Wikipedia talk:Notability (breweries)

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This is a starting point. Please feel free to comment here or to make alterations to the discussion page. When I joined Wiki I had this brilliant notion of listing all the breweries in the world with detailed histories, etc. And there is much of me that still wants this. But if we are to list all the breweries in the world then I feel we should have some criteria and justification to back up our desire. SilkTork 16:40, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My two cents - all breweries should not be listed, just as not all businesses are listed. Only those that are "notable" should. As for the proposed criteria, we'd need to narrow down what publications that a brewery could appear in count as reliable sources... Does my regional microbrew newspaper count? Syrthiss 17:08, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]

I realise I am very late to comment here, but I just found this page today. First, thank you to SilkTork for making this and starting this discussion, which I feel is very necessary.

My feeling is simply that this project could too easily become a bottomless pit and the only way to control it is to have very high standards for inclusion. If you look at the wine page, for example, you will see that very few vineyards/bottlers are listed. And certainly, there are probably as many of those as there are breweries. Why does beer need to be any different?

I completely disagree that Wikipedia should function as a sort of guide book to answer the question: "which brewery is near where I live?" This is an encyclopedia and so, should only cite breweries that provide insight into beer or have made a profound contribution to the art and science of brewing. If the wine page can get along without pimping vineyards, why do the beer pages need to do it? Mikebe 18:26, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Alternatives[edit]

Many breweries may be notable for a single factoid or for their mere existence. They may deserve to be noted, but an article would remain a perma-stub. There are ways to get around this:

  1. Mention them in another article on the subject which they are notable for, say, pilsner, Fractional freezing, brewer's yeast. Don't link the name unless the brewery really deserves an article.
  2. Create a regional article, say Brewing in Manitoba, which can mention historic and modern breweries, or have a sentence or couple of paragraphs explaining the significance of each.
  3. Add them to a short list in an appropriate umbrella article, say, Brewing in Canada. If it grows long, then:
  4. Create a separate List of breweries (e.g. American breweries). This is the inferior solution, but still better than dozens of permanent sub-stubs.

—Michael Z. 2006-07-12 18:59 Z


I am in favour of the notion of the regional article. SilkTork 20:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, me too. I think if the brewery is only significant for one or two details, then it should be included elsewhere. For example, if it is (or was) significant in the history of the local area but not the history of beer and brewing, it should be included in an article on the local area. If it's architecture is the notable feature, it can be included in an article on architecture (although this should perhaps be distinguished from brewery design). The most important thing is that if a stand-alone brewery article is not to be made, a redirect should be created to the article that mentions it. (If it warrants mention in numerous other articles, perhaps it's notable enough for an article of its own?).
Sorry if that's a bit garbled - just some random thoughts really, but I hope they help. Waggers 10:10, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would support a regional subsection only if we become so prolific with contributions, that subsections need to be created for navigation and page resolution purposes (>200?). If not, it would be nice to have them on the same page. Apparent Logic 13:02, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looking down the telescope[edit]

There is the notion that a brewery is already notable. There are plenty of scoopers [1] like me who have a whole range of publications online and off which list and detail all the breweries in one region (and beyond, such as RateBeer). And - as far as I am aware - no brewery has yet been nominated for deletion. So instead of looking at ways of saying which breweries are notable, we should be looking at which breweries are not going to be notable. A brewery which has been established less than 6 months, for example. Or a brewery which is simply part of a brewpub chain like Rock Bottom. SilkTork 20:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On the other hand[edit]

