quite sure what the best way to do that is though. I think all the styles should at least include information on history, brewing process, taste, notable beers of that style, etc. A lot of information can be found on the Beer Judge Certification Process style pages and also the Brewers Association style site. I just think all the style pages should be formatted the same way and provide similar information. Anybody have any thoughts? Thanks! --Judzillah 17:58, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Thoughts. Beer styles is something that people are dealing with now and again. I intend to have a good go at them at some point. And anyone is welcome to have a go. However, I would urge severe caution regarding using BJCP as a source as the information relates to American homebrewing, and is poorly researched - a lot of it is quess and assumption. I would suggest only using BJCP when writing about the American homebrewing competition scene, and not when writing about global commercial beers. SilkTork 08:03, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if the BJCP is poorly researched or not (I must admit that I don't really like them myself) but the guidelines have an absolutely huge impact that goes far beyond competitions. Fact of the matter is that a lot of American microbrewers (not just homebrewers) brew to the BJCP standards. If a microbrewer makes, say, a brown ale, there's a safe bet that it's gonna fit pretty neatly into one of the BJCP catagories for brown ale. A lot of times, it will be spelled out pretty specifically in the beer's description: "This is a Northern English Brown ale..." or "This is an American Brown Ale..." and so on. At the end of the day, regardless of if these things were actually styles when the guidelines were created, regardless of if they're historically accurate or if somebody just made them up out of thin air, they have managed to become styles in the own right due to the BJCP guidelines. If you confine the guidelines to such a narrow scope here, it will be a huge hinderance when it comes to describing beer as it is brewed in the US. Frank 16:16, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Not a hindrance at all, but an attempt at accuracy. If we are to update the beer style entries then we must adhere to truth and accuracy, as well as a global perspective. I see no point in copying material that is wrong. An accurate account, for example, of the history of Scottish Ale will show that Bert Grant invented the style. Something that BJCP is unaware of. Just because I am saying we shouldn't use inaccurate information doesn't mean we shouldn't write about American beer styles. I am advocating accuracy, not avoidance. SilkTork 23:27, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. Regardless of where the style information comes from, I am still wondering what steps need to be taken to standardize the beer style pages. Would it be worthwhile to create a new WikiProject to deal with them? --Judzillah 20:37, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Standardizing the styles fits into the mission of this project -- maybe what you're thinking of is a new brewbox for styles? Also, you can create a subpage (e.g. Wikipedia:WikiProject Beer/Styles) to deal specifically with approaches to standardizing the style articles. --Daniel11 21:17, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Daniel that a new project is not needed - beer styles is central to this project. As for the brewbox idea. A box approach would fit in nicely with a BJCP homebrewing competition perspective - and it might be worthwhile people exploring the notion of writing articles on American homebrewing competions and the competition beer styles. However, the broader and less easily defined subject of commercial and global beer styles where different countries have differing approachs to beer styles might be better dealt with through individual articles. I suspect a box approach might tend to over-simplify what is a subtle and complex subject. As for standardising - at this stage I don't think it really matters. Do some research, present the findings and let the Wiki ideal of collaborative effort lead the way into a standard approach that is useful and attractive. SilkTork 23:27, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Wow, far better said than I ever could! :)

Judzillah, what SilkTork said should answer your questions pretty thoroughly. Hopefully just by writing the stuff you proposed about beer styles, whoever does it will in some way be doing a bit of "standardizing" just by including that info for various styles. But, we can definitely refine things at any point, if there's a need for something more formal like a new type of brewbox.

SilkTork, I also just added a comment on your talk page. --Daniel11 09:44, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I feel the main Beer styles page could use a specific mention and two or three word description of some major styles, beyond the simply ale/lager dichotomy. This shouldn't encroach on either the ale/lager pages or the style pages themselves, but give a basic idea of what styles are and how they may relate to each other. Couch 10:22, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Article Merging in regards to Guinness

A user with this project SilkTork (talk · contribs) has been attempting merging the articles on Smithwick's and Harp Lager into the article for Guinness on the basis listed here. Yet as i look on this project i see nothing saying that this is a policy or that their is an effort underway to do as much, or has ever been discussed. Also their has been no discussion of a possible merger on the involved pages either in a formal or informal way. Therefore, before a merge is done a merge tag should be applied and appropriate discussion should be take so that parties involved have a chance to give their opinions. I also believe that this is a bad idea to merger these articles anyway, as both Smithwick's and Harp Lager are no longer considered "Guinness" brands, as in the way one would think the various "Miller" or "Bud" beers as brands of their respective "Miller" or Budweiser" parent, though they are all in one part or another under the larger Diageo flag. Also when i think of Smithwick's i don't tend to have Guinness come to mind. Smithwick's and Guinness have maintained a fairly separate brand identity from each other, as well as a history, lesser so for Harp. Also considering that that the current Guinness article, which has been marked as a GA, would no longer be a GA if this article merge were to move forward. Besides the mention of Kaliber the article entirely focusses on Guinness "the beer" and the mention of other "related beers" would only go on to confuse readers in that they would associated Guinness associated items with these other brews. If anything the Smithwick's and Harp article should be improved and not merged into theses what would soon become overly bloated superbrewey articles. --Boothy443 | trácht ar 07:26, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

One result of this merger is that there are two fr: interwiki links and two it: interwiki links, one for Guinness and one for Smithwick's, respectively. This does seem a bit irregular. -- Curps 07:55, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Agree, i noticed that the first time the merger was made, forgot to mention it above.--Boothy443 | trácht ar 08:34, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Merging is patently the wrong thing to do, I'm afraid. SilkTork should really have opened up a discussion on this first. I've already had to undo a misguided attempt to merge the stories of the Bass brewery and Bass (beer) itself. Noisy | Talk 09:20, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Beer or brewery

Following varying discussions on other beer pages, a brief discussion on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Beer/Archive, current ongoing procedure and an explanation of intention during the process on Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 April 4 (which was related to the entire re-catorisation of all the beer articles), the consensus has been to move individual beer articles into the main article of the parent brewery or brand holder. This procedure is not explicit policy, it is understood that editors may and do have differences of opinion, and there has not been a long and developed discussion in which many people have given their views. Therefore, when during a merge into Guinness of Harp Lager, Smithwick's and Macardle Moore Brewery, User:Boothy443 reverted back and objected to lack of appropriate merge tags being used, it seemed appropriate that another opportunity be given for people to air their views on the general policy of dealing with beer brands. Please give your views. Should beer brands be discussed in a major article on the brewery/brand owner in which related matters and other brands can be detailed together - or would be be more appropriate for beer brands to be detailed on both the brewery page and in an individual article with, however, some repetition of information? SilkTork 12:12, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry - didn't see that a discussion had already started. SilkTork 12:13, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Determining a Brewery's Diffrent Brews

Does anyone know a good site for finding out all the beers produced by a brewery? I'm doing a small page on the Pearl Brewing Company, and I'll like to put a listing of all the beers that carried the Pearl name, even those bought from other companies such as Country Club and Falstaff. Also, since I'm bugging you guys, does anyone know the story behind a Malt Liquor called 900 Malt? At one point I read that it was an alternate name for Country Club (Pabst brand), but I've also seen it listed as an completely seperate beverage, but if that's the case then what brewery created it? --Brownings 19:45, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

If their website does not tell you much and Google fails you, I suggest getting in touch with their PR person (Pabst owns the brands now right?). Usually these people are not busy at all and are always glad to help with stuff like that, especially if it is going to get their name out there.--Nis pero 22:26, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Beeradvocate.com is a good resource for finding this out --Seanmcpherson1 03:56, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Beerbox Template

The brewbox I saw on some brewery pages handled by this project inspired me to come up with a beerbox, which I thought to be very necessary. You can see the examples in the main WikiProject:Beer page and in the how-to page for this beerbox. Suggestions are more than welcome mates.--Nis pero 22:23, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Hey, that looks awesome!! It's about time we had one of those... :) Thanks! --Daniel11 22:28, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks mate, I was also planning to make a bstylebox template for beer styles, that has info on color (°L), accepted IBU range, etc. Speaking of which, maybe a color template for the beerbox should be made aswell. If anyone has that information handy, that is.--Nis pero 22:41, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

