Talk:Beer in San Diego County, California/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Ritchie333 (talk · contribs) 19:59, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Now, I'm more partial to a glass of Shepherd Neame myself, and my other half (who lived in San Diego for some years) was surprised that beer (as opposed to, say, Tequila) was popular, but I'm not going to let my prejudices get in the way of a good review as it looks like an interesting article to have a look at.

Lead

 * The article is quite short (only 8K of text), but acceptable for a GA, so a paragraph lead sounds about right
 * "with 39 more on the drawing boards" - "drawing boards" sounds rather colloquial, how about "in planning" instead? Also, the source says there are 41 breweries planned, not 39
 * Related to the above : the lead should be a summary of the important facts in the body, therefore the claim of the number of existing and planned breweries should be mentioned somewhere in the article's main body
 * Similarly, there is no mention of "Double India Pale Ale" in the body
 * I'm suspicious of the ratebeer.com source. Where did get its information from, and how does it judge its criteria? Personal opinion again, I admit, but a list without the Westmalle Brewery just seems, well, suspicious! Also, I would have thought to be consistently rated would need either multiple sources, or a source that summed various "best of polls" and drew a general conclusion from them.

History

 * "It [the San Diego Brewing Company] closed in 1920 because of Prohibition. It reopened in 1935" - the source given doesn't have those dates. Obviously the brewery could not have operated after January 17, 1920 as it would have broken the Eighteenth Amendment, but there's no obvious tie-in with the repeal of Prohibition in late 1933 and the brewery's reopening. Also I'm not sure where the tie-in with Mission Valley is in that source.
 * "The Aztec Brewing Company, founded in Mexicali in 1921, moved to San Diego in 1933" - the 1933 date isn't given in the source. It does say "Once Prohibition ended a new brewery was built on Main Street in what is now Barrio Logan in San Diego", but that doesn't imply that the brewery moved premises immediately. Perhaps "after prohibition" would be better?
 * "more than 180 cantinas" - you could also mention "La Ballena—known as “the longest bar in the world”"
 * "in 1982 California allowed breweries to operate restaurants on their premises" - the source given says 1983 (unless I'm looking in the wrong place!)
 * "This was the first commercial brewery in San Diego since 1953" - the 1953 date doesn't appear to be in the Beer Connoisseur source
 * "11 medals went to locals" - this is very a slightly lop-sided POV, as the source says that figure was out of 231 overall winners. I'd put that 231 figure in as well to put everything into context
 * "The "Best Small Brewer" Award has gone to ... " - there isn't a source for this sentence. I'm sure it's an amalgamation of the earlier news pieces; I just can't work out what exactly

Economic impact

 * The citations to the NUS institute source would benefit from page numbers, to make it easier to find the facts and figures given. The rp template could be used for this.

Annual events

 * The first inline citation in this section goes to a login screen

Notable breweries

 * "The company produces nine beers year-round as well as special releases. It also has two brewery restaurants, a store, and a tasting room" - I'm struggling to find where this claim is cited (it doesn't help that one of the sources KEEPS SHOUTING ALL THE TIME ) - can you help me locate it?
 * "eight brewery restaurants in San Diego, Orange, Los Angeles and Riverside counties" - the source given doesn't mention Orange County
 * The sources named "World Beer Cup 2008 Winners List", "World Beer Cup winners database" and "Great American Beer Festival 2008 winners" are a little vague - can you give me more information?
 * "The franchise took five medals at the 2013 Great American Beer Festival" - the source says it took four medals

Images

 * No issues here. Interesting that a picture of some beer bottles would require a non-free rationale though!

Response

 * Thank you for undertaking this review! I fixed "drawing boards" and updated the number; that site is updated frequently, so information can get out of date even within the month. And thanks for pointing out that some of the things in the lead should be in the article, either instead or in more detail. I will work on those as I can. Unfortunately I am about to go on a week-long wikibreak, so if you can give me a little more time (while continuing your review) I would appreciate it. Thanks again! --MelanieN (talk) 20:29, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I've finished the review now. The prose is well written and informative, and it's particularly interesting to read about the brewing activities. In the UK, US beers generally have a bad reputation. generally because all we normally see are international exports from the "big three", although I am well aware that even Budweiser is far more palatable in its native form. So it's good to read about the renaissance of the brewing industry to produce something more palatable (though perhaps not to the extreme levels of Brewmeister, granted). Anyway, most of the issues are just minor fact checking (something that's quite refreshing to do during a GA review as frequently I have to just trust the book or newspaper cited is correct), so I'll put the review on hold. The standard time is 7 days, but I'm personally happy to leave a review held for as long as takes as long as I have confidence that the issues are easily fixable. Enjoy your week off! Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  20:50, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your very detailed review! and helpful suggestions. I will get to work on this as soon as I can, and I will notify you when I think I have it in shape. --MelanieN (talk) 08:00, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Fixed, hopefully
OK, I have gone through your detailed suggestions and I think I have fixed most of the issues. A couple of things I didn't change:
 * "La Ballena" -I didn't add that; it seemed rather peripheral to Beer in San Diego County
 * "In 1982 California allowed breweries to operate restaurants on their premises" - the date of that law was 1982, see bottom of page 24. The "1983" that you saw might refer to the date the first such brewpub opened.
 * About the vaguely defined offline references to "World Cup 2008 Winners List" - at the time I wrote the article those lists were only downloadable. They are now online so I have linked them. The "database" I mentioned still does not seem to be online, and since the cited fact contains multiple years it would be cumbersome to cite to each year's list.
 * "The franchise took five medals" - actually yes, four for the Pizza Port part of the franchise and a fifth one for Lost Abbey.

I'm so glad you had me do this, the article is much better now! For one thing the medals lists were seriously out of date. For another the Double IPA item really did need expansion and explanation. And although I had claimed that we pioneered "several" beer styles, Double IPA was the only one I could document, so I took out "several".

Man - now I'm thirsty! I'm not much of an IPA fan, I think I'll go for a Hefeweizen. Happen to have some in the fridge. --MelanieN (talk) 22:36, 10 December 2014 (UTC)


 * - Okay, we're almost there, the new sources means the article is much more verifiable and accurate and the explanation of Double IPA and its strength helps too. The only problem I can see is with the citation to the San Diego Beer Week (which previously went to a login screen but now goes to the main home page) - it doesn't say that the festival launched in 2009. As soon as we can find a source for that, I think we're done. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  09:50, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually, that's such a simple fact, I can cite that, which I've done. So I'm happy to say I can now pass the review - well done! Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  09:56, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much for all your effort to improve this article! --MelanieN (talk) 14:52, 11 December 2014 (UTC)