I like the idea of having the most notable, important and interesting breweries in the world selected and detailed. Sorted out from the everyday chaff of the local restaurant brewpub churning out the mediocre and typical range of Amber Ale, Pale Ale and Pilsner. So that Wiki is a repository of the brilliant rather than the trivial. SilkTork 21:14, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Beer is one of the strange things in the world that a fair number of people seek (myself included) the non-mainstream variety. Few people actively seek unknown consumer electronics or unknown car makers or read biographies about Joe Schmoe on the corner of 6th & walnut. However, I look for beers I haven't tried. In fact, a good bulk of beer I buy is something I haven't tried.
So my choice would be to set the notability threshold really low if not just at WP:V. Setting a notability threshold doesn't automatically make notable articles better. Cburnett 23:34, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
O, I know where you are coming from. That is one of my gut feelings. That was part of my passion and excitement in coming to Wikipedia. Share the knowledge! However, after spending some time here I am coming to realise that this is a encyclopaedia not a listing service for collectors. There is some serious work going on here, and there are debates raging all the time about trivia being inserted by collectors such as ourselves. In reality there are plenty of sites out on the internet which serve our interest. I have put the main ones in the external links section of the main beer article: Beer#External links and a slightly different list on the portal: Portal:Beer. I am really on the knife-edge about this because my passion tells me we should list everything, but my logic tells me that we need some criteria for which things to include on the list. SilkTork 09:18, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Cburnett makes a very good point, the very obscurity of some beers is the very thing that appeals. Its why people travel to beer festivals and why I seek out bars which stock a wide range of curious brews when I'm travelling. Some of the most interesting books I've ever read are about some of the most obscure subjects you could think of; like the story of the octagonal house in my town that used to be a windmill and the book about one of the two War memorials in my town and the biographies of all the men whose names are listed on it. If I researched and wrote a book about one of the dozen or so now defunct breweries in my hometown, full of interesting anecdotes and historical tidbits; and if I published privately for local readers interest, and then later on if I then decided to post some information about it on Wikipedia so that a wider audience could share enjoyment by reading about the strange brews they used to produce and how they were taken over by some large corporation, or run into the ground by a local competitor, I would be grossly upset if someone came along and removed it because it wasn't apparently notable enough and didn't get enough Google hits Jooler 09:28, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is worth reading: Wikipedia:Verifiability. In the meantime if you'd like up-to-date information on breweries around the world, then go to RateBeer. It is the most comprehensive, up-to-date and accurate brewery source anywhere. The forum is very useful if you are going into an unknown region and want some advice. There are a number of other information and listing sites on the internet, and published on paper. As I say, I have listed some of the more important of these on either the Beer page or on the Beer Portal. I don't think Wiki needs to, should, or could hope to compete with these information and listing sites which are well established and have thousands of beer devoted members (like myself!). And that is not what Wikipedia is. What we should be doing here is selecting, from our collective knowledge of breweries around the world, which are the most notable, and concentrating on writing brilliant articles about those breweries. SilkTork 17:53, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If a book is published it is verifiable, which is why I mentioned it. Jooler 15:21, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Verifiable doesn't mean the thing exists, it means the thing can be verified via a reputable source. That a reputable source, such as an expert in the field, has already written about the thing. For example, that it already has been proved to be notable. Also, see: Wikipedia:Notability (books) SilkTork 18:29, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If someone writes a book about a local Brewery and the book is well researched with sources clearly indicated, then that person is the expert and the book is a reputable source. Jooler 10:42, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sounds logical. But I don't think that self-published books, for example, are classed as reliable sources. The clear intention when setting up Wiki was to make a serious and credible encyclopedia. What is creeping into it is the notion that ANYTHING can go into it, rather than encyclopedic material. While there are arguments in favour of that aim, I think the best place for those arguments is on the Wikipedia proposed policy pages. What we'd like to do here is look at what criteria we can usefully draw up for giving us the basis of a brewery's notability. SilkTork 12:24, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that self-published books, for example, are not classed as reliable sources - of course they are if they contain references to primary source material. The size of the publisher is immaterial. Jooler 21:49, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Self-published sources

A self-published source is a published source that has not been subject to any form of independent fact-checking, or where no one stands between the writer and the act of publication. It includes personal websites, and books published by vanity presses. Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, and then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources.

Exceptions to this may be when a well-known, professional researcher writing within his field of expertise, or a well-known professional journalist, has produced self-published material. In some cases, these may be acceptable as sources, so long as their work has been previously published by credible, third-party publications, and they are writing under their own names, and not a pseudonym.