I think it might be good to have a section on homebrewing in which such things as the BJCP competition categories can be discussed and beer boxes can be used. I think beer boxes have limited value, however, for the full range of commercial beers in which cultural and historical importance and influence needs to be considered. SilkTork 23:18, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I like the brewbox, and I wish whoever took mine off of New Glarus Brewing would have just left it alone. It was fantastic!--Seanmcpherson1 03:58, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

BrewBox

Has their been some kind of change in how this box is supposed to be used or something. A user SilkTork (talk • contribs) has been basiclay canablising the infoboxes, basiclay stripping them of images and information, and placing the boxes at the bottom of the page in the external links, which all but deprecheat the functionality of the boxes, i noticed this before, but decided to say something after catching it on Carlsberg, which was moved to Carlsberg Brewery, whiht the reason being "In keeping", in keeping with what, is their some kind of MOS for names of these articles that didn't catch, or was a WP:RM not posted on the article. I know i am not as active as i would like to be in this project, due to other projects that i am involed with and such, but still. --Boothy443 | trácht ar 08:51, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

First I've seen of this. I know I haven't heard of any changes, but it's not like this project group are huge talkers. There are a lot of things I'd like to change about the Brewbox, but the example on the Carlsberg just bad. It kills our only bit of uniformity for the project and doesn't provided a lot of info. I didn't look, but have you tried changing it to the standard format and he/she reverted it on you? --Brownings 09:50, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

No i havn't done any reverson of the type to the article, though i have considered it. I did though move the article back to Carlsberg from Carlsberg Brewery. Similar changes have been doen to Guinness where the user decribed above, basiclay canabilzed more then half the article and transfered it to St. James's Gate Brewery, so now St. James's Gate Brewery has a lot of extranious information that has leiitle to do with the borwery, as well as the inclusion of 2 beers that are not even brwed their, Smithwicks i belive is still brewed in Kilkenny, and Mcardles in Dundalk. Becides the point the article was split their was no discussion or warning, and it was based on a idea floated by another user in a merger discussion, still though their hardly discussion in the merger discussion to warent the type of edit of the sort. I am considering reverting that back as well. --Boothy443 | trácht ar 10:05, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

The design of this template is very poorly done. We should use something along the lines of the film infobox, which uses #if expressions, and seems to work amazingly. There's no reason to have 50 different templates to have different parameters for each. The default value of the image can be a "no image" picture, and since MediaWiki supports default values for parameters, this seems like a good idea. Anyone else have any thoughts? -Mysekurity ^[m!] 01:05, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Ooooo...I like it. The beerbox does stink. I'm not hot on how it looks and I think it really lacks some fields, especially if you're working on a brewery that is closed or boughtout. The film one is pretty sweet, a real improvement over the one we're using now. --Brownings 09:44, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

The thing is that by naming the parameters, they don't have to exist when you use them, unlike automatically numbered parameters. The best idea would be to change it all to one template, with a number of options including date opened, date closed, date bought, etc. If anyone has AWB, that could assist in changing the parameters over to the new infobox too. -Mysekurity ^[m!] 03:00, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I think the Brewbox might be overloaded. I'm looking at St. James's Gate Brewery and Guinness side-by-side; here's the problem: Guinness is the brand, but not all Guinness is produced at the St James's Gate Brewery, and some of the Guinness line is only made outside of Dublin. Should the "Annual priduction" figure, then, refer to the company's annual production over all its brewing; or to the output of St James's Gate, which raises problems with the "Active Beers" section? This may only be a problem for a few beer lines, but those it will be a problem for are the very largest. --Stlemur 14:32, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Golden ale (UK)

I've created the above article as the style is increasingly being recognized as distinct by brewers in the UK, but would like input on expansion and a better way to categorize it, especially given the conflict with blonde ale. --Stlemur 14:03, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

New category

We have a new category: Category:Beer culture. This will allow us to separate articles directly related to beer culture from general drinking articles which will remain in Category:Drinking culture. Articles such as Beer belly and Beer goggles appear to me to belong in Drinking culture, and I'll pour a cold lager over the head of anyone who disagrees. SilkTork 11:03, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I like it. And I hope that if I disagreed, you'd have the courtesy to pour something decent like an ale over my head.

One slight thing: why not put articles like beer belly into both categories? It seems like it's a pretty tight fit for Category:Beer culture. --Daniel11 22:54, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

• I'm not sure that beer belly actually belongs in either camp. It's not a drinking related issue, despite the name. The article does stress that it's a weight and health issue and has nothing to do with drinking. I can see the use of having beer belly under the umbrella of beer culture in order to let people know that if they read the article they can see that the article doesn't actually belong there. But circular thinking like that makes me giddy. I see beer belly belonging in the same camp as love handles, whale tail and muffin tops - funny expressions which have nothing to do with love, whales or muffins. Of course if you disagree with me and want to get drenched in Old Speckled Hen Bud, then go ahead! SilkTork 16:02, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, but I think that beer goggles is more definitely beer-related, not that beer belly isn't -- it may be a weight issue but it's culturally (if not biologically) related to beer culture. Also, I was thinking more about items generally that might go in either category, rather than just those two specific articles. I would not be happy about getting drenched in Bud. --Daniel11 02:30, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Agree with Daniel, beer belly is definitely beer related, otherwise it would be called food belly, right? I think it may imply other things (laziness, TV watching etc). Not that all beer drinkers do that, however! Just me. --Awiseman 06:06, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• It's an interesting debate, however the intro to the article makes clear that the term is not beer related: "A beer belly or beer gut is a physical human trait characterised by a horizontal overhang of fat above the waist, with little apparent fat on the rest of the body. Despite its name, there is no evidence that beer bellies are caused by the consumption of alcohol. The sole study conducted on the subject concluded that those who think "people are obese because they drink too much beer" are wrong. [2] Similarly, Dr. Meir Stampfer of Harvard School of Public Health - a leading authority on alcohol and health - states that "though it's often called a 'beer belly,' beer does not promote weight or waist gain any more than any other source of calories." " The use of the word beer in an article does not always mean it is actually about beer. Whale tail, for example, does not belong in the whale (Cetaceans) category even though it has whale in the article title and refers to the shape of a whale's tail. The article is about something other than whales. Same as Beer belly is about something other than beer. Here are a few other places with beer in the title that are not in any beer cat: Beer, Devon, Beer (lunar crater), and Randall Beer (even though any beer beek would immediately associate that article with a hop device [3] that once made its way across the Atlantic to make an appearance at both the White Horse and GBBF). SilkTork 19:37, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Possibly Omitted Topics?

Is there a "punch list" somewhere of apparently omitted topics the Beer Project ought to include? Specifically, I'm surprised there's no mention in Wikipedia of Jack McAuliffe's New Albion Brewing Company in Sonoma -- which didn't last long but is now considered the pioneer effort in the craft brewing movement and probably the first "microbrewery." (It's a toss-up between New Albion and Maytag's Anchor Steam, I guess.) This may not be the right place to ask, but I haven't found a better one . . . and while I've done quite a few Wikipedia articles, I don't feel especially qualified in the area of beer history. (I just like to drink it!) --Michael K. Smith 16:44, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

There is a sub-section (entitled Articles in need of editing or creation) for such topics on the main WikiProject Beer page. I have already added Jack McAuliffe and New Albion Brewing Company, but, if there are other breweries/beers/people you would like to bring attention to, that is the place to include them. --(Mingus ah um 19:21, 6 July 2006 (UTC))

Where can I find this sub-section at? There are two local brewers I'd like to add and eventually expand on. --Brownings 22:19, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Go to the main WikiBeer page (Wikipedia:WikiProject Beer), and click on the seventh topic in the contents box (Articles in need of editing or creation). --(Mingus ah um 00:55, 17 July 2006 (UTC))

• People can always just start an article. The collaborative nature of Wiki means that - hopefully - other editors will come along and expand. If unsure which category to use then, if it's beer, the template {{beer-stub}} can be used and someone will see to it at some point. SilkTork 20:01, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Removing category:Microbreweries

user:SilkTork seems to be completely deleting category:Microbreweries, using edit summaries that don't reflect what he's doing. I can't find any discussion about this, and the user won't respond to my talk. Is there any consensus for this action? —Michael Z. 2006-07-10 13:37 Z

