Talk:Brewing

British English

This page is meant to be written in British English but continuously is being changed to American. Perhaps semi-protection or similar may be needed? CoconutOctopus (talk) 19:18, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Done. We don't protect for one instance, but looking back, there have been assorted inappropriate or disruptive edits by IP accounts, and very few helpful edits. SilkTork (talk) 21:27, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protection

This article has been semi-protected. Semi-protection prevents edits from unregistered users (IP addresses), as well as edits from any account that is not autoconfirmed (is at least four days old and has at least ten edits to Wikipedia) or confirmed. Such users can request edits to this article by proposing them on this talk page, using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template if necessary to gain attention. New users may also request the confirmed user right by visiting Requests for permissions. SilkTork (talk) 21:29, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 June 2024

In the Boiling -> Wort cooling section I would like a reference to the Cold liquor tank which currently has few pointers to it. The specific text edit I would like is change:

The cooling medium, usually water, goes through the other gaps.

to:

The cooling medium, usually water from a Cold liquor tank, goes through the other gaps.

I found the Cold liquor tank page and have made some significant improvements to it though it still needs to be cited and crosslinked to the relevant pages. The initial Cold liquor tank page had broken English and was describing a specific brewery, in India from what I could tell, rather than breweries in general. The edits I made to the Cold liquor tank page are from my knowledge of the brewing industry (I am involved in the design of the brewery factory improvements). I will work on the page over the coming days if I get the time to finish off the cross linking but I really don't have any sources for the information other than my experience working on these facilities and knowledge I gained by talking to guys in their 70s who refuse to retire about how breweries function. TheMuffinManNZ (talk) 09:28, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

 Already done ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 02:47, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Correction: Brewing process

In the article on the Brewing process, it is stated "...they will be milled or crushed to break apart the kernels and expose the cotyledon, which contains the majority of the carbohydrates and sugars; this makes it easier to extract the sugars during mashing."

In cereal grains, the majority of the starch is from the endosperm. The cotyledon, called the scutellum in cereal grains, is a tiny structure supporting the embryo. It is rich in protein and lipid, not starch. The scutellum and outer layer of the endosperm (aleurone layer) secrete amylases to the endosperm to digest the starch. Ncarpita (talk) 12:02, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for this information Ncarpita. Do you have sources. so we can use that information in the article. SilkTork (talk) 02:58, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Correction has been made. SilkTork (talk) 12:15, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Brewing/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: SilkTork (talk · contribs) 12:23, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 20:10, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

Comments

Overall the article is clear, covers the ground well, and is well cited, so my comments will be on minor aspects only.

• The lead is partially cited for no evident reason; of the 9 refs, [1] and [2] occur only in the lead so something is wrong there. Best would be to move those refs out to the article body, and to remove [3..9] from the lead.

I've found the place where cite 1 and 2 were needed in the main body. I changed cite 2 as I couldn't access the appropriate page. I've worked on this article for a long time, so my memory of what occurred years ago is a little hazy, though I do recall there were challenges to some aspects in the lead which is why the cites are there (per MOS:CITELEAD). SilkTork (talk) 08:17, 27 August 2026 (UTC)

• History: "in what is today Iran." - why not just say "in ancient Persia".

I just looked into why I might have said it that way round, and in doing so I've become aware that more recent research indicates that the earliest evidence is no longer considered to be the Iranian evidence. There is this, which indicates that evidence for brewing beer in present-day Israel around 13,000 years ago was found in Raqefet Caves. Interestingly, this was done by hunter gatherers well before cereal domestication, which is kinda more evidence that hunter gathers settled in one place in order to grow cereal to make beer and bread. Anyway, I'll need to do a bit more work on the article to include that info, so I'll come back to this one later. SilkTork (talk) 08:36, 27 August 2026 (UTC)

Done. SilkTork (talk) 06:29, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

• "artisanal manufacture to industrial manufacture" - why not just drop the first "manufacture".

Done. I have no problem with you making any obvious copy edits as you go through. I know your work. I trust your judgement. Up to you. I tend to find it easier to make copy edits than to write them out, but you may prefer it this way. SilkTork (talk) 08:39, 27 August 2026 (UTC)

• Ingredients: "Less widely used starch sources include ... among others" - remove the "among others" as redundant.

Done. SilkTork (talk) 08:41, 27 August 2026 (UTC)

• Water: "will add gypsum" - suggest drop the "will". Ditto other instances.

Done. That was good advice. SilkTork (talk) 01:05, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

• Starch source: "sparging" is suddenly introduced here. It's correctly defined in 'Brewing process' (below), so it would be best to avoid the term here as it's a side-track and redundant too. It's actually a bit misplaced in 'Starch source' as the "fibrous husk" is not supplying starch anyway (and "amylase" and "gluten" aren't starch either). I think a bit of reorganising (an additional heading perhaps) would help here.