However, editors should exercise caution for two reasons: first, if the information on the professional researcher's blog (or self-published equivalent) is really worth reporting, someone else will have done so; secondly, the information has been self-published, which means it has not been subject to any independent form of fact-checking.

So you are right, self-published stuff may be acceptable, but is to be treated with caution. I suggest we look for better sources than self-published material. SilkTork 11:19, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of what we do, it'll be tough and a lot of work to get Wikipedia in line with our new vision of how breweries should be listed. I think the regional article is an awsome idea for at least listing the breweries we know of or can find. Of course how exaclty do we define a region, by closest city, county, state region, or by the state alone? My personal vote would go by state, with major cities receiving their own listing. We can link to the city articles in the overall state article. The larger breweries would automatically get their own article, plus any breweries with enough history/information (i.e. Falstaff, Strohs, Goetz) to make their own article could be split off from the state/city article. The only criteria for a brewery having its own article would be would the article have more than two paragraphs of information. If not, then it'll need to stay with the state/city listings. I mention this mainly to protect some of the listing we already have. I've done a ton of work on the article for Pearl Brewing Company, and I'd hate to see it reduced and sucked up into the Pabst, San Antonio, or Texas listings. --Brownings 14:17, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some folks seek the trivial. Lets say I want to see whether there are any breweries in my home town or within a 50 mi driving radius (there are several). This article could be a good source. Apparent Logic 13:02, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Has there been any progress on this? SilkTork 11:21, 17 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looking for an initial consensus[edit]

Reading through the above and Stlemur's comment on the main talk page [2] the indications are that there is a desire for some notability criteria, but that the criteria should either be set very low, or that minor breweries should be dealt with in a regional article. It is not clear, but it might be the case that those who wish for low notability - goethean and Jooler - would be content with low notable breweries being dealt with in a regional article. Without at this stage having to specify what is the difference between low notability and notability itself - a matter that deserves more discussion - would people be in agreement that low notable breweries are best dealt with in a regional article than by being in a stand alone article? I suppose the choices might be:

  • Regional articles for low notable breweries
  1. Agree SilkTork 11:45, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Agree Waggers 11:53, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Agree Angelo 12:07, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Agree Syrthiss 12:16, 20 July 2006 (UTC) (with the caveat that I'm still not overly keen on the notability having a low threshold, so this is the best of the possible choices)[reply]
  5. Agree Kaszeta 12:28, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Agree Snakemike 13:53, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Agree --Brownings 14:16, 20 July 2006 (UTC) (see comment above)[reply]
  8. Agree --Apyule 14:25, 20 July 2006 (UTC). I think that there should be regional articles, but I think that the criteria for splitting a brewery out of its regional article should be based more on the quality of the information on it rather than notability, ie. if a notable brewery only has a very short paragraph and minimal references it should stay in the regional article, but a less notable brewery should get its own article if it has detailed and well referenced content that is capable of standing on its own.7[reply]
  9. Comment I have a question - for putting the low notability breweries in a regional article, does that mean basically a long list? If so, that could be a problem as lists often get out of hand as people add their own favorites and so on. Or maybe that's the idea? --Awiseman 19:49, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Agree with Apyule Argyriou 23:09, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Agree --Airgead 00:06, 21 July 2006 (UTC) I am using this approach for my review of the Australian brewing pages - a "Microbreweries in Australia" page with short descriptions of the Aussie micros with links only for those that are notable for some reason (pioners, unusual technique, significant/famous beer etc).[reply]
  12. Agree, but I think that a reasonable threshold (amount brewed or distribution) for what would be a notable or non-notable brewery. Pages like Breweries in Philadelphia would be best in my opinion for beers that wouldn't make the cut. Radagast83 00:39, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Agree, regional is good Jordanmills 12:55, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]


