Talk:Pearl Brewing Company/Archive 1

Assistance Requested (25 Apr 2006)

This work is still heavily in progress. Although I can handle the narrative text, I'm totally clueless on the formatting. I'd eventually like to upload more pictures and incorporate them somehow. If you can help, please let me know. Brownings - 25 Apr 2006

I'll put it on my watch list and have a look in a week or so. One thing to change - It's best not to put links in your section headings. Kevin 01:55, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Cool, thanks for the tip and the help you've given me so far. Brownings 22:10, 25 April 2006 (CST)

Pictures (26 Apr 2006)

The following pictures are of the brewery today. I'd like to include them in with the article somehow. Independent section added for images. I figured having it's own section would allow for more pictures and wouldn't interfere with the text's flow. --Brownings 21:04, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pearl_brewery.JPG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Jersey_Lilly.JPG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pearl_brewhouse.JPG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pearl_mainoffice.JPG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pearl_graysonentrance.JPG

Redirects Added (28 Apr 2006)

Added several pages to redirect to the Pearl Brewing Company Page. --Brownings 15:10, 28 April 2006 (CST)

Pearl Beer

San Antonio Brewing Association

Pearl Brewery

Pearl (beer)

Pearl Light (beer)

External Links (29 Apr 2006)

Section added with several links to great pictures or information. Feel free to add additional ones. --Brownings 21:04, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Today: The Beers (8 May 2006)

I've taken out the information on Country Club Malt Liquor from Today: The Beers section. Initially I wanted to track all of the beers associated with Pearl, even those produced by Pearl during all the company buyouts and mergers. However, after seeing how many beers have been assimilated into today's Pabst Brewing Company, I think this task would not only be near impossible to compile, but a nightmare to keep up to date. For now I'll stick with Pearl/Pearl Light and all the beers they developed over the years (Pearl Bock, Texas Pride Beer, J.R. Ewing Premium Beer, etc.), trying to avoid brews bought from other companies. --Brownings 16:49, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Pearl Beers (10 May 2006)

This section is just a note. I wanted to keep track of diffrent beers as I found them, without constantly updating the main page. --Brownings 00:06, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

• Pearl Bock 1930s or before - 2000
• Pearl Beer 1886 - Present
• Texas Pride Beer 1952 - Present
• Pearl Dark Draft
• Country Club Beer 1960 - 1977 (Goetz)
• Goetz Beer 1960 - 1977 (Goetz)
• Pale Near Beer 1960 - 1977
• Pearl Beer 1960 - 1977
• Pilsener Club Beer 1970 - 1975
• Country Tavern Beer 1972 - 1987 (Goetz)
• Country Club Malt Liquor 1972 - Present (Goetz)
• Goetz Beer 1972 - Present (Goetz)
• Katz Beer 1973 - 1990
• Brown Derby Beer 974 - 1985 (Goetz)
• Brown Derby Light (Goetz)
• Jax Beer 1974 - Present
• Berghoff Beer 1976 - 1978 (outside agreement)
• Quittin Time Beer 1977 - 1989
• Pearl Cream Ale 1978 - 1982
• Lucky 50 Beer 1985 - Present
• Rhino Chasers Beer 1988 - 1990

Texas Transportation Company (26 May 2006)

I want to start adding information about this company to the page. Eventually, the section will become its own independent page, but until I've got plenty of information on it I'll just leave it here with Pearl (since Pearl owned it). Another thing that's keeping me from creating another page is the fact that I'm still not done with Pearl yet.--Brownings 18:26, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Leaning more and more toward a seperate page for TTC. Seems the history behind it was huge, and somehow the whole operation created a transportation museum which operated at the brewery for a number of years. The museum is still in San Antonio, so I plan on visiting them some day. http://www.txtransportationmuseum.org/ --Brownings 21:27, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

There's a blast from the past. I grew up right off of Wetmore road, and used to pass the place every day on the way to school in the 70's and 80's. It's fairly easy to find if you're in town - it's right next to a large sports complex. I think there's suffiicent history there to possible warrant a seperate article; I had no idea that Pearl was involved in their funding - I had always assumed they were publically funded. Kuru ^talk 14:45, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the input Kuru, I think I'll go with your suggestion and create a separate page. I'll at least get it started and include a little bit of info. I don't think Pearl actually funded the museum, just gave them a place to have offices and a place to park some of their trains on the TTC line. It's one of the questions I plan on asking them when I visit, along with asking permission to use some of their photos on Wikipedia. Feel free to drop by anytime Kuru and add info either on Pearl or the TTC, suggestions and editing help are always welcome. --Brownings 17:09, 29 May 2006 (UTC) UPDATE: TTC page created at Texas Transportation Company. --Brownings 17:45, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Possible Move (9 Jun 2006)

