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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by SilkTork (talk | contribs) at 18:14, 16 July 2006 (→Notability criteria discusion document). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.


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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]


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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

List of beers we don't have articles on

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


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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Agreed. --Stlemur 09:36, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds reasonable. – ClockworkSoul 13:04, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
Good thinking -- I fourth. --Daniel11 02:56, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Nice idea... I support it, but maybe it'd be better to put as "Beer in <country>" --Angelo 15:47, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
Agreed -- Gordo 16:01, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, sorry I don't have time to help implement this change. —Sean κ. + 16:15, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This (the actual renaming) sounds like the perfect job for a bot, though. --Kaleissin 17:24, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like a good idea. Gentgeen 16:21, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Gotta admit, sounds like a great idea. Radagast83 16:29, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good, go ahead. Gryffindor 18:07, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I like it too. dewet|™ 18:15, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Add me to the list of affirmatives. —CKA3KA (Skazka) 18:48, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Got my vote. --Pypex 20:29, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Agree, feydey 21:16, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Fifteenthed :)  ALKIVAR™ 21:26, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
Sounds like it's worth discussing. Jordanmills 01:14, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]


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)[reply]

"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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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


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)[reply]
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:
bobblewik 00:30, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

Hey everybody

Wikipedia:WikiProject Cocktails

Just started!

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

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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]

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. Their for 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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]


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


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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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


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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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))[reply]
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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]


  • 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)[reply]

[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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Keep

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

Delete


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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

How about calling it Mash (beer) or [Mashing]? — goethean ॐ 14:55, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
OK, I see your article now. The link was red before. — goethean ॐ 14:57, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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