  • Own articles for low notable breweries
  1. Mostly because redirects cannot redirect to a section but a page which then requires further searching the page for what you want. Big pet peeve of mine about the MediaWiki engine. I have come across many cases of where the redirected page goes to another and it either contains nothing about the original page or very little. Granted this isn't much of an issue for a list. I would also add that there's a movement by a few WPians to disallow fair use images in a list which would seem to include these regional articles being that they are more of a list of regional breweries than well developed prose about a region. That would mean that fair use images would be disallowed from all of these regional articles. As for low notability I think I could be happy with "you can write at least a stub about it" but that puts my favorite brewery (Sprecher Brewery) near that line. :) Cburnett 14:02, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Looking at Sprecher Brewery reminds that a regional article may get to be quite lengthy (in vertical scrolling length, not necessarily "word count") if either the brew box or a list of beers are added. It would also mean that none of the breweries in a regional article could be a member of a category simply because they can't work that way. Cburnett 14:06, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  2. I'm leaning this way due to the categorization problem brought up by Cburnett. But I'm not sure if it should be low notable breweries or all breweries. I suppose it would ultimately depend on what the notability criteria are. --Kbdank71 14:21, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  3. I agree that there are some disavantages to merging, as explained above. Friday (talk) 14:28, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Agree, but similarly I agree very strongly with Apyule. I have some issues with the very idea of Regional. How will regions be defined? What is the criteria that seperates a brewery from it's regional article? A lot of this stuff is really unclear, so I lean more towards each low notability brewery have it's own article, simply because the classification system would otherwise be way too complicated.--TheMightyGrecian 20:19, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Agree—Like Friday, below, I'm not sure we're solving an existing problem. There's much to be said for being proactive, of course, and heading off a problem before it shows up, but I agree with Cburnett and Jooler in that, for most beer enthusiasts, obscurity is, more often than not, a good thing. I'd say set the criteria very low—like: "It must be (or have been) a licensed, commercial brewery." That would keep people from writing articles about their own homebrewing experiences. I'm not yet convinced that merging is a good solution.—CKA3KA (Skazka) 20:41, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Agree with this more than any other for the simple reason that "notable" is a very fuzzy term, even more so with beer and breweries than with most topics. Reading this document, a set of "notability" criteria has been proposed that lists seven potential criteria, but which excludes a large number of breweries than I can think of off the top of my head. In fact, if implemented, I fear that this particular proposal would severely restrict brewery articles. Perhaps we're trying to hard, and should also consider quality that every brewery has, which provides us with a simple and quantifiable measure: the amount of beer they make. On one hand, Uncle Jeb's Brewery and Bait Shop makes 10 barrels a year: not notable. On the other: Really Nifty Regional Brewery makes 10,000 a year: still modest, yet I would say article-worthy. Thoughts? – ClockworkSoul 20:49, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My only problem with going solely on beer produced is what I will call the Dark Lord issue. Dark Lord Imperial Stout is the top rated Imperial Stout in the world. It is prouduced by a pub in Indiana. It's entire year's production run sells out in one day every year - if they had the capability, the brewery could sell thousands and thousands of barrels. But they can only afford to sell the small amount that they do. Three Floyds Brewing merits its page, due to Dark Lord's popularity.--CastAStone|(talk) 05:20, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that it should be the sole criteria - obviously some appreciation for things such as historical sites or roles must be made - but it's a nice quantifiable way of making a quick estimation of notability without having to have a prolonged debate whenever somebody decides to VfD/merge the article for User:EditorX's favorite brewpub. I'm sorry, I'm a bit dense this time of morning: I'm not understanding what you're trying to say with the Dark Lord effect? There are many breweries that could do very well if they could ramp up production, but the fact of the matter is they still only make X amount of beer. There's a lot of tasty beer in the world (that's one of the reasons why this is my favorite world), but we need to set the bar somehow and somewhere, and I think that that's the best (and easiest) way to do it. – ClockworkSoul 11:23, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Agree Rlk89 21:49, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Agree But super-low notability brewers - eg Country Bob's Brewpub and Bar (not a real place) - go to regional articles. If a brewery is competing in GABF, for example, and winning medals, it deserves a page. To be today missing award winning brewers such as Southern Tier Brewing Company and Flying Bison Brewing Company that are continually written about extensively in beer industry trade papers such as Great Lakes Brewing News and Ale Street News is unbelieveable. Yes, there should be standards. They should be based parly on beer sold, partly on distribution, partly on awards won, and partly on media attention. also any brewery with a beer in the top ten of any Beeradvocate.com category deserves an article. but for the most part the standards are too high right now. --CastAStone|(talk) 05:11, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]