I've been thinking about moving this page over to Pearl Brewery. Since the brewery complex in San Antonio is just called Pearl Brewery, perhaps it would increase the traffic flow to this article from search engines such as Google or Yahoo. Just a though thought, anyone else have an opinion? --Brownings 16:38, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I still haven't decided on the move yet. I'm on the fence about it, but leaning more and more toward the move. I won't do it though unless I get at least one person posting in agreement. --Brownings 22:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Looks like the move is off, and Pearl will be staying put at "Pearl Brewing Company." The topic of having articles named "xxxx Brewery" vs. "xxxxx Brewing Company" came up on Wikiproject Beer's talk page. It looks like they're going to leave articles about Europe breweries alone, however, in the US we'll try to standardize as many articles as we can using the "xxxxxx Brewing Company" format.--Brownings 03:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Pearl Brewery & San Antonio Wiki Template (14 Jun 2006)

I've added the San Antonio template to the bottom of the Pearl page. It allows easy jumps from Pearl over to other San Antonio interests/attractions. I've also added Pearl (listed as Pearl Brewery) to the template. What does this mean you ask. Well, when people visit any page with that template, they'll have a link to check out the Pearl page. So, as someones browsing the article on UTSA, San Antonio, or San Antonio Spurs, they can potentially leap on over here. It's nothing eye catching, but it spreads links to our Pearl page out into more places in Wikipedia. --Brownings 00:56, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Pearl owned a candy company? (14 Aug 2006)

Seems in 1965 Pearl bought the Judson Candy Company here in San Antonio. Why the heck Pearl had interest in a candy company I have no idea. Judson is still in business in San Antonio, now called Judson-Atkinson Candies, and I plan on visiting them within the next few weeks to see if they have any information on their association with Pearl or any photos. I found this tidbit of information while researching the Pearl/Southdown connection and came across Judson's History page. --Brownings 14:24, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I spoke with Amy today, a representative of Judson-Atkison Candies this afternoon. While she was able to clear up a few of my questions, one thing the current owners have always been unsure about it why. Why the heck was Pearl interested in a candy company of all things? Sure, Judson is a San Antonio-based company, but what attracted Pearl to them. Of course it doesn't help that the current owners are twice removed from the purchase by Pearl. Judson was later owned by Southdown before the current owners purchased the company. Unfortunately Judson is lacking on the history department as well. Other than a few historic photos from the company's start, materials from the 60s on weren't considered important and thus discarded. The whole situation is strange, and very intriguing. I'm not giving up though. A few members of the Judson family are around San Antonio, and I'm going to try and see if I can't track them down for at least a telephone interview. I've added a section to the article called "Pearl's sweet tooth" and I plan on at least getting a good paragraph in there. This is just too bizarre not to mention at least in some fashion. More to come. --Brownings 22:34, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Still working on this area. It's kinda taken a back burner till the Buck Winn section is done though. I have too many people waiting to see that material, so I can't keep them on hold for long. The Judson section is next on my list though, mainly becuase I think the Southdown section will be a nightmare to initially write. --Brownings 19:47, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Texas artists (15 Aug 2006)

Pearl was a big supporter of state artists through the brewery's independent years. Many of the advertisements used were paintings, either original or painted versions of photos. The company's support of the arts itself is notable, but maybe not worth putting into Wikipedia on its own. However, when you commission a work of art that gets put into the record books, now that's really worth mentioning on Wiki. In the early 50s Pearl commissioned Buck Winn to create a massive mural for their new hospitality room, the Jersey Lilly. When it was completed in 1951, the mural's 6 feet height by 280 feet length set the record at the time as the largest mural. So, after 50 years, where is this mural today. Well, I have some of the answers and still researching others, thus the creation of the "Pearl & Texas artists" section in the article. More to come later on the subject, but that's all for now. --Brownings 19:03, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Material for this section is only a few days away. I've got it written, but I need certain parties to sign off of the content before I can actually post it. Shouldn't take too long though, so they'll be new stuff up by the end of next week. Oh, and the section will be renamed. The title "Texas artists" just didn't sound right, plus other artists are only mentioned. Besides, the article is focusing on Buck Winn and his mural, so some form of that will be the section's new name. Oh, and I've posted up a new image (part of the mural) and added two new links to mural restoration projects. --Brownings 19:45, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Section is complete, I just need to have the material proof read a few times before posting it. Good news is its a ton of info, and will add a lot to the article. Bad news is it'll also push Pearl into the large article segment (over 45K). I don't think it's a bad thing, but now we'll get a notice banner each time we go to edit the text. Oh well, the article will be much better with it than without. --Brownings 20:20, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Charlie Staats Collection (27 Aug 2006)

