Talk:Goose Island Brewery

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I'm not sure exactly the difference between "English bitter" (as Honker's had been described) and "Pale ale". However I know I've read Honker's described as a pale ale, and there's an article for it, so I changed it. I'm not trying to say one categorization is neccessarily better than the other. Friday 03:47, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

In general "English bitter" is a subset of "English Pale Ale", it's a more specific label. I called it an English bitter since that's what Beeradvocate called it. Goose Island themselves call it "a pale ale" as well as a "fine English-style brew". Sounds like a bitter, but I don't see any reason to change it back. I'm going to see if I can sit down and look over the Wikipedia Beer stuff to see if we can get a proposed list of beer types together so we're all talking the same language and not redlinking all over the place. -- Kaszeta 13:16, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I fixed this problem by making the link read "English-Style Bitter" while actually directing to "English Bitter". Likewise I directed "American Wheat" to "Wheat Beer". I realize that somewhere like Beer Advocate would delineate betwen a true English Bitter and then the American interpretation of it, but Wikipedia's beer articles don't appear to split hairs that fine. I think that changing redirects like this could fix a lot of the "redlinking" problems on many of the beer pages' infoboxes. I've only done so here because Goose Island is one of my preferred breweries!

I also changed the Christmas Ale to be a Winter Warmer, as that article now exists! (Though someone can correct me if I'm wrong - is it malty enough to be a Warmer?) I deleted the "varies" after the name due to size constraints, but I am aware of the fact that the brewery tweaks their recipe each winter. This should probably be notated somewhere in the article.--JD79 18:20, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

WP:FOOD Tagging

This article talk page was automatically added with {{WikiProject Food and drink}} banner as it falls under Category:Restaurants or one of its subcategories. If you find this addition an error, Kindly undo the changes and update the inappropriate categories if needed. You can find the related request for tagging here -- TinucherianBot (talk) 09:38, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

New Commentator

Hi, my name is Ben Zientara. I am a student at Minneapolis Community and Technical College, where I am currently enrolled in an English class, the objective of which is to teach students how to research, verify sources, write, and build consensus for edits to a Wikipedia article, with the goal of helping that article become one of Wikipedia's Featured Articles. I, along with two others, have chosen to change the structure of and add information to this article. Working within Wikipedia's guidelines for Featured Articles, we will be using several new sources of information in order to make the article more comprehensive and better-researched. The proposed new structure will consist of the following subject headings:

--History
--Brewpubs
--Products
  --Beers
    --year round
    --seasonal
    --special release
  --Sodas
--Awards

Under this new structure, we intend to make the article better, and we hope we can do it with the help and support of the Wikipedia community. Look for our user names, benzientara, jacobvon, and markell_hayes, in future edits. I am sure i speak for all of us when I say we would appreciate and help and suggestions that you wish to make, and we look forward to partnering with the community to improve the quality of an article about the beer company we all love. We will endeavor to ensure that our editing, reorganization, and addition of information is appropriately neutral, professional, and intellectually sound, and that our ideas are welcomed by the group of users who have been involved in the beginnings of this article.

Thank you, Ben Zientara 11/4/2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Benzientara (talk • contribs) 19:13, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Expanded outsourcing

I recently bought a case of Goose Island brewed in Baldwinsville, New York. From that article, I notice there's an A-B brewery there, so I assume the purchase of Goose Island means that there's more outsourced brewing going on than just New Hampshire on the East Coast. I live in Idaho, though I got this beer from a Grocery Outlet, so I don't think it was intended for a Western market. I don't know if A-B is brewing them everywhere, but they have a plant in Boise. --BDD (talk) 21:50, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

They now sell it in Canada. Based on the locations listed on the can (London, Creston, Edmonton, Montreal, Halifax, St. John's, Canada), I suspects Labatt is brewing it, which makes sense since Labatt is owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev.24.78.212.147 (talk) 04:26, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Outdated

@Cubbie15fan: Hello. Could you please describe how the article is outdated? Thanks. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 23:44, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

@Mudwater: The intro section of the article is written as if the sale of the company to AB InBev has not yet occurred when it was finalized in 2011. Examples include "Goose Island announced that it would be selling" and "Greg Hall will step down as brewmaster"

In my judgement, the following info should be added:

• Finalized details about the sale to AB InBev
• Information on current brewmaster(s)
• Details on which facilities Goose Island is brewed in US outside of Chicago (I believe I've seen NY and CO, but unsure)
• Goose Island being available in all 50 states Tribune before it occurred and Tribune after it ocured
• Former brewers who have left to start their own craft beer companies such as Bell's Brewery, Firestone Walker Brewing Company, Revolution Brewing, etc.Tribune reference
• Information about the fall 2014 closing and spring 2015 re-opening of the Wrigelyville Brewpub, given the wide ranging media coverage Closing reference Re-opening reference
• Information about the Near West Side tasting room that opened in spring 2015 in their brewery location at 1800 W. Fulton Crain's Chicago Business reference
• Any new beers made available on national level such as Four Star Pils Tribune
• Clarification regarding timeline for Goose Island soda given the clause "For several years, the WIT Beverage Company licensed..." Possible citation

Cubbie15fan (talk) 15:02, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

@Cubbie15fan: Very good. Thanks. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 23:18, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Here are some more recent developments:

• February 2016: Goose Island sells original brewpub to Anheuser-Busch
• December 2016: Goose Island going global with pubs, brewhouses in 6 countries
• January 2017: Goose Island's Clybourn brewpub closing for 5-month renovation

— Mudwater ^(Talk)

@Cubbie15fan: I updated the article, how does it look? Robcuiper (talk) 12:59, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Awards, promotion, and notability

@Dragonmaw: Hello. About this recent edit, where you removed the list of awards: I'm all for Wikipedia articles being neutral in tone and following WP:NOTPROMOTION. But, three things. (1) In an article about a brewery, it's appropriate to mention the major awards that they've won. (If you go to https://www.greatamericanbeerfestival.com/the-competition/winners/ and change the first drop-down to "all years" and search for "goose island", you'll see that they've won quite a few awards at the Great American Beer Festival.) (2) You also removed the list of their beers. I'm thinking that that could be put back, either as-is or in a different form. (3) As far as WP:NOTABILITY, please don't overlook the WP:NNC section, which says that notability guidelines do not apply to content within an article. They're just to determine if the subject itself (in this case the Goose Island Brewery) should have its own article. It says, "Content coverage within a given article or list (i.e. whether something is noteworthy enough to be mentioned in the article or list) is governed by the principle of due weight and other content policies." Thanks. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 00:35, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Hi! To address your points

1) This is true. But listing every award for every beer is not only excessive, it's blatant advertising. Part of determining which content we should include is also what stuff is most relevant to an encyclopedic format, and listing every single beer by a beer company is not appropriate.

2) The list of beers uses the company's site exclusively for reference, and also serves no encyclopedic purpose. It is advertising for this company's beers. It's a pretty clear violation of WP:SOAP and WP:TRIVIA, as it A) does not use third-party sources that are independently verifiable and B) that information is all visible on the company's page. The rule of thumb is: if it's better suited for a company's page, don't put it here. We are here to do our due diligence as encyclopedia editors, and that means keeping the information contained her accurate, notable, verifiable, and non-advertising.

3) Notability guidelines apply to all of Wikipedia. They apply to references, to content, and to the article itself. It is the core of what Wikipedia is. While the taxonomy of Wikipedia editing guidelines may specify this differently, it's really quite simple: content in an article should adhere to encyclopedic norms. A list of beers and locations are not notable for an encyclopedia to include, especially when all the references point to the same site and give roughly the same information (see WP:OVERCITE).

Dragonmaw (talk) 18:18, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

@Mudwater:, thanks for catching this case of content blanking. I agree with your assessment above so I just reverted the page back. Listing awards from either Great American Beer Festival or from World Beer Cup is not a case of WP:SOAP. It is also notable as its no different than listing an athlete's award on their page. Definitely not a case of advertising in listing something that has occurred. Cubbie15fan (talk) 16:12, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

It is a violation of WP:SOAP if you list every single award in a massive table that takes up half this page, because it is implicitly advertising each of those beers. An appropriate awards section condenses that information into the most relevant and appropriate awards, and leaves the rest in references.

Again, I can't stress enough that this is an encyclopedia. We have to make tough decisions about what to trim. I'm sorry that my edits hurt, but it's ultimately for the health of this page.

I do plan on going through the list of awards and beers later to find bits worthy of inclusion, but again: if it's information primarily found on a single outside site, especially if it's the company's website, it's a violation of WP:SOAP. Referencing different sub-pages of the same site forty times in a row is not appropriate; see WP:OVERCITE.

Dragonmaw (talk) 18:18, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

@Dragonmaw:I agree with you that better, third party sources can and should be used for some of the content on this page. However, removal of content is not the way to go about this. This is not a case of WP:TRIVIA, nor of WP:SOAP. Likewise, the concept of WP:NCC must be considered here. Readers of the article may be interested in the styles of beer Goose Island produces. Each is a distinct style, that some readers care about. Additionally, with each of your three page edits, content with third part sources was blatantly removed w/o explanation. Based upon your contributions to WP, it seems as though you have a history of removing massive amounts of content. Perhaps the content isn't important to you, but other readers do care about this information. Same goes for the awards, its not advertisement its simply stating significant facts that have occurred. Cubbie15fan (talk) 20:58, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

@Cubbie15fan: Removal of content is absolutely the correct way to do this. We are not an advertising platform. I also provided general reasoning as to those edits (removal of content which is inappropriate or otherwise not notable enough for Wikipedia). You are ignoring the broader context of the article to focus on blind addition of information, which is short-sighted and damaging to Wikipedia and this article.

If readers are interested in the items that Goose Island Brewery produces, they are welcome to visit the company page, as there is a list of them there (http://www.gooseisland.com/our-beers#calendar). Same for the full list of awards which Goose Island has received (http://www.gooseisland.com/our-beers#awards). But listing all of them here makes this page unreadable at best, implicit advertising at worst, as it is replicating the advertising information from the company's page. Condense that information when you add it back, or leave it out, but I will keep removing the full list.

I'm calling @Orangemike: here, as his input on the Barcade talk page was what convinced me I should do edits like this to other articles. Dragonmaw (talk) 21:05, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

I've invited the members of WikiProject Beer to contribute to this discussion. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 21:43, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

By all means! More input is better. Dragonmaw (talk) 22:55, 14 July 2017 (UTC)