  • Own articles for all breweries - no notability criteria
  1. Agree in principal but I think we have about a decades worth of more important editing first.--Pypex 15:02, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Agree, with caveat -- Apyule speaks my thoughts entirely on this matter. Ξxtreme Unction|yakkity yak 18:28, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Agree, Notability? Consensus? Not in the beer world. Between Coors, Bud, and Miller and the top ten brewers, none of the other brewers in America are notable. I say the deciding factor as to whether a brewer should get its own article is the quality of the information available on the brewery. If the standard were the quality or uniqueness of the beers, then the manufacturers of 90% of beer for the US market should be removed from the site. And the include the brilliant but exclude the trivial comment? Please. to some, Saison Fantome is the most brilliant Saison, its market share of the US\UK beer market is likely far less than 1% of 1%. Naerhu 02:29, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Agree Now this was a tough one. If we go by liters produced per year, the only notable breweries are Carlsberg and Bud and the other extremely large ones. I doubt we can agree on notability-criteria for beer, or what constitutes a region. In Franken (Bavaria, Germany), every hamlet have two or more breweries after all and there's definitely a story behind every single one. Many of the Geuse-producers are also small (and Mort Subite tastes like Dr. Pepper, blech.) Can't we instead differentiate on whether it is industrial/international or "hand-made"/local? I agree that homebrews are non-notable but articles on homebrews doesn't seem to be a problem, I've never found one at least. Do as for other articles; if all you have is a name then put it in a list; keep stubs together; make a new page once there is enough encyclopedic information to warrant an article (not counting the size of the brewbox =) ). A brewpage that only consists of a brewbox or a listing of beers or where the brewery is located is non-notable, there should be a certain minimum of free text relative to the size of the brewbox (usually small breweries only make a few beers, needing less free text) at a certain font-size at a certain browser-window-width. lets say 10point font and 1024px window for starters. --Kaleissin 00:06, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Only breweries with an agreed notability should be listed on Wikipedia. (Added 13:28, 20 July 2006 (UTC) after reading Syrthiss' comment)

A straw poll might be a good idea. I'll raise awareness of this among others. SilkTork 11:45, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The issues that I see are:
  1. How many low notability local breweries are we talking about? If it's not a huge number, I'd say give them their own articles. If it's a lot more, then divide them by region.
  2. How ephemeral do these tend to be? Here in Hong Kong there was a brewery called "South China Brewery" that had some very nice beers. They lasted a few years, disappeared, appeared again for awhile... If a brewery's only around for a year or two and then disappears, it should probably not get its own article.
Waitak 13:00, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Abstain Can't make my mind. I would tend to vote for every brewery having its own article, yet I recognize that those for which available information is not sufficient to make a proper article (or at least a hefty enough stub) might be better grouped together, with each having a paragraph or two, if possible. Also, I'm leery about what constitutes "regional" grouping. --Svartalf 13:19, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Abstain. I prefer an ad-hoc approach let it grow organically. Jooler 14:12, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • None of the above: We don't tend to get vanity articles about breweries the way we get them about, for example, garage bands. So, I guess I don't see what problem we're trying to solve. Obviously, we need information to be verifiable from good sources, but this goes without saying. Beyond that, however, if we wanted to look at significance of breweries similiar to the way we do for companies, I'd say that yearly beer production is a nice, objective indicator. However until and unless we start seeing brewery articles getting deleted, I don't see that we have a reason to spend too much time hashing out inclusion/deletion criteria. That said, I don't have an objection to merging together small breweries into regional articles- we can do this as desired, with or without a guideline saying that's what we do. Friday (talk) 14:04, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Abstain Can't make up my mind either, let's just wait and see how it goes. cheers guys... Gryffindor 19:30, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree with Jooler and Friday. But it occurs to me that perhaps the regional list will allow more, smaller breweries to be included than individual articles will. — goethean ॐ 16:09, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Is it possible to have both? Naerhu 02:29, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Agree with Jooler/Friday. Dave 15:37, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Agree with Jooler/Friday Kev (talk) 19:23, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Agree Somnabot 14:52, 23 July 2006 (UTC) ratebeer.com takes the same approach.[reply]

