Talk:History of beer/Archive 1

The beginnings of beer
"The modern anthropologist Alan Eames believes that 'beer was the driving force that led nomadic mankind into village life...It was this appetite for beer-making material that led to crop cultivation, permanent settlement and agriculture.'" i think a citation would be really useful there (forgive the sloppiness. im not much of a contributor at all, still gets the point across though)

It is ludicrous to imagine that agriculture and urbanization developed on account of the desire to pull a drunk!

Such cum hoc ergo propter hoc wild speculation does not deserve citation in a serious artcle, and should be deleted.

Notability criteria discusion document
A discussion document has been opened up. WikiProject Beer/Notability Criteria. Please put in your views either on the main page or on the attached talk page. If we want to list every brewery on the planet then I feel we should get some valid criteria behind us. SilkTork 16:43, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Include portion in Homebrewing article?
Right now, the history section of the Homebrewing article is in serious need of more information. As the history of beer is a superset of the history of homebrewing, how about adding a summary portion and one of those "click here for full article" deals on the homebrewing article? pACMANx 19:17, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Carbonation
When was beer first carbonated? Surely this is critical to the history of beer. ~MDD4696 03:43, 18 October 2006 (UTC)


 * (Beyond the natural carbonation from the fermentation). ~MDD4696 03:28, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Who had the terrible idea of pumping carbon dioxide into beer?!--Moonlight Mile 00:04, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Beer in Ancient Languages and Scripts
I would be nice to have beer written in ancient languages (cuneiform, egyptian hieroglyphs), and an approximate spelling of these words. Albmont 10:53, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Possible Contradiction Regarding Yeast
The article states that the "Worshipful Company of Brewers" mentioned yeast as an acceptable ingredient, yet the "Reinheitsgebot" (which came some years later) does not--and for good reason: yeast was scientifically unknown until several hundred years later. Of course brewers would have realized that spontaneous fermentation was occurring, but were they aware that this process was due to wild yeasts? There was certainly no controlled use of selected yeast strains at the time (in this respect, all beer was what we would today call "lambic"). I've found another mention of this supposed edict:

"Brewers in England complained to the Mayor of London about hops and noted that there was 'a deceivable and unholesome fete in bruying of ale within the said citee nowe of late [that] is founde in puttyng of hoppes and other things in the said ale, contrary to the good and holesome manner of bruynge of Ale of old tyme used. . . . Pleas it therfore your saide good lordshyppe to forbid the putting into ale of any hops, herbs, or other like thing, but only licour, malte, and yeste.'"

The above link cites "Arnold. Origin and History of Beer and Brewing, page 375" as a source of the ancient quote. The question becomes, how accurate are Arnold's sources? --SwillNoMore 13:32, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

priming
When was beer first sealed into vessels that could handle pressure, so as to carbonate it? What were these vessels? T boyd 09:26, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Not sure on the actual sealed vessels, but Napolean commisioned a Frenchman to provide a means to transport food without spoiling, hence canned food today. The sealed vessels that he used were wine bottles, but now thinking about it the French had champagne way before Napolean. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.163.0.43 (talk) 16:20, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Industrial Revolution section
This doesn't seem to be written in an encyclopedic style. I made a go at it, but rather than just reverting my edit back to the conversationally-worded version, can we try to come to some kind of consensus as to how it should read? I don't want to step on anyone's toes, and there's good information in there, but we should come at it in a way that's a little more conducive to reference rather than a Bill Bryson history, entertaining as they are. Voxish (talk) 19:07, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Food and drink Tagging
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Blessing
The following stmt:
 * The invention of bread and beer has been argued to be responsible for humanity's ability to develop technology and build civilization.

I say especially beer! Beer is in fact liquid creativity, beside the scientifically attested fact that drinking a couple of mugs makes the drinker more intelligent, strong and beautiful. ... said: Rursus ( m bork³ ) 15:32, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Paragraph that needs removal
I was struck by the following paragraph in the "Modern Beer" section. I won't post the whole thing.

"By doing so, beer relates to the Constructionist Theory of Communication, and further James R. Taylors, theory of Communication as Complex Organizing. Beer has broken down into many different styles and flavors where people throughout the world have chosen a certain beer as their favorite beer. By doing this, they are establishing an organized structure of beer. Taylor says, “organization already exists” (Taylor, 133), which follows the Constructionist theory because we are born into the world of communication. In the United States, certain people believe Pabst Blue Ribbon beer is the best beer in the world, and by doing this they are creating their own organization of Pabst Blue Ribbon fans. They would understand and compare other beers based on their taste for Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. A person who selects a certain beer as their favorite beer automatically falls into the organization of that beer. The way companies get their message out would be through Taylor’s concept of “Text”, which he says “We can define text, in the simplest way perhaps by saying it is language that is functional” (Taylor,136). They send text through video commercial, or advertisements in magazines all trying to get people to join their organization. Their text is functional, trying to recruit new fans. Each of a company’s text is trying to make their product most desirable. While each beer company shares similar text, the entire industry shares what Taylor calls, Metaconversation. Metaconversation is the entire world of beer in one giant bubble. As human beings we select our favorite beers due to different reasons. But we must keep in mind that while enjoying your favorite brew, you are part of a complex organization of beer. You may believe your favorite beer is the better than all others, but you must look at the entire structure to see that your beer is not different from any others."

I can see that some pretentious cultural studies major has come along and posted part of a term paper or something. It's not even original. S/he has just applied someone else's wishy-washy (and non-historiographical) theory to beer. It certainly has very little to do with the history of beer, and the tone sharply contrasts to the more properly historical (i.e. as a social science) tone of the rest of the article. The citations are parenthetical, which is a no-no on Wikipedia. I have no idea what text s/he's referencing because it's not listed at the bottom of the page. It is poorly written and laden with jargon. The author hasn't bothered to assume that something so convoluted might need a little more explication. It has little meaningless sentences so characteristic of cultural studies, such as:

"the entire industry shares what Taylor calls, Metaconversation. Metaconversation is the entire world of beer in one giant bubble."

Uh huh. Excise this thing immediately. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.115.137.47 (talk) 03:56, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

History
Development of the article before being moved

This article is a disordered mess and does not do justice to beer
This article is as disogragnized as it is poorly written. It is simply not up to wikipedia standards. The history of beer deserves more respect than this article.

The article beings with contradictions as to the age of beer some stating it originated anywhere from 4000 BCe to 7000 BCE. Could a mod please read through this article and give it some coherence? After that I think doing research would be facilitated by a promising template. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.108.31.35 (talk) 22:14, 10 December 2009 (UTC)