Exciting times are ahead for this article. I've essentially found the one-stop-shop for all things Pearl in a gentleman named Charlie Staats. Charlie has a massive collection of not only memorabilia, but paperwork and company documents. His collection will add greatly to the story and unlock a lot of secrets associated with Pearl (some a little too secret or hurtful to certain parties that may not get added in the end). We'll see though how every thing goes. I'll still be the writing arm behind this article, but Charlie will more or less become the brains behind the content. I'll mark as much as I can when I get info/pictures from Charlie. As for Charlie's collection, only two words can describe it...HOLY COW! --Brownings 18:35, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

The best pictures from my first visit to Charlie's have been added to the article. I'm still working on correcting some of the bad information that was in the article. I've cleaned up 3 or 4 sections, but the rest still need to be scrubbed. As always, a work in progress. --Brownings 23:10, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm still hard at work on the rewrite of the old sections. As you've seen I already tackled a few, but more still needs to be done to the main body. I tried working on the Judson section, but just couldn't get to to flow correctly with the current section before. I think after the rewrite the new material will come to be a lot easier. --Brownings 22:29, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Alright, the corrections are finally complete and I can get back to writting new sections. Overall, the errors we're huge, just a ton of small things here and there that were close to the truth but wasn't exactly accurate. I haven't decided which section will see the next update, it'll either be the section on Judson or Pearl City, TX. --Brownings 20:06, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Country Club (3 Oct 2006)

Country Club is on its way back into the beerbox and will receive a little more attention in the article. I knew that Pearl had bought out the Goetz brewery long before anyone else had bought Pearl or merged Pearl with another company. So, is Country Club considered a Pearl beer? Well, that depends on how you look at it. Pearl bought the Country Club brand well after it was an established beer in MO, so that would tend to make me say "No" to the readdition. However, we have Pearl in there and it was bought from the Beck's brewery in Germany. Technically, Pearl only original long standing brew was Texas Pride. So, considering this, it makes me wanna say "Yes" to the readdition.

After months of going back and forth, one thing made up my mind. I finally got my hands on a 40oz. of Country Club. Although not the best of beers by far, it's the only Goetz product still in production by anyone, and finding it has gotten increasingly difficult, but that's a whole other story for a diffrent time. After finally tracking down a bottle, I saw on the label what made up my mind. The brewer for Country Club is still listed as the Pearl Brewing Company, the same as Pearl and Pearl Light. Pabst sells all of its beers under the name of the company that originally produced the beer. Thus Lone Star is said to be produced by the Lone Star Brewing Company, and Stroh's is said to be produced by, you guessed it, the Stroh's Brewing Company. Since this article is on the Pearl Brewing Company, and at least on paper, Country Club is still shown as a Pearl produced beer, it made up my mind to readd Country Club to the beerbox and to the article. --Brownings 03:21, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

"Pearl City, Texas" section

Even though there's nothing there, when it does get written, it should go to Pearl City, Texas, not here. I'll remove the section, actually, since it should end up simply being noted in a sentence, not its own section. _└ ^OzLawyer / _talk ^┐ 16:31, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Discussion from my (user:Brownings) talk page about Pearl

This section is a direct copy of the suggestions Oz had for the Pearl page. --Brownings 17:37, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Hey Brownings, I just came across your article here (undoubtedly it can be called yours at the moment). You've done some absolutely spectacular work here, with so much detailed content. It looks like an article that could one day become featured, since you clearly have enough material for a fine article. I have a couple concerns, though.

The first is the lack of footnoted references. You have undoubtedly not written the article off the top of your head, as the extensive list of "references" shows, but footnotes are very sparse. I know it will be a grand undertaking to footnote this article, but it would improve it greatly, is really necessary for a "proper" article, and is absolutely necessary if you ever want to get it featured. I also see that all your references are online. Do you not have any paper sources that you're working from? Despite the less useful nature of a paper source online (in that one cannot click it and immediately see the original), such sources give added authority to an article.