No. It is another pervasive, unilateral change by User:SilkTork, just like his abuse of the brewbox as an address by at the bottom of the page. Mike Dillon 15:26, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I haven't seen any discussion, but I have seen a couple of his edits. If he's removing category:Microbreweries from everything, then yes I'd have to agree that he's wrong. However, if he's just cleaning the non-Microbreweries out of the catagory then I'd say SilkTork is doing the right thing. I know he removed the Microbreweries catagory from the article on Spoetzl Brewery (aka Shiner) which is right since Shiner has almost national distribution, something very non-Microbrewery. Perhaps he'll respond to your question within the next few days. --Brownings 17:35, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• Response to Michael's comment: I was removing the Microbrewery cat which has been replaced by the Beer and breweries cat. It was a consensus decision [4] made formal by CFD on Apr 4 to recategorise the brewery cats by region. However, at the time the Beer and breweries cat changes took place - conducted largely by User:Syrcatbot, the Microbrewery cat was left behind, creating a double brewery cat. I have closed down the Microbrewery cat and removed the Microbrewery cat tag from the thirty or so breweries affected. My last edit was 13.15 before I logged off. Your first comment was 13.19. It seems we missed each other by minutes. SilkTork 17:51, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[Discussion below started at user talk:SilkTork and response at user talk:Mzajac copied here for reference. It appears that SilkTork is expunding category:Microwreweries and claiming to have consensus, but I can't find it. Can the members here please form a consensus about what's happening and how to proceed? —Michael Z. 2006-07-10 17:54 Z]

I notice you're making a large number of edits where you delete a category from an article, but you enter a misleading edit summary saying "clean up"[5], or "fixing double category"[6]. What's up here? —Michael Z. 2006-07-10 13:19 Z

Really, I'd like an explanation before you continue[7] what appears to be sneaking a massive number of changes. How was this a double category? —Michael Z. 2006-07-10 13:33 Z

Hi Michael. I was removing the Microbrewery cat which has been replaced by the Beer and breweries cat. It was a consensus decision [8] made formal by CFD on Apr 4 to recategorise the brewery cats by region. However, at the time the Beer and breweries cat changes took place - conducted largely by User:Syrcatbot, the Microbrewery cat was left behind, creating a double brewery cat. I have closed down the Microbrewery cat and removed the Microbrewery cat tag from the thirty or so breweries affected. Thanks for your concern. SilkTork 17:45, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. Difficult. The category is orthogonal to the regional categories because it represents a world-wide phenomenon, and is not supported by the claimed consensus, and so removal of articles from the category is wrong in that sense. However, it does seem a category too far, so I'm not that distressed. Noisy | Talk 19:01, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

But beer drinkers clearly differentiate microbreweries from mass-market producers, at least in the UK and North America. This was certainly a valuable category. And anyway, its deletion without consensus or proper posting at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion or category talk:Microbreweries, along with SilkTork's apparent dishonesty about the whole affair is quite wrong. —Michael Z. 2006-07-10 19:27 Z

Straw poll on deletion of Category:Microbreweries

Let's hold a quick poll just to gauge consensus on the deletion of Category:Microbreweries (anyone know exactly how many members it had before the recent unilateral mass-deletion?). —Michael Z. 2006-07-10 19:32 Z

• Looking back at my edits there were 56 breweries in the Microbrewery cat. The phrase "unilateral mass-deletion" is really cool, though I would prefer the slightly duller "fixing a categorisation error". SilkTork 20:28, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• • ATTENTION: Discussion is now at Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:Microbreweries— goethean ॐ 19:30, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Keep

1. self-nominate to keep —Michael Z. 2006-07-10 19:32 Z
2. --Brownings 19:34, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
3. Keep. Maybe the definition could be tightened up. --Stlemur 22:50, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment

I didn't consult others as I didn't see this as a contentious issue. The term "microbrewery" has no agreed worldwide definition, and usage has evolved into "craft brewery" - another vague term that has no widely agreed definition. Of the various possible understandings of the terms microbrewery and craft brewery are: size, attitude, use of adjuncts, came into use after the mid 1970s. In one way or another something like 98% of the world's breweries would qualify to be classed as a microbrewery or craft brewery. When dealing with the recategorising of the beer categories I agree, looking back, that explicit mention of microbreweries was not mentioned. My bad. There may be a possibility, however, that a category for "global breweries" could be created. Would anyone feel that would be worthwhile? SilkTork 20:01, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Please replace that category in all of the microbreweries, until this poll is complete. —Michael Z. 2006-07-10 21:11 Z

If you give me a useful and usable and non-contentious definition of "microbrewery" I will endeavor to apply that tag to those breweries to which it will apply. Though I would rather apply a tag such as "non-microbrewery" to the handful of breweries to which the term "microbrewery" would not apply. SilkTork 22:54, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that the cats should be reinstated until the poll is complete. (Perhaps we should say two weeks - until 24JUL06?) However, I think I am now coming off the fence, because it seems that microbreweries are a separate element within the 'craft brew' concept, judging by the second reference on the microbrewery article. 'Craft breweries' is certainly inappropriate, as that seems an exclusively American term. SilkTork: I think you need to start giving some references to support your position, and when you make major changes to articles. Craft beer has no references, and suffers for it. Noisy | Talk 09:48, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that the cats should be removed unless a consensus appears to do so. In the mean time SilkTork should restore his unilateral changes.. The usual duration for a vote is five days, but this is just a straw poll, which so far indicates that SilkTork acted against consensus. —Michael Z. 2006-07-11 15:15 Z

• I have taken a look at those breweries (57 as an exact count) which were in the Microbrewery cat. Most were tagged in June or Nov 2005. 13 were tagged this year. 3 were tagged after the decision to recategorise the breweries on April 4 2006: Mendocino, Terrapin and Church Brew. Definitions [9] of Microbrewery vary. "In common-sense terms, a microbrewery is a small craft brewery which seeks the support of informed beer consumers." / "A beer maker with limited capacity whose products are typically distributed within a restricted geographic region." / "By definition, a microbrewery was originally considered to be a brewery with a capacity of less than 3000 barrels (2500 hectoliters), but by the end of the 1980s this threshold increased to 15,000 barrels (12,500 hectoliters) as the demand for microbrewed beer doubled and then tripled." / "Breweries and brewpubs producing less than 1,500 barrels per year." / "a small brewery; consumption of the product is mainly elsewhere." More: "A small brewery, generally producing fewer than 10,000 barrels of beer and ale a year and frequently selling its products on the premises" [10] / "The great chicken or the egg question in the Brewing industry has always been: What defines a microbrewery? The Institute of Brewing Studies does a good job of bringing some sense to great mystery -- and it puts those at less than 15,000 barrels in the micro category and makes the designation of craft brewery very important. I feel any brewery producing less than 50,000 barrels per year could fall into this category." [11] / "There is also the whole issue of the definition of microbreweries. In the United States, a microbrewery is a brewery producing less than 1 million hectolitres per year. In Canada, a microbrewery is defined as a brewery producing 300,000 hectolitres of beer. Therefore, in the United States a brewery producing less than 1 million hectolitres is by definition a microbrewery and, as such, is entitled to a more preferential tax rate, 9 cents, whereas in Canada, the threshold and the definition are, to a certain extent, a disadvantage for microbreweries." [12] / "A microbrewery is a small brewery with a limited production capacity which, of necessity, produces labour intensive hand-crafted beers." [13] . I am not advocating that we delete the term microbrewery. Nor the article. But as a workable category it is problematic - especially with regard to breweries beyond the shores of North America. Given that the majority of breweries in the world are small breweries the default status of the majority of breweries we enter would be microbrewery. It would therefore be more useful to have a category for large or multi-site or global breweries. I have been considering this for a little while - especially as it appears to me inappropriate to have global beer companies with breweries in various countries listed as being the brewery of just the region in which the headquarters are situated - viz: Scottish & Newcastle, InBev, Carlsberg, and Anheuser-Busch. Beers from those companies are brewed and drunk across the planet. I propose we drop the cat Microbrewery, but add the cat Global brewery. An additional thought is also niggling me: given the current Wikipedia drive to clear away trivia (which I mainly support), the consensus of opinion on the definition of microbrewery (a small brewery with limited output), would make it a reasonable target for consideration for being non-notable. So far, luckily, breweries have not become the target for deletionists. It might be time, thinking about that, for members of the beer project to form some criteria for notability of a brewery. Hmmmm. I do waffle a bit sometimes. Anyway - I hope people can see what my intentions are here - and that, though there has been some disagreement of my actions, I have been working in good faith. SilkTork 10:34, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I haven't seen any criticism of the categorization of 57 brewery articles as microbreweries. Please restore the category you unilaterally removed from those articles, as there is no evidence of a consensus to remove them. —Michael Z. 2006-07-11 15:15 Z

• I have put forward the category for discussion. SilkTork 18:14, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

• • Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:Microbreweries — goethean ॐ 19:29, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Restored category:Microbreweries

I've tried to restore the category, based on SilkTork's contributions listing. It's now tagged to 57 articles, including microbrewery. Please keep an eye out for omissions or false positives.

