Patsperro

BJCP

Hello and welcome to wikipedia. As a new user, I thought I'd warn you about the history of the BJCP and wikipedia beer articles. First off I AM a homebrewer and I love beer. However, the BJCP is not very accurate on many foreign beer "styles"...Belguim in particular. There is a lot of back and forth on when, if ever, it is appropriate to use the BJCP as a source on beer articles. The biggest concern is the presciptionist philosophy saying "This is how a Tripel shall be made" when in reality, many real Tripels do not follow the "rules". Also the source material for any history which is presented in the guideline is never properly cited, making it poor source material. Please join the WikiProject Beer if it so interests you. Read the archives in the talk page to get an idea of the concerns that many European beer lovers have brought up with the BJCP.

Happy editing. Beakerboy (talk) 20:24, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Why is the BJCP inaccurate? Its not meant to be the end all authority on beer, just an extra link that people can access if they choose to. Patsperro (talk) 17:36, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

A perfect example of its inaccuracy is the Triple. In Belgium, a tripel can be light of dark in color. The BJCP says it MUST be pale. Also above I mentioned the prescriptionist philosophy. For example, The witbeer guideline says the OG is 1.044 to 1.052. What if a brewery makes a beer matching all other characteristics, but with an OG of 1.053. Is it no longer a witbeer? BJCP says it must be a Belgian Specialty Ale. I'd argue that it's what the brewer wants to call it.

Finally, If you insist on placing BJCP links in articles, please place them in the external links section, not in the body of the article. There's no reason that you should have placed a BJCP link in the header of the Jolly Pumpkin article as it's irrelevant to the history of the brewery. If you concede that it isn't the end all authority on beer, then why not use something which is more of an authority, like a beer history book which has been properly researched, as a citation source. The BJCP itself has stated on several occasions that it is ONLY to be thought of as a guide for homebrewing beer...nothing more. Personally, I'm fine with adding an external link to the BJCP site, just as there are links to the American Kennel Club on dog breed articles, however, there is much better source material out there for the history and evolution of beer in different countries. That's all I was trying to let you know about.Beakerboy (talk) 14:00, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

PS...a good rule of thumb is to keep our entire conversation in one place so we can easily follow it. Leave any response here, and leave a quick note on my talk page that you responded. Thanks.Beakerboy (talk) 14:00, 14 April 2009 (UTC)