Brewer types Clarifications and needed rework

Suggested changes:

At RateBeer we have many producer types that relate to their products, scale and role in the marketplace.




COMMERCIAL BREWERY - A Commercial Brewery is a brewery or multiple breweries owned by the same company with a large national, possibly international, distribution. Commonly known as MACROBREWERIES. Brews over 30,000 barrels (35,000 hectoliters)


MICROBREWERY or BREWERY - A Brewery is a production brewery / microbrewery that makes beer for distribution, possibly also for onsite consumption via an onsite taproom, and for all intents and purposes, is the sole business at that location. A Microbrewery is normally a brewery that brews 30,000 barrels (35,000 hectoliters) or less.


BREWPUB - A Brewpub is a microbrewery that makes beer to be consumed onsite, possibly also for a limited distribution. It usually has a restaurant attached to it and predominantly brews for onsite consumption.


BREWPUB+BREWERY - A Brewpub/Brewery is a term used to describe a Brewery who is a production brewery / microbrewery that makes beer for distribution AND also have Brewpub(s) that makes beer to be consumed onsite.


CONTRACT BREWERY - A Contract Brewery is a production brewery whose main activity is to brew beers for Clients and Commissioners. Note that they can however have their own beer lineup.


CLIENT BREWER - A Client Brewer is business entity that does not own its own brewing equipment but instead arranges to use existing brewing facilities to produce their owned-recipe beers. They can sometime also have a physical location (waiting for their brewing licenses for example).


COMMISSIONER - A Commissioner pays a brewery to brew and package its beers for sale under its own label but they do not have their own recipes. Commissioners are essentially a Trademarked Brand but they can sometime also have physical locations where their products are exclusive. Examples are restaurant and grocery chains.


CIDERY - A Cidery produces cider, a fermented beverage mad from apples or pears (Note that Client cideries and commissioned ciders are included as Cideries)


MEADERY - A Meadery produces mead, a beverage made with fermented honey (Note that Client meaderies and commissioned meads are included as Meaderies)


SAKE PRODUCER - A Sake Producer makes sake, a beverage fermented from rice (Note that Client sake producers and commissioned sakes are included as Sake Producers)

@aww @services @joet

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I don’t know how to navigate to this page without googling but we do have descriptions:

https://www.ratebeer.com/encyclopedia/brewer-types/

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Why not keep the Commercial / Micro distinction? To me this seems more like muddying the industry / craft distinction some more, which I’m sure some here would like, but a lot wouldn’t.

BREWPUB / BREWERY = a brewpub that also distributes.
BREWPUB = beers (mostly) only available at the pub.

CONTRACT BREWER = official term. Let’s not invent non-existing terms like “contracting brewer” or “national-scale brewer”.

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I’m ok with COMMERCIAL BREWERS but not that simple 30000hl definition. That’s always been debated… And why small scale brewers sometimes calls themselves microbrewery and other times brewery. Let’s just call them BREWERY, that’s what they are. We can explain the Microbrewery term in the definition. And it would also fit better with BREWPUB/BREWERY term.

Contract Brewer, i was trying to find a way So people don’t mix them up with Client Brewer like they do most of the time here.

That’s own I’ve been using the term BREWPUB/BREWERY too (A brewpub that distributes) but that’s not the exact definition used by RateBeer.

Here what we could have for BREWPUB / BREWERY
A BREWPUB+BREWERY is a Brewer who is a production brewery / microbrewery that makes beer for distribution AND also have Brewpub(s) that makes beer to be consumed onsite.

The definition should be expanded. Disagree about changing Microbrewery to Brewery. Let’s see what others think.

Interesting definition for Brewpub/Brewery there (the “official” one)… unsure how many people actually use it as such, but I could potentially actually be okay with it and would fix things that are done instead of expanding it.

The only change I would make is changing “Contract Brewer” to “Contract Brewery” to further state that it’s an actual physical location (compared to Client Brewer). Contracting is, again, just about never used and the main meaning of the adjective “contracting” will muddy the waters.

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yup that’s probably better that way.

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Are there any specific rules regarding what does and doesn’t get added as a Commissioner. I.e. if a bar purchases a beer from a brewery and rebadged it then are we really saying that this bar should be added as a Commissioner? The rules don’t seem to be clear or at least clearly applied in the UK at least. For instance in the UK there are national restaurant chains that have beers available le with their own branding (I.e. Wagamama). And to my mind they have correctly never been added as a Comiissioer but instead the beers are just included u der the brewery that really brewed them. But there are then shops or individual pubs that have ee added as a Comissioner whichbrhen have one or two beer with their name on them. I know people love as many brewery ticks as possible but really why count them as a type of brewry? Yes, I know it’s partly historical.

(I also find it random when supermarket beers clearly state on the front of the bottle that they were brewed at a specific brewery but they still get added on under the supermarket.)

I usually only add those who push regularly their own beer lineup (on social media for example) and have a complete lineup, not just 1 or 2 beers.

Many bars have 1-2 beers which are often a renamed Blonde Ale or Lager of a big brewer, I never add those…

I’ve been going through that list of all English breeries and have found various ones that I am suggesting should be deleted and the beers transferred to the main brewer.

Thank you. This update will be made

Could you for the moment at least change BREWERY/TAPROOM to BREWERY (Opened to Public) in the Add/edit place page
@joet

This is nonsense in my eyes as there are probably way more breweries that are open to public then those few that aren’t. If a physical brewery is onsite then it is a brewery. If it is not open to public this can be mentioned in a description on the page.

BTW I think you mixed up the thread you wanted to post in.

I know it’s not in the same thread.
Just wanna mentioned it to @joet since he can only make changes to old layout pages.

Right now, some people mentioned they didn’t add Breweries awithout Taproom as Places because it is named BREWERY / TAPROOM (and there isnn’t other alternative)… at least, this would clear this out…

I was refering to the map, where the “/Taproom” isn´t even mentioned.

Screenshot_2020-05-27 RateBeer

Haven´t added a place in a while so was unaware of this. This inconsistency is even more shit. I guess this option is meant to be a Brewery and/or Brewery Taproom but I understand that it is confusing. Still I wouldn´t add “Opened to public” in an official category. It is a brewery. Period. And if it is not open to the public we should state that on the place page description.

Or simply remove TAPROOM from the BREWERY place type name and call it simply BREWERY.
It’s already mentioned that Places not opened to public shouldn’t be entered in the Add Place page.

Just call it Brewery, not Brewery (open to public) (and most definitely not “opened to public”). :smiley:

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