Initial consensus summary[edit]

Things seem to be fairly settled now and it would appear that there really isn't a consensus. I think Friday raises a good point of: is this an issue? If it's not then this is really creating a policy for the sake of itself or prophylactically. Here's what I propose:

  • Let anyone who wants to write a regional article go for it (it would give us a good idea for further discussion)
  • Let anyone who wants to write a full article for a given brewery go for it
  • Stay the discussion until it becomes an issue

If vanity brewery articles are not a problem (kind of been my assumption here that it was to some degree) then I go back on the fence because I don't have enough information to make a decision. I like the idea of regional articles but they have their own draw backs (redirects & categories that I raised above). I like the idea of breweries and beers having their own articles even if they are semi-permanently at a "stub + 2" status (that is its drawback).

If we get to the point where there is edit warring between a regional article and splitting out items for their own articles then I'd be happy to pick up this discussion again. Comments please! :) Cburnett 04:42, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'm happy to agree outright to this proposal. At the moment, this really seems to me to be a solution in search of a problem. – ClockworkSoul 13:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unless there are too many entries, or vanity entries appear (Apparent Logic Brewery. Location: My basement.), it is nice to have these listed in the main article. At very least, a link from the main article to a subsection if entries become unwieldy. Apparent Logic 13:02, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • If I understand the summary correct, then I agree. Regional articles for minor breweries and stubs, and full articles for notable breweries. Breweries mentioned in the regional articles that develop sufficiently to be spun off into their own articles. I think this is the approach that works naturally and organically. Creating stand alone stub articles is not helpful to anyone. SilkTork 13:10, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wikiproject Beer, champions of finding consensus where previously there was none. (thats a support btw)--Pypex 23:49, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Certainly adding my vote late but heavily for the leave it alone till it becomes a problem proposal. Couch 09:18, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I, too, will come in late to say that the best decision is none for the present. Leppy 06:27, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Am I the only one? Get rid of them all or keep it limited to the breweries that have made significant contributions to brewing. Let's keep this an encyclopedia and improve the content of the information instead of getting distracted and try to produce a guide book that will never satisfy everyone! Mikebe 18:33, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Um... did I miss something?[edit]

The nutshell version is absurd. "There is no consensus as to what constitutes a notable brewery..." Why do you need a guideline to say that? -Amarkov blahedits 23:51, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose what you missed is that this is a proposal. And the nutshell is attempting to summarise the position. Do you have a suggestion for how better to word the nutshell? Do you want to give it a go? You won't damage Wiki by doing that, and you may improve things. If people feel your rewording doesn't work they might go back to the current one or try something else. That's the great beauty of Wiki. SilkTork 22:52, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Practical test of notability[edit]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

I've brought this over from the WikiProject Beer talk page. SilkTork 01:26, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is an Essay, WP:CORP is a Guideline[edit]

To determine notability of breweries, the WP:CORP applies. It seems that this project has been discussing alternative guidelines. Until these are accepted by the community and promoted to guideline status, I suggest that you follow WP:CORP. Otherwise editors who come to your articles will be deleting them right, left and center for non-notability. I've tagged this page as an essay, which is what it is. Jehochman (Talk/Contrib) 01:42, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Material brought over from the project page during trimming[edit]

Reasons for including all breweries on Wikipedia[edit]

  1. Wikipedia is large: There is room enough to handle all the breweries on the planet.
  2. Comprehensive: It is good to have all the information in one place.
  3. My local brewery: When people are searching for information on a brewery it is likely to be for information on their own local brewery.