Does anyone know if category:Brewpubs met the same fate? Many microbrewers have a brewpub, but there are also brewpubs which don't distribute, so there would be some overlap, but it seems to be a useful category too. —Michael Z. 2006-07-12 02:53 Z

Notability criteria discusion document

A discussion document has been opened up. Wikipedia:WikiProject Beer/Notability Criteria. Please put in your views either on the main page or on the attached talk page. If we want to list every brewery on the planet then I feel we should get some valid criteria behind us. SilkTork 16:43, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

If every town on the planet, every species on the planet, and every episode of M*A*S*H gets its own article, every brewery can have its own article. I propose that we work hierarchically:

• Breweries with enough information for their own article get their own article.
• Breweries with only enough notable information to be stubs go into a regional article, e.g. "Breweries in Manitoba".
• Breweries with only enough notable information to be a substub go into a list in that regional article.
• We expand the size of regions along natural lines until they include enough information to be decent articles, e.g., rather than "Breweries in the Northwest Territories" and "Breweries in the Yukon Territory" and "Breweries in Nunavut", "Breweries in northern Canada".
• Historic breweries of note with substantial information get their own articles, e.g. Ballantine's.
• Historic breweries with little information go into the regional articles as above.
• Historic breweries with no information except their existence are excluded, unless the region in the article is of particular historical significance; e.g. we'd list at least many closed breweries in Burton upon Trent on the assumption that they were notable just for having been there.

My reasoning for being so inclusionist is as follows: any given brewery produces a unique product; even the very smallest produces enough to serve at least several dozen, usually several hundred people; and since brewing is universally a regulated market, the category is intrinsically finite.

My reasoning for not being exclusionist, meanwhile, is that as far as I can tell there is no way to set any notability criteria that aren't entirely arbitary. The uniqueness of a beer is intrinsic; you brew the same recipe two miles down the road, it will taste different. --Stlemur 16:18, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I would go along with the above list - though I think we just need to pin down "enough notable information". It is possible to include enough trivia about a brewery to make a full article, so I don't think an editor's ability to include the names of all the staff, how many windows there are, and the age of the brewery cat, should qualify it as having "enough information for their own article". I also agree we should be looking for notability criteria that isn't "arbitary". SilkTork 18:14, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

So which articles include trivia like that? --Stlemur 00:27, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

• If you mean the reference to the brewery cat, I was - um - attempting to be amusing. I'm not very good at it, as you noticed! ;) SilkTork 10:32, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Mash ingredients

I've just started the article Mash ingredients, concerning all the different malts, grains, and adjuncts used in brewing. --Stlemur 14:44, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

How about calling it Mash (beer) or [Mashing]? — goethean ॐ 14:55, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Mashing deserves its own article, IMO, since there can be quite a lot of detail regarding enzymes, sparging, decoction versus infusion, etc. --Stlemur 14:57, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, I see your article now. The link was red before. — goethean ॐ 14:57, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a great article - very informative. The focus and detail are on homebrewing ingredients rather than commercial brewing, however. We do have sections on the ingredients on beer, and on the brewing process. The nearest would be mashing, adjuncts and malt. The malt article certainly needs developing - but I don't think the mash ingredients article should be merged with it - rather that some of the more general information on malts from the mash ingredients article coulod be moved over, and then added to with information on commercial brewing, while the intro to mash ingredients article could be rewritten to more clearly show that the detail is about homebrewing ingredients. Perhaps the article could be moved to "Mash ingredients (homebrewing)"? SilkTork 18:02, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Naming convention for brewery articles

Most brewery articles on breweries outside of North America have the name of the brewery followed by "Brewery" - see those in Category:Beer and breweries in Europe . There are still a few European breweries which have the "Brewery" part of the name untranslated, and a handful which have the "brewery" part of the name without a capital letter, but otherwise the convention is for "XXXX Brewery" to be used. In North America the convention is mainly for brewery articles to have the name of the brewery followed by "Brewing Company" as in Category:Beer and breweries in the United States, so the convention is "XXXXX Brewing Company". The question is, do we keep to this method, or do we have the same naming convention for all brewery articles - and if we do have the same naming convention, which should it be? SilkTork 10:29, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Is "xxxxxx Brewery" what they use the most in the UK? I'm not that familiar with the UK companies, so I really have no idea what we should do with those. As for the US companies, I'd say go with "xxxxxx Brewing Company" since 95% of the ones I've seen use that model. Of course regardless of the country, the name should be capitalized. --Brownings 12:32, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

• I'll call for a vote later, but at the moment can we assume from the lack of objections that people are comfortable with Brewing Company being used for North American breweries, and Brewery being used for all other breweries - and that this standard usage should apply to all breweries, regardless of the company name, to make it more user friendly. The full company name being used in the first paragraph to formally identify the brewery, but the simple name being used as the article title. SilkTork 13:34, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd say go with the official name of the brewery, or what it says on the label. If that can't be determined, then someone weird is up. --Stlemur 13:40, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

This is not really a good idea for the UK at least, because after the Government forced the separation of the brewing and licenced trades the naming of the businesses for the separated entities became very confused, and in some instances the licence for production of the brew itself became separated from both the brewery and the company that owned the inns formerly selling the product. Mega companies like Interbrew (now InBev) picked up famous brands, and production was moved away from the brewery with the related name. For instance, the Marston's Brewery now brews Bass, where the brand is owned by InBev and the producer under licence is Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries PLC! Noisy | Talk 23:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

• nod* Hence "what it says on the label".

I argue that brand continuity is the most important factor:

• A particular beer will, in the course of its production, go through accidental and deliberate reformulation, even at the same brewery; this is well-documented.
• A sufficiently-old brewery will go through both changes in ownership (including inheritance) as a natural part of its existence.

Some cases which come to mind which need resolving, and my feelings on them: Young's Brewery -- the beer brand is "Young's", the beer is made at "The Ram Brewery", the beer is going to be made at "Eagle Brewery". There is no "Young's Brewery" and I think it's nonsensical to title the article after something that doesn't exist. The trademark itself is simply "Young's" and that's what the article should be titled.

Brakspear vs. Brakspear (Refresh UK): The Brakspear brand and beers are continuous, production is at the original location now after a two-year hiatus. I think the two should be one article.

In addition to the Bass example, there's also the Guinness example: seperate articles for a notable brand and notable brewery. --Stlemur 11:38, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

We did consider dealing with beers under the brand owner, but it was felt that some notable beers should have their own article. Guinness is a notable beer. The Guinness brewery is also notable. Though there is some overlapping of information, it was felt - and I agree - that they should have separate articles. One is about the beer. The other is about the brewery. The brewery is dealt with under St. James's Gate Brewery - Guinness Brewery redirects to St. James'. It may be a case that it should be the other way round, but whichever way it goes then it would be appropriate to have the name Brewery attached. The company which owns the brewery and the Guinness brand name also has an article: Diageo. This is all clear, with no confusion. Beer. Brewery. Company. Three different articles covering three different, though related, topics. In many cases the one article will cover all three: beer, brewery and company. If the beer is notable, but the brewery is not, then the article will be about the beer, with the minor details of the brewery mentioned in the article. And the article will carry the name of the beer. If the brewery is notable, then some (or all!) of the beers the brewery makes will be mentioned in the brewery article. The brewery article will carry the name of the brewery and the identification Brewery or Brewing Company. The full accounting or business name of the brewery may be given in the first paragraph. SilkTork 13:43, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