A second concern is article length. You are no doubt aware that when you click to edit the article you get a notice that it is larger than the preferred size. In fact, it's almost twice the preferred size, which is highly undesirable for an article (it is unlikely that a reader will bother to finish it at that size, even if it is a very interesting read). I note that you seem to have much more to add as well, which would eventually bring the article up to mammoth-size. The usual solution to this is to split the article up into sub-articles with a summary section of each article in the main one. However, for an article of this type (on a single company, which isn't even really still in existence) sub-articles would generally not be considered independently viable (sub-topics wouldn't be considered notable enough to warrant their own articles). The only possible sub-article that I could envision being notable enough (and I'm not an expert on what people consider notable here, so it might not fly with others) would be a history article. However, since your article is already primarily history, it seems like it wouldn't be the best route to go. I hate to have to suggest this, and of course you do not have to take my suggestion, but I suggest that you pare down your article. Combine sections where possible and limit the content to only the most relevant parts of the brewery's history.

A final concern is the inclusion of "Indiana" Schmidt and the Lost Mural. I note that you have received permission to include the text, but I'm not entirely sure that is enough due to the combination of the restrictions the author requested and the nature of Wikipedia (anyone can edit any text, and the author expressly forbids her work from being edited). Since I am not an expert on copyright (on or off of Wikipedia) I direct you to WP:COPYREQ where hopefully someone will be able to tell you if Wikipedia allows such a use. I suspect the answer is in the negative, however.

After all that, I hope you don't feel that your article is under attack. My intent is the very opposite; your article has so much potential that I want to ensure that it complies with Wikipedia policy and guidelines so that it can't come under attack, is as well-referenced and constructed as possible, and is set on its way towards eventual featured article status. If there's anything further I can help with to that end, please don't hesitate to leave me a note. Again, I congratulate you on your great work. In fact, you deserve a barnstar. _└ ^OzLawyer / _talk ^┐ 15:22, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

P.S. I noticed that Mikebe wrote you while I was composing the above message and made some complaints about me. Please take his accusations with a grain of salt. I certainly do not think I own beer articles. _└ ^OzLawyer / _talk ^┐ 15:25, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a ton Oz for taking the time to comment on the Pearl page. It’s nice to have my work recognized, and I really appreciate the award. Pearl has grown out of a labor of love over the past year. I'm proud of a lot of the work, but I'm also aware that it could really use some help in a number of areas. While I've compiled most of this information from different sources and talking with ex-employees, I'm no expert at Wikipedia or some of the detailed rules that apply to articles that are more than simple stubs. Clipper471 has helped me a ton with his copyedits, but no one else has really jumped onboard like I had hoped. Over the past year I've talked with reps for both Pabst and Silver Ventures, and while they're very helpful and willing to provide photos, neither have jumped onto the site to added information. Of course come to think of it, that might be a good thing.

The footnotes are a problem that I'm trying to work on. Unfortunately it always seems on the end of an ever growing "to do" list. Hard copy documents when it comes to Pearl seem far and few between. Overall references broke up into the following segments: 10% hard copy information, 50% interviews I've done with Pearl people, and the remaining 40% from the on-line references you see at the bottom of the article. I really need to find the APA format for referencing an interview and start using it. The next section I plan on working on is “Pearl’s sweet tooth,” which some of the information came from two interviews. Before that section goes up, I’ll get the reference format down and at least include it in that section. As for the rest, I’ll have to come up with a plan of action and just tackle them one by one.

I’ll take a look to see what off the top can be moved over to its own page. I already have an individual page for the Texas Transportation Company, and can probably move the sections on “xXx” and the Buck Winn over to their own pages. I think I passed Wikipedia’s recommended length several months ago. I know where you’re coming from on the general reader’s attention level. They’d probably make it past the first couple of paragraphs then just skip down to the photos section. However, I am worried about an older set of former workers who might visit the page from Google or Yahoo!. While its one page, they’ll probably scroll down and read through at least some of the information, but if its broken up into several pages, I’m worried they might think what’s on the main page is all that’s there.

The article inside the Buck Winn section is a problem. I really wish I could just reference it, but it isn’t available in soft or hard form. The copy on Wikipedia is only the second “publishing” the article has ever seen. Other than a printing in the local society flyer in Wimberly, TX it hasn’t see a mass distribution. The author was very worried about someone chopping up her work and killing the flow of it. I think it’s a key part of the Buck Winn story, but how can I satisfy all parties and still use it?

