Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hog's Back Brewery

This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was KEEP. Postdlf 23:33, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hog's Back Brewery

This is a very small brewery, and is not notable as per the requirements set out in Wikipedia:Wikiproject Beer (it produces around 7,000 barrels per year, and we set the cutoff at 15,000 barrels per year). To judge for yourself, go to their website at http://www.hogsback.co.uk —Sean κ. ⇔ 03:35, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Keep! I think you mean Wikipedia:WikiProject Beer. However, this says nothing about any cutoff at any number of barrels. A good thing too, as in my opinion (very likely no more valuable than yours) the product of this brewery is considerably more noteworthy than the uninteresting fizzy stuff churned out by Anheuser-Busch, Asahi, and the like. If it isn't so popular, blame mass stupidity, the power of advertising as applied to rivals' near-beer, etc. Hogs Back Brewery -- as it should be retitled as soon as it has survived the indignity of VfD (though I notice that the company itself sometimes uses an apostrophe) -- makes superb ales, among which I particularly recommend "Brewster's Bundle". Here we see a Hogs Back beer winning a silver award from CAMRA. If Wikipedia:WikiProject Beer really has this criterion, it's a damned silly criterion, In My Haughty Opinion. I'd say I'd buy a (virtual) pint of Hogs Back for anyone voting "keep" if I didn't worry that this might be regarded as undemocratic. And no I'm not related to the company other than as an occasional (since I live half a world away) but very happy customer. -- Hoary 07:22, 2005 Apr 19 (UTC)
• Abstain, I'm not entirely sure about this one. It's got a lot of weasel terms and not all that much info. I'd be more inclined to keeping if a brewery infobox was added. That said, I do agree that a production cut-off isn't really the best way to determine notability. Is it on sale worldwide? What is it's market share in the UK? Mgm|^(talk) 08:31, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)
  • Answers: You can buy Hogs Back beer here; this page says (via various, perhaps beery spelling mistakes) that the company ships outside Britain. The market share within Britain will be very low, of course -- isn't this obvious from the production figures? But let's consider music for a moment: the market share of Harrison Birtwistle would appear infinitesimal beside that of, say, the beloved diva Ashlee Simpson; but WP contributors realize that in music, if not beer, there's a certain notability in quality and originality as well as sales. -- Hoary 08:59, 2005 Apr 19 (UTC)
• Keep part of the importance of English beer (currently working on expanding this) is in its diversity and craft traditions, and almost none of the important breweries are large. Hogs Back is very widely available compared to many other beers. Justinc 10:39, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: as an illustration, it's the one interesting (non-mass-market) beer available in the restaurants of several National Trust "properties". That's where I first encountered it. -- Hoary 11:06, 2005 Apr 19 (UTC)
• Keep! Level of production should not be a criterion of notability when judging craft breweries. Many award-winning beers are produced by very small breweries. --Ascorbic 11:51, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, I agree with the above. Production should not be a criteria for judging these breweries, there are many award-winning breweries I can think of in the UK whose production is very limited in material terms. This article does need some cleanup though. Rje 14:13, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete Comment Well since I nominated it, I guess I should vote, if just to have a dissenting view. I certainly agree that volume of sales isn't the only mark of notability, but it is an important one. But I do disagree that the taste or quality of the beer matters. I mean... I make a damn fine homebrew, but I bet you guys won't let me include it ;). Something tells me this article will happily see the light of day... next time I'll post VfD on the project page first. —Sean κ. ⇔ 14:21, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: When your homebrew wins some national awards, then go ahead! ;) --ascorbic 18:17, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • BTW, you don't get to vote here, since you nominated it. If you had comments to add then you're supposed to add the comments without an additional "keep" or "delete". Tempshill 18:30, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Shows what I know ;) —Sean κ. ⇔ 18:40, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • You did fine. It's just so that when admins look over the votes, it doesn't look, at a glance, like there's an additional vote weighing one way or the other. We need better beer articles here, by the way; glad you're on it. 208.57.241.45 19:48, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. This seems like a regionally popular brewery in part of the UK, not unlike, say, the Sprecher Brewery of Wisconsin. Shimmin 01:30, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, there should be a low bar of inclusion for beer, as for almost everything else. Kappa 03:12, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: the "bar" (?) already is low: Miller Lite [sic], which is about as low as what's ever called "beer" can get, even gets its own article. It's described as a "popular pilsner beer". (I wonder what the good people of Pilsen make of that.) -- Hoary 03:25, 2005 Apr 20 (UTC)
    • Comment I have been trying very hard to keep individual beers out, and removed most of the rest of the Miller product range stubs, merging them in the main article. Miller Lite did however have quite a large number of links to it, so I judged it had some cultural significance. As for the good people of Plzen, for some reason there is almost no Czech beer coverage at all, which is embarrassing and I intend to rectify it soon. Justinc 10:08, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, Inclusionism for Beer (To be said with an autralian accent). Klonimus 08:17, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Cburnett 01:01, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.