This is useful: Wikipedia:Naming conventions. I think, in general, the idea is that the naming should be as helpful as possible to general readers. My understanding, also, is that if there is a consistent naming policy that would be helpful to everyone concerned - editors and readers. As there is already a fairly consistent trend for articles about breweries to go under the name Brewery or Brewing Company it would appear to make sense to continue with that. The serious question is should the consistency go one stage further and all the brewery articles appear as XXXX Brewery or XXXX Brewing Company - or should we continue as we are with North American brewery articles going under the title XXXX Brewing Company and all other countries going under the title XXXX Brewery. The issue of a brand series, rather than an individual brand name, is interesting. So: Brakspears beers, rather than any individual beer. And that being a separate article to the Brakspear brewery or the company (Refresh UK) which owns the brand series. I think that is a possibility. If we can have an article on a notable individual beer, then we can have an article on a notable brand series. I suppose the difficulty we have is that the term "brewery" (or "brewing company") can cover the company, the building, the brand name and the beers themselves. I suppose we muddle through, play it by ear, and take each case as it comes. I wouldn't object to any suggestion. Especially as I am gently easing down on my involvement in this project. Though I would feel that established practise and general Wiki guidance is considered before making major name changes. SilkTork 14:09, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Restaurants with Breweries

What is everyone's feeling on restaurant that brew their own beer? Should we create articles on them and if so, should they fall under the beer project? I have couple in my local area that have some great brews, but even though they are called "xxxxxx Brewing Company" their business is primarily focused on the restaurant side since they have no plans to sell their beers outside of their restaurant. Any thoughts? --Brownings 12:14, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

• I think this perhaps falls under Wikipedia:WikiProject Beer/Notability Criteria. As you point out, a number of such places are not really notable or interesting. But some may have something about them that could be worth an article. The current proposal is to have minor breweries, such as these brewpub-restaurants, included in a regional beer article. Votes are taking place now at [14] SilkTork 13:22, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Beers not suitable for vegans and vegetarians

What is everybodies thoughts on labelling each beer - possibly in an info box - with whether it is suitable for vegans and vegetarians? Many beers use isinglass for clarification which is made from fish. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.3.70.68 (talk • contribs) 09:46, 18 July 2006 (UTC).

I oppose adding this to the infobox, for I do not think that this is an issue for the vast majority of beer enthusiasts. However, I have no problem with the idea of mentioning the use of isinglass within the body of the article and/or identifying vegitarian friendly beers (also within the body of the article). --(Mingus ah um 09:35, 18 July 2006 (UTC))

I agree with not changing the current beerbox. That poor beerbox is so horrible and needs updating that its sad, better just to let it die a slow death. However, making a button or a tag that IDs a vegan/vegetrian beer in the body would be an awsome idea. Do any the articles on food, vegans, or vegetarians already have a "Veg-Friendly" product tag? 62.3.70.68 21:00, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be interesting to mention this in the articles somewhere. I agree that the beerbox isn't that great, but it would be good to have it in some sort of standard format. Also, there is the problem of reliable sources. While a few breweries do state on their website or on the bottle / can whether they are vegan / vegetarian the vast majority don't. You could contact the brewery directly, but that's becoming original research. There are various "is it vegan?" lists around, but they can be unreliable, out of date and contradictory. Also note that for global brands, they may be vegan in some countries but not others. And some beers use in isinglass for the draught versions, but not for bottles / cans etc. But still, I think its a good idea to add this to articles somehow, for those where you have reliable information for veg*n or not. --Vclaw 13:05, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm going over to the article on Vegetarianism to ask if they have some type of logo. From what I can see on the article, there isn't one (other than one from India), but perhaps they can help us out with some suggestions. --Brownings 15:21, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

the vegetarian logo is normally a green V shaped like two leaf shoots from a flower - often with an actual leaf on the second upright... http://www.ivu.org/news/3-98/vegsoc.gif 62.3.70.68 21:00, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks 62.3.70.68. Should we run with this logo on brewery/beer pages? The logo is ok, but could be used to put into some type of template/button, kind of like the interest buttons on everyone's personal pages. Speaking of which, is there an interest button for vegetarians/vegans, maybe we could use that. --Brownings 21:29, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Found the Vegetarian user box, see below. Not bad, maybe we can tweak it for use on products. --Brownings 21:34, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

{{User:Xoloz/UBX/User Vegetarian}}

[help] I have added comments about using isinglass to Foster's Lager and Stella Artois that keep getting repeatedly deleted by I suspect the same user. How can this be prevented without discussion? Dr Wong 22:28, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Without discussion? Just be bold. Fight the good fight, and, when it starts to piss you off... Try discussion. --(Mingus ah um 23:17, 18 July 2006 (UTC))

• The information that beer often contains isinglass is contained in the main Beer article under Beer#Clarifying_agent. There is much information that can be repeated in individual beer articles, such as brewing methods, etc. How much of this information should be repeated on every beer page is open for debate. I think I prefer the idea that a positive statement that a beer is considered suitable for vegans rather than a negative statement on virtually all beer articles that the beer is not suitable for vegans, and for those suffering from gluten intolerance, and that the beer contains alcohol so care must be taken if driving, etc. However, as contents and brewing methods may vary from country to country, or when a brewery switches production method, it may be difficult to say with the sort of certainty that a tag brings that a beer really is suitable for vegans. Perhaps an article, along the lines of the Gluten free beer article, could be written on Vegan beer. SilkTork 13:17, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

The infobox template in this section is putting this page into a category nonsensically. I've nowikied it. --Stlemur 10:36, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Edits by User:SilkTork

Burton upon Trent brewing has without warning been turned into a redirect to English beer.

Look, I don't like to be confrontational and I don't like drama. But the fact is, a lot of the user's edits, while undeniably enthusiastic, seem to be made without even a clear understanding of the changes involved; this would be better if the user ever discussed major changes beforehand, but despite numerous attempts, he never does; furthermore, when I and other people have tried to start discussions about the changes afterward, he seems to either not understand or entirely misconstrue what it is we're saying. And based on his talk page, this is something that's been going on for the past six months.

Seriously, I'm beginning to worry if we're dealing with a very involved troll. --Stlemur 14:17, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Stlemur, please see WP:AGF and WP:NPA. I have reverted the edit in question. It is improper to redirect a page without getting consensus on the talk page. — goethean ॐ 15:42, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I've been assuming good faith for a while and I'm reaching a limit...I don't think I'm making a personal attack in saying that there seems to be a systemic and long-term incompatibility between SilkTork's edits and the consensus of this project or this community. --Stlemur 15:54, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I would have reversed the edits as well, as I did the first time he tried them. I do think that he's acting with good faith, but he's just over-zealous and needs to take a chill-pill and realise that we don't have to rush at things like a bull at a gate. It should tell him something when on this page there are three discussions and reversions of things that he has attempted to do. He is in no way a troll, though. I think you need to calm down as well. Noisy | Talk 18:42, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

• Hi all. I am aware that some of my edits have caused people concern. I have recently received a number of hot messages. I do not wish to work in a climate of hostility. I have knowledge and awareness of beer which I can share on the Wiki project, but if I am to be attacked for my participation it causes me some discomfort and pleasure in the activity fades. I'd like to work this through with you guys. I have been here for a few months now and done a lot of beer edits. I would consider that my work stands for itself. I would have thought my knowledge stands for itself. When I have felt that something I was about to do would be contentious I have approached and discussed it with members of the project and/or raised the matter on this forum. When it looked to me that the edit was rather obvious I have used my judgement. It is my judgement that is being brought into question here. The recent incident over Burton upon Trent brewing is worth looking at. The article was created on July 17th from a cut and paste of material in Burton upon Trent. The editor did not seek consent from anyone to do such a thing, and nor should such consent need to be sought. I became aware of the article and saw that it was standing alone, when it would serve better in the main article on English beer. I made the redirect and informed the editor what I had done, and invited that person to join this project: User talk:Minardi. Nothing hidden, secret or underhand. My judgement was (and still is) that I did not need to ask permission to move the material as the move was rather obvious. The original move had been the questionable one. If people seriously feel that my judgement cannot be trusted, and that they will bring procedural rules against me in order to question my judgement, then I will work in other areas of Wiki. SilkTork 19:29, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

You are under a few misconceptions. It is not proper to turn any article into a redirect without discussion on the talk page or the insertion of a merge template onto the page for a few days (or, preferably, longer). Administrators don't even do this, let alone editors. This is not wikilawyering, these are the procedures that all rule-abiding editors follow in all cases. — goethean ॐ 19:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

• I am under no such "misconconception". Quote:

How to merge pages.