Done. I hope I've made clearer the reason for the mention of husk and the amylase. I've retained some mention of Sorghum and gluten-free, with the link to Gluten-free beer as I feel that serves a purpose. I have resisted the temptation to mention that the supremely delicious Guinness Foreign Stout made in Nigeria contains sorghum, though I would urge people to try it. SilkTork (talk) 05:23, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

• Hops: "the hop vine Humulus lupulus - the Latin name denotes the species, not the vine. Needs a little rewording.

Done. SilkTork (talk) 01:15, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

• "Before the thirteenth century ... known as beer." is a 77-word sentence. Would be better to split it.

Done. SilkTork (talk) 01:18, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

• Brewing process: "preservative nature will decrease." - suggest "... nature decreases."

Done. SilkTork (talk) 01:19, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

• "fined in the cask." - the wikilink is useful, but a gloss about fining would be helpful here.

Done. SilkTork (talk) 01:25, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

• Whirlpool: "The whirlpool was devised ... in the centre of the whirlpool tank." is a long sentence that wobbles (whirls?) from one verb to another. Best split it up.

Done. SilkTork (talk) 06:28, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

• Hopback: "Furthermore, while a whirlpool ... (as ... as easily), in general ... (as ... hopback)." is a bit tangled with the repeated parentheses. Suggest a split and rewrite, without parentheticals.

Done. SilkTork (talk) 06:28, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

• Filtering: the first paragraph repeatedly explains shine/brilliance/drops bright/bright appearance and shine. The final sentence ("Beer with a clear appearance .... bright appearance and shine.") is itself long, wobbly, and repetitive. Suggest a careful rewrite of the paragraph into short clear sentences.

Done. SilkTork (talk) 06:28, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

All done bar the Iran part, which I will copy and paste below to help me find it again. SilkTork (talk) 17:23, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

Images

• All the images are on Commons and are plausibly licensed.

• All are clearly relevant to the article.

• The 16th century brewery caption is missing the artist/engraver (J. Amma) and could do with a fuller caption stating what activities can be seen in the image.

Done. SilkTork (talk) 09:12, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

• The Alulu beer receipt's caption is admirable ... but what is Alulu? It sounds like a place but the location is given as Umma.

That is the name of the brewer. Updated. SilkTork (talk) 08:48, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

• Where is Brasserie La Chouette? (Hordain, Nord)

The brewery itself isn't important. The image is used simply to show the reader brew kettles. And where the brewery is located is even less important. Our article on the town, Hordain, only provides a single sentence that it's a commune (town) in northern France. I've improved the caption to say "northern France". SilkTork (talk) 10:57, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

• Open vessels image is missing brewery (Black Sheep, Masham, Yorkshire).

• Anchor Brewing Company is missing location (San Francisco)

• Cask ales is missing location (Didsbury, Manchester)

Captions enhanced where appropriate. SilkTork (talk) 16:34, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

References

• [26] Water for Brewing has no publisher/website.
• [28] 1911 EB is oddly cited.
• [32] Marks 2012 is missing the actual entry (beer? brewing?) or page.
• [40] Rabin 1998 is missing the page.
• [43] Blanco is missing the publisher/website.
• [44] Burgess 1964 is missing the page.
• [65] Hornsey 2004 is missing the page.
• [74] Van den Steen 2004 is missing the page, language, and trans-title.
• [75] Bier brouwen 2008 is missing language, trans-title, and publisher.
• [77] Kunze 2004 has dead archive link.
• [78] Yiu 2004 is missing the page.
• [79] Lauter tun use 2010 archive link didn't load.
• [108] Colicchio 2011 is missing the page or entry.
• [109] Hansen 1896 is missing the page.
• [125] Briggs 2004 is missing the ISBN.
• [129] Meussdoerffer 2009 is missing the publisher and ISBN, and the page range is very broad.
• [130] Boulton 2008 is missing the page and ISBN.
• [141] Thomas 2011 is missing the page.
• [158] Barons Beverage Services: what makes this a reliable source?
• [173] Ferraz et al is missing authors, forenames, and date; and the journal is incorrectly formatted.
• [178] New Statesman is missing the date and author. The link is dead but archived (so the url-status seems to be missing). The archive didn't load.
• [179] Adelaide Times is missing title, date; author would be useful if it's given.
• [180] Papazian is missing forename (Charles), publisher, and page.

• The 'Sources' entry for Rabin is visibly unlinked, despite the ref to it; all the other sources are not in a citation template so do not show up as unlinked (though they are). It would be much better to make actual links (using sfn, harvnb, etc) between refs and sources to make the sourcing properly navigable and consistent.

• At the moment one ref ("market") is list-defined, which makes no sense; it should be inline like all the rest.

• Multiple URLs are archived but without the |url-status=dead parameter (in the cite template), so the reader can be misled into following the dead URL. It would be best to fix this in all instances throughout the article.

• The formatting of authors is inconsistent: all the sources are Last, First ("Bloggs, Joe R.") but most of the refs are First Last (Joe R. Bloggs) with exceptions like Papazian (no forename) and "Ferraz et al", while [168] "Heuzé V.," is more or less in Vancouver but with additional full stops. It would be best to use Last, First throughout really, using |last= |first= to do the formatting automatically.