Thanks again Oz for your comments. I appreciate it, and will take them into account as I write additional sections and correct those already in place. --Brownings 05:17, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

New Year, New Content

Happy New Year everyone. Well, the holidays were crazy, but now that their over, back to writing and making corrections on the article. Last night I uploaded the content for "Pearl's sweet tooth" with recounts Pearl's purchase of Judson Candies. The new section includes my new approach for references, which is actually the right way now. The Judson section actually has the references in the paragraphs instead of just a link added to the bottom of the article. Also, I'm hoping to find a good picture to go with the section next time I'm over looking through Charlie Staat's collection.

The holidays weren't completely quiet around here, I was on doing some cleanup and swapping out many of the historical photos for higher resolution versions and sprinkling some of the photos in the text, just to break up the barrage of words. I also got a ton of new historic photos from Silver Ventures. So many in fact that it'll push the historical photos section off into its own page. The article on Pearl is already ridiculously long, and adding all the new photos will push it into the area of insane. Oh, and before I forget, I'd like to send a big thanks out to Clipper. I really appreciate your copyedits, since it's always good to have others check your writing (especially mine!), and Clipper has done an outstanding job. Look forward to more soon for Pearl and hopefully Texas Transportation too! --Brownings 18:14, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Pearl City & Buck Winn sections

More changes to Pearl, I took and worked on these two sections the last few days. Pearl City has it's own article, with just a synopsis here on the Pearl page. The Pearl City page is not that great, but it's a start at least, and about the best I can do till I can get some answers to numerous questions I have.

I've also moved the content for Buck Winn's mural over to its own page. It's great info, but it isn't a "must have" and really helped to cut down on the article's size. The Pearl article is now 49KB instead of the 64KB it was with Winn in it. The new Winn article needs some cleanup, but it's a good start. --Brownings 14:18, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Historic photos

I just finished breaking the historic photos up into sub-sections based on dates. Although it may not seem like it needed it, this is in preparation for a massive update with about 40+ photos coming. Without sub-sectioning the photos will be a nightmare to keep in order. I think the update is coming along nicely, but I do need help however. I've been trying to find guidance on the photos themselves. Part of me wants to break the photo sections off into their own pages, to help cut down on the length of the article. On the other hand, I think moving the photos will prevent just the casual viewer of this page from ever seeing them. Anyone have any recommendations? --Brownings 14:21, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Image copyright status (16 Feb 2007)

I've finally completed the updates to all exsisting images. All images are now marked with either GFDL-no-disclaimers for the images given to me from various individuals/companies, or GFDL-self for those I've taken myself. Only a couple of images remain Copyrighted, such as the logos. All parties are OK with the change since all images are tagged in the comments with where they came from. Hopefully this will help to keep all the pictures up on Wikipedia and active in the article. I've had quite a few problems recently with Wiki members/admins not liking the use of Fair Use Rationale for copyright tagging. --Brownings 15:30, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Failed "good article" nomination

This article failed good article nomination. This is how the article, as of March 4, 2007, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: Pass This article has lots of very good content.

2. Factually accurate?: Fail This article has sections without any citations, please try to put at least one citation per section.

3. Broad in coverage?: Pass Seems to cover every aspect throughout time.

4. Neutral point of view?: Pass Though it could use information about the company's competition.

5. Article stability? Pass

6. Images?: Fail This article has an excess of images, many of which are in the gallery. Please only use important pictures in articles.

When these issues are addressed, the article can be resubmitted for consideration, if you feel that this review was in error feel free to take it to a GA review. Thanks for your work so far. --Tarret 23:18, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the assessment Tarret. I've been working on the citations here and there, but it's a monster task. Looking back, I wish I had put them in while actually writing the content, woulda saved me a lot of headache. As for the images, yes, there is a ton. However, I really think they add to the overall content. I've tried to place only relevant pictures in the sections, i.e. the Prohibition section has a photo from the end of Prohibition. Everything else will be placed down in the gallery. Nice catch though that some images are in both the body and the gallery. It's not suppose to be like that, and I'll head over to the article now to remove them from the gallery section. Overall, I think the article is coming along nicely. Things are going a little slow for my liking, but real life as been ultra hectic, so poor Pearl has had to take a back seat somewhat. Thanks again for the assessment Tarret, and feel free to pop in any time. --Brownings 04:44, 5 March 2007 (UTC)