Merging is something any editor can do, and if you are sure that something should be merged, you can be bold and do so. If the merge is controversial however, you may find your merge reverted, and as with all other edits, edit wars should be avoided.

If you are uncertain of the merger's appropriateness, you should propose it on the affected pages. After sufficient time has elapsed to generate consensus or silence (at least 5 days), you may perform the merger or request that someone else do so.

This is from Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages which is a "guideline" - not even a rule.

This is a petty quibble. Selecting guidelines to throw at me because people either don't like what I'm doing, or my attitude, or some other problem. The issue is, do people trust my judgement on pettifogging trivial details, or do I have to ask permission to remove a full stop? I have done nothing bad here. Nothing to justify this appalling kangaroo court. I am at this moment quite hurt and angry. And inventing things that are "proper" when it suits you is not doing either your argument or my feeling of unjust victimisation any good. SilkTork 21:01, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the correction and the quotation from the merge policy page. I disagree with the policy. I think that one should warn others before merging pages, and I have been corrected on that before. — goethean ॐ 21:59, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

• So are we getting to the point where people are going to give me either an explanation for why they are unhappy with my edits, or an apology and an agreement to stop hassling me over making perfectly sensible and legitimate edits? I am struggling to think why people would be unhappy with what I have done. Is it because I am doing too much? I am going too quickly? People don't understand why I am doing things and getting a bit lost and looking for more clarity and explanation? People would like to help, but are unsure what to do - and then get frustrated when they do something and I take it over and/or change it? It's time to be honest here, and not to hide behind petty bureaucratic procedures that can be twisted any which way. I may be grumpy and snappy at the moment, but given the recent spate of hostile comments directed toward me, I think you can understand why. Normally I am actually an easy going and friendly person who is really quite happy to talk. Talk to me, lets share, and lets see if we can get this problem sorted. I'm willing to do what it takes to make the beer information on Wiki as brilliant as possible. I love doing that. But I can't work in this hostile atmosphere. It's tying my stomach in knots. Really. Tell me what it is about my behaviour or my attitude that is frustrating you. You can e-mail me if you want to talk in private. SilkTork 00:06, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

• For what it is worth, the editor who created the Burton upon Trent brewing article has sent me a message to say he agrees that the article should be a redirect. And thanks to the two editors who have emailed me messages of support - though I would particularly like to hear from those who object to my editing so we can get to the reason for their frustration and prevent it from happening in future. SilkTork 09:19, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

• I am currently going through all my past conflicts and asking people to comment. I am becoming aware that my editing style might have been aggressive and that I may have been arrogant with people. I wish to apologise to anyone to whom I may have been rude in the past, and to resolve to adopt a more consensual editing style in future. The general confrontational nature of internet communication and Wiki in particular led me to believe that the hot comments I was getting were the result of other people's impatience rather than my own rudeness. I had a rough entry to Wiki, with little guidance. A miserable excuse I know, but I need something to hide behind for the sake of my own self esteem. SilkTork 20:26, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Collaboration

Hefeweizen seems ripe for a collaboration-of-the-month: basic structure good, wants pictures, wants fleshing out. How's about it? --22:19, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Project mug?

I'm not sure if any other projects have made something beyond a user box but I put this idea forth for discussion. Find a place online that can make custom mugs:

Wikipedia's WikiProject Beer

We enjoy wikiing best with a beer in hand

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Beer

Start of a design that we could put on a clear mug or something. This is kind of an off the cuff idea. Heck maybe custom coasters to boot! Any interest? Depending on the price and quality I might splurge for a dozen myself. Cburnett 21:14, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Cold beer? How disgusting. I'd much rather be able to taste my beer. Looks as if someone has left some detergent in the bottom of the tankard, as well.  :-) Noisy | Talk 21:54, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Just "beer" then... Cburnett 22:13, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Not a single soul, eh? I figured of all projects this would be the one that would go for something like this. Oh well. I'd appreciate a note on my talk page if this does ever pick up though. :) Cburnett 04:15, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Practical test of notability

There's a brewery article up for deletion, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rhodell Brewery. This one is probably only significant if we consider all commercial breweries significant. Feel free to express opinons there. Friday (talk) 05:09, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

see also Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Baggårdsbryggeriet, which resulted in a deletion. However the article in question was just a one-lines stub. It does appear that a significant number of editors would be inclined to just use WP:CORP for breweries, which probably means many smaller ones would be subject to deletion. Friday (talk) 17:50, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Beer rating system (X, XX, or XXX)

Where did the old X rating system start at? Was it England? Anyone know exactly on what the brewer/beer was being rated on? What determined who would get a single X, and who would get the XXX? Three Xs is the highest you could get right? --Brownings 15:38, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

That was to do with the strength of the beer. X being weaker than XXXX. K being weaker than X. And A signifying a pale colour. SilkTork 00:13, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmmmm, interesting. Thanks for the info. Is there anywhere the guidelines are laid out? I tried looking up XXX on Wikipedia, but as you can guess that got me off into an entirely diffrent subject. --Brownings 02:27, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

You can find more explanation of the 19th century British beer classifications here:

http://www.europeanbeerguide.net/beerale.htm#19c Patto1ro 17:34, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

BJCP and beer?

I have been enjoying beer (European) for almost 40 years. I am a member of Zythos (the Belgian beer consumers union). But, until I came to Wikipedia, I had never heard of the "Beer Judge Certification Program." Perhaps in the States this is a huge thing, but in Europe, it is unknown.

The beer pages here, as I understand it, are universal: not only American or European. Beer styles, for example, are universal. Nevertheless, in many articles, I see things like this: "BJCP are the world experts in determining the style of a beer." There is no citation or reference given, just a simple statement of "fact."

On the Beer Styles page, I removed references in the article to the BJCP because, whether they are influential in the US or not, beer styles, as discussed in that article, are independent of a single organisation. But user:BalfourCentre removed my edits and wrote: "BJCP are the main determiners of what is a beer style. They have decided that most beer styles fall into either:..."

Why, for example, is this organisation listed as a style of beer?! ([15]

I cannot speak to beer in Asia, South America, the Middle East or other areas of the world, but in Europe, I can assure you that the BJCP plays no role whatever in determining or defining beer styles.

What I see as the main problem here is that there are people who seem determined to see that the BJCP is cited in a most positive light in any article having to do with beer.

In the article about American beer, perhaps this organisation has a place, but outside of articles specifically dealing with American beer, citing them seems more promotion than clarification.

If I am wrong about any of this, please be kind enough to cite disinterested third parties who provide evidence to the contrary. Mikebe 14:44, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, the BJCP are only barely active outside the US. --Stlemur 13:38, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I think you are absolutely correct. However, the point is more that their only activity seems to be judging at American beer brewing contests, which does not necessarily make them experts in beer styles nor does it make their guidelines of interest to consumers of commercial beer. Mikebe 17:04, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I've had a go at cleaning it up a bit. I'm not seeing your edits in the history, though. --Stlemur 14:03, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

If you look at the beer styles page, you should see plenty of my edits. I would like to also remove them from the Category:Beer Styles, but I haven't figured out how. Shandy also needs to be removed as it is not a beer style, but a drink style.Mikebe 17:04, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Paul Kalmanovitz Article

Coemgenus has been gracious enough to start an article on Paul Kalmanovitz. Everyone feel free to drop by and add your two cents. Thanks Coemgenus. --Brownings 19:53, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Improvements needed

As I mentioned in another message, Category:Beer Styles needs to have the BJCP and Shandy links removed. I have tried to remove them, but neither appears when I "edit page". I'd be happy to do this myself if someone tells me how.

Also, on the Belgian beer page there is a photo of "Pierlala beer". As far as I know: 1. this beer is no longer produced, 2. it is not a "real" beer, but a "label" beer (an exact copy of another beer but with a different name) and 3. it was never really available (if the information I have is correct, it was available one time for a town or organisation celebration and never sold in shops or cafes).

I know someone who takes many pictures like this one, shall I ask if he would contribute one or does someone else have a better source? Mikebe 13:02, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Articles that appear in a category (and thus on a "Category:" page) are there through their Category tag in the article itself, and not in the text of the "Category:" page, so to add or remove anything you just have to edit the article that you'd like to change itself, rather than the cat. page. I don't have any comment on the validity of the BJCP/Shandy links themselves, that's up to you.