This was very thorough! Is there a tool which finds these cite errors? I'd like to use that. Anyway, all done. SilkTork (talk) 16:33, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

Several items don't seem to have been addressed (eg Water for Brewing still has no publisher/website, etc); and the new [15], [16] both display as blanks ("...")? Chiswick Chap (talk) 22:23, 29 August 2026 (UTC)

Bugger. I edited that offline because i wanted to edit both Lead and History and then copy pasted it in. I messed up, and lost all of the History section first time, and now it looks like when I restored it I still didn't return all the History text. I'll recover that now. SilkTork (talk) 16:19, 30 August 2026 (UTC)

Spot-checks

• [1] [14] [25] [37] [52] all ok.
• [64] (History of Beer 2005) does not mention "copper", "kettle", or "boil", need replacement source.
• [75], [76]: partially verified, but neither seem to cover the mash tun's insulation or false bottom. Possibly [74] (van den Steen 2004) covers these details: if so, please reposition the sources to show which ref covers what fact(s).
• [81] ok.
• [97] (Hough 1982) partially verified, but the parenthetical explanations seem not to be covered.
• [101] (Stika 2009) verifies the last sentence only.
• [123] [149] [161] [179] all ok.

Done. SilkTork (talk) 17:07, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

Summary

This is an article written with evident knowledge and enthusiasm by many hands. A bit of grammatical tidying-up, and some tightening of the referencing, is required. The spot-checks reveal a bit of possibly-uncited glossing of the text; where glosses add 'new' facts (rather than just saying that Dr Bloggs is an economist) they do need to be separately cited. Since this was just a sample, the whole text needs to be checked for other instances of uncited glossing. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:20, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

Excellent. Thanks Chiswick Chap. A few things there for me to dig into. I'm about to cook the family evening meal, so unlikely to get much out of me tonight. But I will look into those cites over the next few days. SilkTork (talk) 18:07, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

I've addressed the issues, and at this stage the remaining item appears to be researching and incorporating up to date information on the earliest evidence of brewing. I think I should be able to do that over the weekend. SilkTork (talk) 17:25, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

To do

• History: "in what is today Iran." - why not just say "in ancient Persia".

I just looked into why I might have said it that way round, and in doing so I've become aware that more recent research indicates that the earliest evidence is no longer considered to be the Iranian evidence. There is this, which indicates that evidence for brewing beer in present-day Israel around 13,000 years ago was found in Raqefet Caves. Interestingly, this was done by hunter gatherers well before cereal domestication, which is kinda more evidence that hunter gathers settled in one place in order to grow cereal to make beer and bread. Anyway, I'll need to do a bit more work on the article to include that info, so I'll come back to this one later. SilkTork (talk) 08:36, 27 August 2026 (UTC)

Done. I have brought the article up to date regarding the earliest brewing. "in what is today Iran" or "present-day Iran" makes more sense because it wasn't Persia at that time, and makes it easier for people to quickly identify. ANd that is what the sources say. SilkTork (talk) 17:31, 29 August 2026 (UTC)

I think I've done all the cites. If you have a tool that finds them please let me know as it's a serious bugger to find them. I was OK with it at first, but I'm not keen on going through it all again! I need a pint now. Especially as I freaked when I saw that there was text missing, and then that there was cites missing. I'm so pleased that Wikipedia keeps copies of all previous versions! SilkTork (talk) 18:10, 30 August 2026 (UTC)

No such tool, beyond old-fashioned eyeballs and experience, I'm afraid. BTW It'd help if you could mark the 'sparging' and 'hopback' and other such items as completed when you believe they are done. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:18, 30 August 2026 (UTC)

Gone through again. I'm now tickling the prose and rechecking details and sources. SilkTork (talk) 13:02, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

I think I'm done tinkering. Back to you. SilkTork (talk) 19:09, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

Extended content

Civilisation a side-effect of partying, clearly! Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:33, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

Beer must have seemed like something quite divine and magical. It was cleaner and healthier than water because the yeast acted faster than harmful microbes, so drinking beer kept you alive and healthy. Plus it tasted nice. And in sufficient quantity it made you feel good. But, fair do, you would have needed to drink a lot to start getting merry. Have you ever drunk the Russian kvass? Not the sweet commercial stuff, but the local homebrewed stuff sold on street corners? It's the same stuff as was made in Mesopotamia. It is made from dried bread. And is very low abv. Anyone can make it at home within a few days. Break up a stale (hard not mouldy) loaf into small pieces (you can put a fresh loaf in the oven for a bit to dry it out). Put all the pieces in a bucket. Put in some dried fruit such as raisins (or sugar - though the taste of the finished beer will be a little coarse). Pour over some warm water, sprinkle over some yeast (there is usually a few packets of bread yeast in most people's cupboards), cover with a cloth, and leave for three or four days. The bread will float on top. You can either drink the beer underneath the bread with a straw, or filter off the bread. The resulting drink is what humans were making thousands of years ago. SilkTork (talk) 18:59, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.