Talk:Homebrewing/NPOV

Point of View

Too American

The history section is very American centred. I'm sure that other countries have been homebrewing beer as well. Personally, in knowing the history of home brewing, I don't really care that much about Jimmy Carter signing laws. That section should not be the first thing mentioned, but should go closer to the end. Perhaps in a trivia section. WB_Frontier

It's not just the history section that's US-centric. All this stuff about artificial carbonation, and about decent beers being unavailable except as homebrew, is totally alien to my experience in the UK. It even talks about cask-conditioned ale as a "rare and exotic" substance only occasionally encountered. PeteVerdon 19:33, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree in principle, but homebrew is force carbonated world-wide with great regularity. Priming with sugar is great for bottling, but advanced homebrewers don't like to wait 2 weeks to drink the beer after it's fermented typically, and prefer to choose the exact amount of carbonation in their beer, given the temperature of the beer fridge / kegerator / etc... It's not artificial, beer carbonated through sugar or a c02 tank are chemically identical, provided there is adequate yeast in suspension to eat the priming sugar. Also, cask-conditioned ale is not "common" anywhere any more than barley wine and labics are, even though they are MORE common in Europe, by no means does the average homebrewer, or even the advanced homebrewer, typically make regular cask conditioned batches. It's extremely time consuming and expensive. pACMANx 18:51, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Unpasteurised, cask-conditioned ale is "common" in the UK by any definition you care to mention: it is referred to as "real ale", and is served in something like 50% of pubs. The vast majority of British home-brewers make cask-conditioned ale. Unpasteurised "bottle-conditioned" ale is available in most British supermarkets. PeteVerdon is right - this article is highly oriented towards American home-brewing. elvum 15:33, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I would move the U.S.-centric stuff to Homebrewing in the United States. The U.S.-centric information is actually interesting, but it's probably about 1/3-2/3 of the artcle. The history, legality, and most of the culture sections could all be moved. The homebrewing article should concentrate on process, and maybe somebody could add a little bit of history about the process. Another place where homebrewing is popular is Australia, and a Homebrewing in Australia article might also be in order. Bolwerk 18:54, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

This is a hugely one-sided view of the craft which completely ignores the separate development and legal frameworks outside the US. DavidP02 22:48, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

...and rather than just carp, comments like "almost every beer available is pasteurised" is just not true worldwide. There are plenty of unpasteurised beers in the UK both bottle and cask conditioned. DavidP02 23:36, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I think UK contributers are ignoring the conventions of Wikipedia (or at least as they are stand now). This article started as "U.S.-centric." You can either add sections or start a separate article on "Home Brewing in the UK" There is no call to rewrite the article entirely. (as I have been informed by articles started as blatantly "UK centric") Cuvtixo (talk) 16:14, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

That's not how the convention works. In the specific issue of British or American English in articles which are not necessarily specific to the UK or the US, we use the original author's grammar. This does not mean that articles themselves can use a US-centric POV. I'm re-tagging this. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:36, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

this US-centric complaint is odd to me. Homebrewing sites at wikepedia have tons of UK-contributed material and in some cases this UK material is quite dominant. Carlw4514 (talk) 16:49, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Two wrongs don't make a right. By all means please feel free to highlight geoceontricity in other articles for correction in the same way; it can only improve the encyclopedia in the long run. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:15, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

A Pissing Contest? [1] I use this phrase advisedly, and want to emphasize that I am not conjuring it up to try to be crude, but just feel it describes my concerns perfectly. What do you call these officious-looking, scolding banners that appear at the top of sections? I need convincing that this business of attaching a banner to various sections, with me attaching one type to this one, you a different one that one, isn't indeed just a pissing contest that, on the contrary, will not improve wikipedia but just trash it up with banners to no purpose.Carlw4514 (talk) 11:59, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

This isn't the place to discuss the aesthetic merits of cleanup tags. Some people like them, some don't, but the project as a whole has agreed that they are a standard way of highlighting article issues (and adding pages to the appropriate cleanup categories). I personally use them to track and improve articles. Users who dislike them can hide them by adding code to their monobook.css files. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:16, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Reviewing again the current article, I just do not think a case can be made at this time that any of the sections are US-centric ... UK laws, history and practices are prominently featured (perhaps in its original state this was different). You have failed to convince me this isn't an ancient contest that is still going on to dominate the fire plug with one's own flavor of urine. Being a later dog to the contest I can report that the mixture reeks.Carlw4514 (talk) 19:56, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

... actually, you're right. I had this confused with homebrewing beer, which definitely still has global-view problems. I'll take th tag off this one. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 23:09, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Wow, very nice to see "talk" work like it was supposed to, I'm impressed.Carlw4514 (talk) 10:18, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Brewing culture

My take on this section is that it covers alot of things that are basically just schools of brewing. Fair comment would include an analysis of whiuch schools dominate in which territories, but real homebrew cultured is more based around brewing circles, rig-heads, the hop-heads already mentioned, brewing competitions, online forums and general pub culture. I've convered most of the technical aspects although the fermentation and packging elements need a bit of a re-wrtie and rebalancing. I'd really aprreciate some thoughts and imput before proceeding with the final sections of the revamp. DavidP02 22:35, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

The statement "this having been said the vast majority of beer consumed both sides of the Atlantic is keg beer" is false; for example, Coors Brewing Company, the largest single-site brewery in North America, kegs only 10% of its beer, with 70% going into cans, and the rest is bottled (Source: Coors brewery tour, Golden, CO). Since the amount of commercial keg beer consumed anywhere isn't relevant to homebrewing, and no sources have been cited to show the percentage of homebrewed beer that is kegged, I'm going to remove it unless there's a compelling reason not to do so. Bri2k1 18:20, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking more of the argumnet between pressure kegged as against cask beer which uses natural maturation to add sparkle to the beer, but your point is well made. I've no objection to your changes although again homebrew culture is based arounf alot more than brewing methods... ;) DavidP02 21:24, 21 October 2006 (UTC)