Also, I don't have a better source for the photo. It would be nice to have your acquaintance's picture! --Daniel11 00:08, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Link suggestion

Is this link appropriate for the Geuze page (link-owner)? http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/pvosta/pcrbier1.htm

Notice of vote on deletion of beer-drinkers category

Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_September_10#Wikipedians_by_diet

Please have a look and vote if you're interested in keeping the category for wikipedians who drink beer. This is tied to people who use the template indicating that they drink beer. Thanks! --Daniel11 17:36, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Either way I will keep the template!John Doe or Jane Doe 12:01, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Liquor?

I'm proposing a sister project doing the same things for liquors, that this project and wikiproject wine do for beer and wine... I'm a bit new to Wikipedia, this and wine are the only two projects I have joined so far... I would be quite happy to work on all three as drinking (when not working) is a passion of mine.

It'd come off of Wikipedia:WikiProject_Food_and_Drink as a child project; maybe we should create an "alcoholic drinks" child project of Food and Drink, which would be parent to Beer, Wine, and Liquor? --Stlemur 10:42, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

• Great idea, we could then also have a liquor and spirits child to "alcoholic beverages" so the parent project would be "alcoholic beverages" and it's child projects would be "Beer", "Wine" and "Spirits and Liquors" I have never started a "project" on wiki who would I confer to or can I pass the honor on to one of you more experianced wikians?John Doe or Jane Doe 12:00, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 20:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Maybe it would be a good time to set up some stuff like a dedicated collaboration page, instead of the section we have on the main page, and a place for peer review and assessment..... --Daniel11 14:25, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

• I'll set one up. SilkTork 00:43, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Beer and brewery infoboxes, Category:WikiProject Beer templates

Hi there. I have gone ahead and made unified versions of the "Brewbox" and "Beerbox", namely {{Infobox Brewery}} and {{Infobox Beer}}. These two templates conditionally call the appropriate "brewbox_*" and "beerbox_*" templates using ParserFunctions. As an example, I have converted two brewery articles to use {{Infobox Brewery}} (Anderson Valley Brewing Company and Stone Brewing Company) and one beer article to use {{Infobox Beer}} (Budweiser (Anheuser-Busch)). The templates have pretty good documentation (format cribbed from {{Infobox Beverage}}), but it isn't as detailed as How to use the brewboxes and How to use the beerboxes. I didn't update those articles to add examples of the new templates, since I wasn't sure whether they really should go there or on Template talk:Infobox Brewery and Template talk:Infobox Beer.

In addition to these changes, I also created Category:WikiProject Beer templates and moved all of the templates from Category:WikiProject Beer into that category. This allows the templates to be in a category that descends from Category:Wikipedia templates.

If the project wants to adopt the unified templates, we may want to consider inlining the individual pieces of the templates. However, the conditional table stuff is tricky to get right regardless of how it is done. Inlining would mean extensive use of the {{!}} template. Mike Dillon 22:15, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I added some docs to the template talk pages. I'm going to leave the "How to" articles alone for now, but we might want to update them and link to them from the respective template talk pages to show worked out examples that shouldn't be done with trademarked logos. Mike Dillon 22:31, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Do we want to add ABV information to the brewboxes? I would. --Stlemur 14:07, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Handled mugs

Whatever happened to good old fashioned handled mugs? A wag recently informed me they'd been taken off production. The absence of any mention at all of the British style (none of these American impersonations) makes me wonder if they ever existed... Also known as pineapple glasses, or hand grenade mugs, if that sparks any memories. Does anyone know their proper name, or if there is an article on them anywhere...? You must know what I mean, the tings that old men ask for and are hanging up behind all good locals...

This type of mug is discussed briefly at Pint glass#Common shapes. Mike Dillon 20:19, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I know what you're talking about. I remember seeing, and visiting, quite a few bars that kept mugs hanging behind the bar for frequent customers. Honestly though, it's been years since I've seen that done. Seems that Pint glasses are all the rage these days in both regular use at the bars and for collecting. I mean, when was the last time you saw a handled mug with your favorite local brewery's logo on it? Handled mugs did, and still do, exist, it's just they're not as popular as the Pint glass so that's why no one is bothering to make them. --Brownings 04:02, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Category:WikiProject Beer participants

I just created Category:WikiProject Beer participants under Category:WikiProject Beer. Feel free to add yourself. Mike Dillon 00:45, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Beer Judge Certification numbers

Hi, what do we think about a user removing the Beer Judge Certification numbers from he beer style templates? [16] [17] This user's other edits are also questionable. — goethean ॐ 16:35, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Please take a look at the discussion directly below on the question of using home-brewing competition rules in a general interest encyclopedia. The user who removed them was perfectly correct and we need to comb through all the beer pages on Wikipedia to remove these irrelevant "descriptions". Mikebe 11:16, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Isn't Wikipedia supposed to be an encyclopedia?

From the content of many of the beer pages here, no, it is not an encyclopedia, rather it is a playground for American home-brewers and their fans to publicise their organisation (BJCP) and its sadly misguided efforts.

Of course, there is a place for home-brewing in an encyclopedia, but not woven into the factual information that is the very core of an encyclopedia.

Well, how about some example? Take a look at the page about Märzen. Much of the information there is simply wrong -- factually incorrect. But, beyond that, look at the "Style Notes." First of all, who is this information for? The answer is clearly home-brewers. Why would a tourist going to Germany seeking more information about the beers he might find there, for example, need to know about "original gravity" or "Color SRM"? Secondly, this technical information comes from the "American Brewers Association." Yes, so, if I want to know about American beers, logically then, I should consult the German Brewers Assocation?

How about another example: Belgian_Dark. This is a "style" made up by the BJCP (the link to BJCP is on the page). Despite the name, it does not exist in Belgium. But, what is worse is the two example given for this phony style: the first is not Belgian, but Canadian and the second, a well-known Trappist beer, is not a specific beer, but a bottle size!

On a side note: in addition to spreading this inaccurate information, some of these users are resistant to improvement and actually quite rude. The Märzen page I note above is apparently the personal domain of User:Afitting. When another user, User:Pattro, who is in real life Ron Pattinson, a well-known authority on European beer, tried to correct some of the many errors on the page, both User:Afitting and, coincidentally, User:Goethean removed the corrections and accused User:Pattro of having "ulterior motives"!! As it turns out, User:Afitting is the former owner of a brewpub that makes this kind of beer. And he includes in the article a link to a Wikipedia page for his own brewpub which he made himself. This is within Wikipedia Guidelines? No!

There has also been some discussion of including information about breweries [18]. This discussion is apparently dead and, in the meantime, anyone who wants to make a page about their brewpub is apparently free to make it.

Once again: is this the role of an encyclopedia? User:Goethean(see comments directly above) posted this opinion on the talk page: "Does my regional microbrew newspaper count? I say yes. This, of course, is a very low standard for inclusion which means that almost all breweries above the homebrew level can be included. — goethean ॐ 17:13, 12 July 2006 (UTC)"

Has no one here heard of Ratebeer or Beeradvocate, which already includes vast amounts of data on breweries and brewpubs? Can anyone imagine looking in a traditional encyclopedia (Encyclopedia Britannica, for example) to find the name and address of the closest brewpub?

There is, perhaps in connection with the American homebrewers, a definite bias toward things American here. On one history page, for example, a user wrote: "Americanized spelling; I believe this a US page?" Someone also changed the spellings on the American beer page with the comment: "american spellings for an american topic". So, should article about French wine be written in French? As a non-American myself, I cannot understand why, on so many pages about European beers, there is a comment about American versions of this beer. So, if the Danes, for example, should make a copy of a German beer, where is their comment? Example? How about here Beer? Why is it written "The greatest diversity of flavors and types of beer can be found in Belgium, as is portrayed by its Belgian beer and lambic and other beer styles. American brewers also produce many different styles of beer..." There is then a list which consists of: "Brown Ale, Amber ale, Blonde Ale, Cream Ale and Red Ale" This is an example of American beer diversity? Germany has far greater diversity than that!

I strongly recommend that all beer contributers look at the Wine page here. Where are the lists of wineries? Where are the home-wine-making guides? Where are the technical/cryptic descriptions of style?

