Talk:Beer in the United States/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Farrtj (talk · contribs) 00:08, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I'm active on WikiProject Beer. It's nice to see that other people are getting involved. I will review this article over the coming days and try to help where I can.Farrtj (talk) 00:08, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Intro

hotlink "barrel" so that we know if you mean US or UK barrels.

Done

Post-Prohibition

"This wartime growth allowed the large breweries such as Anheuser-Busch to dominate the American market for over fifty years. During this period they produced beers more noted for their uniformity than for any particular flavor."

Citation needed.

"Beers such as those made by Anheuser-Busch and Coors Brewing Company followed a restricted pilsner style, with large-scale industrial processes and the use of low-cost ingredients like corn or ingredients such as rice that provided starch for alcohol production while contributing minimal flavor to the finished product."

Again, this assertion needs proof.

"The dominance of the so-called "macrobrew" led to an international stereotype of "American beer" as poor in quality and flavor."

When? By who? Citation needed.

Agree; these assertions may need to be rewritten. Most of it is true by common perception, but still at least borderline POV. I'll reread Jackson et al to see what I can come up with.

Emergence of craft beer

"Bottle conditioned" is a technical term, and definitely needs to be hotlinked. Maybe it's a cultural difference, but in the UK we don't tend to hyphenate the term.

Done; the title of the article is not hyphened, but the term is throughout the article, so not sure which way to go there.

Avoid use of the term "remarkable" as per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch

Removed

References

Sometimes names for newspaper pieces are formatted with the last name first and sometimes with the forename first. Please ensure that reference formatting is consistent.

I will comb through the cites to make them more consistent.

Omissions

• You don't mention anything about what inspired the early craft brewers. With no tradition of their own to look to, they looked to British and Belgian examples. Michael Jackson (the British beer writer) and Samuel Smith ales were influential.

Some are there in their respective articles (New Albion, Anchor, Sierra Nevada, etc). I will pull info from there, as well as other sources.

• Maybe something on the popularity of imports in the United States. Heineken has long been a major brand in the country, but since when? I know that Guinness, Bass and Newcastle Brown Ale are popular in parts of the country.

Agree. The terms "Domestic" and "Imports" pretty much defined all accessible options in the U.S. until very recently.

Additional comments: It's quite clear which side of the fence you sit on, but try to ensure that the article doesn't give the impression that macrobrewer = evil craft brewer = saint.

Good point. While I made some major inroads into the article, much of what was written regarding "flavorless American beer" was there already, and the section on craft brewing is an almost completely new creation from a new editor who has made the article more complete. I'll try to balance it out and shift the article away from being a "craft beer article". I will also post here again when the appropriate changes are made.--Chimino (talk) 16:07, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Ok. I'll keep an eye on progress.Farrtj (talk) 16:26, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Farrtj (talk) 00:31, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

My general opinion is that this article isn't ready yet.Farrtj (talk) 21:53, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

A few more notes to follow.

Notes As it's a US centred article, it's perfectly entitled to use the old UK imperial measures, but I think switching to metric measurements as the main unit system, followed by imperial measures in brackets, would give more consistency across brewing articles on Wikipedia. I use hectolitres in my UK brewing articles, even though the UK typically measures beer in pints, gallons and barrels.

The introduction is inadequate. For instance, nothing is mentioned about the history of beer before Prohibition. There is not enough emphasis on history here, and too much emphasis on the present day.

Is American Pale Ale even a genuine distinctive style? UK brewers have used US hops extensively since Victorian times. Does that mean English Victorian brewers were brewing American Pale Ale?

American pale pale is indeed recognized as a distinct style of beer. The Beer Judge Certification Program describes it as "an American adaptation of English pale ale, reflecting indigenous ingredients [...] often lighter in color, cleaner in fermentation by-products, and having fewer caramel flavors than English counterparts." Beer Advocate also makes a distinction: "American versions tend to be cleaner and hoppier, while British tend to be more malty, buttery, aromatic and balanced." I would also direct you to the citations from this section of article on pale ale. In general, American pale ales are more robustly hopped, specifically with fruity or resinous Pacific Northwest hop varietals, and contain a lower proportion of diacetyl and esters. Additionally, American pale ales often use American two-row or six-row malt, as opposed to British pale ale malt.

As for your question about Victorian beer: American growers in the Victorian period were largely cultivating English Cluster, Pompey, and Grape hops, varietals which fell out of use in the 20th century. Here is a link to an 1871 text discussing American hop cultivation in the late 19th century. The majority of bittering hops used in contemporary American pale ale and IPA, however, have been developed and bred by private growers and universities in the Pacific Northwest over the last 30 years. Some of the most popular hops in American pale ale and IPA— Willamette, Cascade, Citra, and Warrior— simply did not exist in the 19th century, and taste little like English bittering hops such as Fuggles. Simcoe, another popular American hop, was bred for the first time in 2000. Whatever American pale ale tasted like in 1880, it almost certainly tasted nothing like today's style, which traces its origins to the release of the Cascade-hopped Sierra Nevada Pale Ale in 1980. As there is increasing transatlantic crossover in the craft beer world, we may see UK brewers utilize newer American hop varietals (I believe BrewDog is already experimenting with them), but as of right now, the vastly different hop profiles in APA and English pale ale make for very different beers. There is an immense difference in flavor between beers like Fuller's London Pride and an American West Coast pale ale such as Deschutes Mirror Pond owing to differences in hop flavor, fermentation byproducts, and alpha acid content.--Aeranis (talk) 23:16, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Onto the main body of the article. The grammar needs to be sorted out. The prose is sketchy and does not flow.Farrtj (talk) 22:01, 22 April 2013 (UTC)