Reasons for not including all breweries on Wikipedia[edit]

Notability
General notability guideline
Subject-specific guidelines
See also
  1. Encouraging and leading by example: If we create serious and brilliant articles then more editors will be encouraged to create more and more such articles. If we create trivial articles about non notable breweries then more and more editors will be encouraged to create more and more trivial articles.
  2. Credibility of Wikipedia: Wiki occasionally comes under criticism from academics and the media for the trivial and poor quality of much of the content.
  3. Wiki is an encyclopedia: The articles are aimed at helping people understand topics rather than merely listing them. That a brewery article may contain information about the brewery is indisputable. But articles on pubs, shops and people also contain information, and other projects have drawn up quidelines to decide which ones are notable. That an item has individuality is not in dispute - it's the notability that is.
  4. WP:CORP is an established guideline.

Current criteria for including a brewery[edit]

Or:

  • That the brewery existed at some point. Example: Nicholson's

Under these criteria all breweries that ever existed would be included. There are editors in favour of this all-inclusive approach. However, the majority of editors on Wikipedia favour using some form of notability criteria. See: Wikipedia:Notability.

Notability guidelines[edit]

Editors on Wikipedia are working on creating usable criteria for the notability of articles. Current and proposed notability criteria for a variety of topics can be seen on the infobox to the right.

Medals[edit]

This article has not been updated in years. In fact, for all my work on breweries, I had forgotten that this page exists until I saw it mentioned at an AfD discussion. But, in tandem with other people who write about beer, I have seen the evolution of some more specific standards. Let's see if we can agree what they are and add them to this page. Pinging @Irondome, Mudwater, IronGargoyle, Trev fro, David Eppstein, and Air.light:. Please ping other people as appropriate.

Criteria I use:

  • A brewery can be included on a "List of breweries" type article if it has at least one independent reference. In other words, to be included on a list, it does not have to be notable enough for an article, it just has to be verified by an independent source. That rule was worked out in a discussion (with very limited participation) at Talk:List of breweries in San Diego County, California.
  • A brewery is notable enough to have an article if it meets WP:GNG by having received SIGNIFICANT coverage from independent reliable sources. This does not include directory listings, and IMO it does not include routine "Brewery X just opened in our community" stories in purely local papers.
  • A brewery is also notable enough to have an article if it has received at least one medal from either the Great American Beer Festival or the World Beer Cup. Those are the most prestigious competitions, and winning a medal there really means something. There are hundreds of other competitions, often at state fairs and the like, often called "international" but not really being a major international competition, and they hand out hundreds of medals. IMO those medals do not count toward notability.

Shall we see if we can agree on a set of specific criteria like this? --MelanieN (talk) 04:38, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

These all seem reasonable, but I'm not entirely convinced that your criteria for article-notability are different enough from WP:ORG that we need a separate criterion. Are we trying to tighten, loosen, or merely clarify the standards there? WP:ORG already disallows counting notability from announcements of openings and closings, or "routine restaurant reviews" (which I interpret to mean the local-newspaper ones that we've been accepting for inclusion on the lists of breweries); it doesn't mention awards, let alone where to draw the line between major or minor ones, but I would assume that the major awards also typically come with some sourcing (if only from the awarding organization) that would go towards the requirement for depth of coverage. I agree that prizes from county fairs are not enough; I'm not sure about state fairs but then again I live in a county with more population than many states so maybe I should think of the smaller states' fairs as being of a similar level. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:14, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the ping. I have remiss on my work on beer related articles lately, so apologies. I would agree with the general approach that MelanieN Melanie is taking, but there is a slightly U.S'centric approach in the examples given. This is understandable in the context of the environment which the U.S microbreweries get attention. David Eppstein David, I think Melanie is trying to tighten and clarify standards from my reading of the above. I think it would be useful to attempt to list the main and most notable national and international brewery awarding bodies, and notable journalists and beer critics, and attempt to use that as a yardstick to aid notability. Initial thoughts. Simon. Irondome (talk) 11:22, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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