Until the influence of American-based home brewers is removed from these pages, I cannot see how these pages deserve to meet Wikipedia Guidelines. Mikebe 11:12, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

There is, in general, no equivalent appelation control system for beer as there is for wine. Meanwhile, the brewer has much greater control over the final product than the winemaker. Therefore, when talking about a style, we can either make reference to some unofficial but standard convention -- BJCP or CAMRA guidelines -- or talk in hazy generalities. The BJCP's guidelines are the more useful, as CAMRA's are stated almost entirely in terms of ABV; I've seen the CAMRA system break down myself as strong golden ales end up classified as "barleywines", for example, simply by exceeding CAMRA's ABV cap.

The CAMRA guidelines are quite different from the BJCP's and are deliberately left quite vague (no SRM's or IBU's). They have far fewer different styles, too and only describe British types. This is CAMRA's list of styles:

• Mild
• Bitter
• Golden Ales
• Pale Ale or IPA
• Porter and Stout
• Barley wine
• Old Ale
• Scottish beers
• Light Bitters

http://www.camra.org.uk/page.aspx?o=180657

I think for British beers, CAMRA are an authority. The BJCP is, with all respect, NOT an an authority on British beers. Nor German (there it's the Deutscher Brauer Bund) nor Belgian (Zythos). Surely it's logical that organisations in the country being described would be a greater authority than an American homebrewer's organisation?

The Deutscher Brauer Bund site describes German beer styles much in the same way as CAMRA does British ones, the only technical details being ABV and gravity:

http://www.brauer-bund.de//bierfans/sorten/inhalt.htm

I think these are a far more valid reference than the BJCP's style guide. Patto1ro 07:43, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I also note that a number of articles on breweries do link to BeerAdvocate and Ratebeer; the fact is, though, that in general the Wikipedia article is more complete than those websites' entries in terms of both beer lists and brewing history. --Stlemur 16:21, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

In that case, I heartily suggest that you make a home-brewers site. This is an encyclopedia, not a home brewing guide. Your comments are totally irrelevant to Wikipedia, the encyclopedia. If I want more information about a beer, for example, I do not look for style information, I look for taste information. Is that strange? No, not at all. It is only strange in the eyes of the home-brewers who seem to make up a sizeable part of the Wikipedia beer contributors. Please get over your idea that Wikipedia is a home-brewing guide and understand that it is a general interest encyclopedia where non-brewers can come to learn more about beer.

If you are travelling to my city and would like to acquaint yourself of the breweries or brewpubs here, which would you consult: a general-interest encyclopedia or beer travel guide? Why should Wikipedia be any different? Can you cite any other area of Wikipedia that provides the local level of detail that has been suggested for brewpubs and breweries? Mikebe 17:02, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I think that's what Stlemur is trying to say Mikebe. His post is a little long and seems to drift onto a side note, but I think basically he's saying the same thing that you are: Wiki is an encyclopedia, not a listing for a level of information that only home brewers would find interesting. Everyone on here would probably agree that many of the beer listings (styles especially) lean toward an Americanization of the subject, rather than an overall examination/explanation that is factual and in English. When it comes to beer, and beer related areas, Wiki is a long way from perfect. We're getting there though, just really, really, really slowly. --Brownings 18:17, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, maybe I did drift a bit :) Honestly, I don't think any one person can make the authoritative statement "this is not relevant or of interest to anyone"; this is something which has to be established by consensus, just like everything else on Wikipedia. The fact that CAMRA, which is neither American nor a homebrewing association, provides some style guidelines is evidence that the idea is relevant to non-homebrewers and non-Americans, clearly, so I don't understand the assertion that there is some conspiracy of American homebrewers to overinform people to the detriment of this encyclopedia.

As for the idea of "style information" versus "taste information", I really don't see the big distinction there either. Reporting color via Standard Reference Method is simply a standard, objective, consistent way of saying what the beer looks like; reporting gravity, composition, etc. are objective statements on expected flavor. Some statement beyond that ("many detect overtones of chocolate or coffee...") enters into the realm of the subjective and unverifiable, and that is what goes on BeerAdvocate. --Stlemur 21:37, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

The Standard Reference Method is not used to measure colour in Europe. Brewers use EBC. SRM's mean ansolutely nothing to anyone but American homebrewers. Patto1ro 07:30, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I am glad that we seem to be creeping toward some mutual understanding. Thank you, Brownings, for your helpful comments. Stlemur, I am happy to hear that we are not as far apart as I first thought.

As we all know, Wikipedia is a general interest encyclopedia, and not Ratebeer or Beeradvocate. Therefore, what these two site do, does not seem relevant to me for what Wikipedia should do. Having said that, I hope we all agree that it would be useful to give readers some idea of what to expect when they first try a certain type of beer.

In the part of the world where I live (the Netherlands), this is done via tasting notes, not style guides. Zythos (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zythos), the very active Belgian beer consumers union (of which I am a member), has zero style guides, however, my local chapter publishes a booklet with tasting notes on various beers. I am also familiar with PINT (the Dutch beer consumers union) and they also use tasting notes rather than style guidelines.

My point is simply that tasting notes are much more accessible to the majority of readers than style guidelines. As I pointed out in my original message, there seem to be quite a few contributors here who are "in over their heads." That is, they are writing about beers about which they seem to know very little. Consider this page as an example: Cream_ale -- and this is supposedly an American style! Since contributors to Wikipedia are assumed to possess knowledge about the areas they write about, why not simply write our own tasting notes? Why do so many of the beer types need to be described by external organisations?

On a final note: I firmly believe something needs to be done about the proliferation of "vanity" pages of breweries and brewpubs and that we need a more realistic policy for listings. I hope we can find common ground here as quickly as we seem to be doing on the style/taste issue. Mikebe 06:53, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I have found an example of a page here that demonstrates very well my point that taste is more accessible than style guides. That page is Pilsener. If you scroll to "Modern pilseners" and read the second paragraph (begins "A modern pilsener has..."), you will see what I think is perfectly adequate for the majority of users here. Of course the home brewers will want more technical detail, but why look in a dictionary for a phone number? Mikebe 11:12, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Victory Brewing Company

The page for Victory Brewing Company is clearly written by someone from the company and is not objective. It also has ad text for Hopdevil that is not labeled. The page reads weird. Can someone fix this? Maxwahrhaftig 23:18, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I did a revamp to the page. Take a look and see what you think. I tried to get rid of the advertisment speak and put the article into plain English. I also redid the company logo and corrected the beers, many of the beers that were listed haven't been produced by Victory in years. The beers I have up there now are what's listed on Victory's official site. There were three additional beers that are avalible only in the resturant and only on tap. I didn't list these, but if anyone thinks they should be added, please feel free to do so. Max, if you think my rework is good enough, please take off the standards banner. I would have taken it off, but I'd rather give another person the chance to object. Oh, and that reminds me. I need help on all the beer styles for the beerbox. I got a few, but most I didn't know so I just put a "?" in for their style. If anyone would like to research the beers and add the style in, please feel free. --Brownings 05:09, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

"Wikipedia is not a directory"

Here is where this is from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NOT#DIR

This goes directly to the point I made above, that the indiscriminate creation of brewery and brewpub pages is not in keeping with Wikipedia policies.

I would propose that breweries or brewpubs that have contributed something substantial to either beer or brewing be included and the rest removed. By "contributing something substantial", I most definitely do NOT mean winning a medal at the Great American Beer Festival or at some other festival.

This should cut down on the work that needs to be done so we can concentrate on producing and improving the other beer pages.

Beer Wiki

Hey I am going to try to start the Beer Wiki back up again. It went defunct and Wikia kept it on the servers, and me and this other person have started it back. I'm a Bureaucrat and I can make admins to get the process rolling along. We can make the Beer Wiki a directory and do whatever we really want to. I've talked with community support and they are glad I'm getting this going again.I'm Severian and it'd be great it some of you guys came over and helped out.--Sevvvy 05:55, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Yep - I think all people (except Mikebe, Pattro and SilkTork) should immediately go to Beer Wiki. 82.45.89.79 20:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Stablepedia

Beginning cross-post.

See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team#Stablepedia. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 00:20, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.

Highly recommended interview

Basic Brewing Radio has a very interesting interview of Eric Salazar and Peter Bouckaert on La Folie beer from New Belgium Brewery here: http://img669.libsyn.com/img669/d5901ec47c251072e72781491e83db94/456c4e2a/7924/4011/bbr10-19-06.mp3

I especially recommend all contributors listen to the beginning of Peter Bouckaert (about 10 minutes into the show). Mikebe 20:41, 28 November 2006 (UTC)