- Belgium
- Poland
- Spain
- Mexico
- Netherlands
- The quasi-independent Soviet Republic of Transnistria
- Italy
- Brazil
- Argentina
- Japan
- Denmark
- Sweden
- Nowhere
0 voters
1 Like
Going to beat the drum again on this one. Any hope of this happening site developing people/Joe T? It would certainly put lots of people who complain about new site changes’ complaints to rest… just sayin
2 Likes
Would love to see this happen for as many countries as possible.
Logically, wouldn’t it be better for the next country to simply be the one which has the most beers? The more beers a country has the more useful the region splitting is as they’ll all be fuller. I haven’t checked but I suspect this is currently Belgium. Or maybe Denmark.
1 Like
If any, it should be a country with a lot of regional focus. Not one where most breweries have national distribution I guess. France would be a good one, but thats not an option in the poll 
1 Like
We’re not just talking about beer but also places. So the number of places, size of the country and, I guess, number of users/visitors also come into the picture. Making RateBeer useful for travellers is, to my mind, a big part of the mission.
4 Likes
Spain, Italy, Australia, Russia, would also be good candidates in that respect. The latter two in particular due to their enormous geographical size too.
France has been discussed before but the administrative regions were in a bit of a state of flux at the time (including their names). I don’t know whether that has been finalised. 100 or so départements would be too many!
Need to be sensible about it though - for instance, how many of the states (or whatever they’re called) in Russia have their own breweries?
All of them I’d imagine. Whether they get many, or any, ratings on here is another question.
Russia is very much the same situation as Canada. There aren’t that many states, (36 or so) so they all represent either an enormous land mass or a lot of population. Sure some states would be like the Canadian Nunavut or Northwest territories, but all the inhabited states would have at least a few breweries.
I’m not for segmenting countries like Belgium or Netherlands, they are already pretty much region-sized and the brewing culture is national anyway. Belgium might be a special case with Flemish region and the Walloon region, but definitely not on the provincial scale. The differences aren’t that great, even though Hollanders need subtitles to understand their Limburgian neighbours.
1 Like
I see your point there, but not everyone would agree that makes them poor candidates for splitting. Personally, I don’t have strong views either way. I think in this debate there’s a bit of tension between providing more stats fodder and making things useful for visitors (and, to lesser extent, locals I guess). It could be argued - as follows from your points - that splitting small countries into regions (which most visitors have never heard of) when most of the beers are widely available all round the country would be more of a hindrance than a help to visitors.
Searching for places in the UK or Germany is already hell on earth, because of these regions. I have no clue in which region Brighton or Bristol is in the UK, or Bamberg in Germany.
1 Like
If doing France we’d want to do it by Régions rather than Départements as the latter will be far too small, and also there are 96 of them which is a bit ridiculous. The region changes were finalised in late 2016 and there are now just 13 of them so not a huge change for RateBeer. There are also 5 overseas regions however these are already separate countries on Ratebeer so no changes would be needed there.
I honestly think France is one of the best candidates: Decent number of beers and users from there. Relatively large country. Small number of regions to split into. The regions themselves are of decent size so would all be represented.
4 Likes
Yes. As an aside, this is also why I really really want the metro functionality applied further. There are so many towns/communes/burgs that make up the metro area of European cities which is far more relevant to the traveller than some lines in the sand from a feud between two dukes 600 years ago. I realize that it’s a sensitive subject though “England, where 100 miles is a long way, America, where 100 years is a long time” and such.
2 Likes
It’s not difficult at all to find the region a town is in, a simple Google search is all you need.
It’s a no brainer for me, Belgium should be next as the country to be split as it has quite a regional feel to some of their beer styles, it’s small, has a very traditional beer culture and many Ratebeerians visit there. I’m not holding my breath though, I have been banging on about this for several years now.
1 Like
Sure, when cities are conveniently located entirely inside the same region.
Except for Zaventem (where Brussels airport is) is not in the Brussels province of Belgium. Hence my point about lines in the sand.
1 Like
Ya sorry I forgot to put France @caesar
1 Like
Interesting to see that Nowhere is tied for second - and here I thought this was something that people would universally want. I guess for me it doesn’t make sense to arbitrarily choose some countries and not others. I’m Canadian for example but I can’t honestly say that Canada deserves it more than Belgium for example. Anyway, is there any other reason for not wanting them except for the place split up issue?
1 Like
You also sometimes get regions that are doughnut-shaped because the principal city and some of its immediate environs have been cut out of the middle to form a separate administrative entity. We’d have a lot of that in England if we used the current administrative structure.
1 Like
Well, I voted nowhere, because I personally dont see the use of regions at the moment, other than fun stats or hunting grounds for ticks. So, I wonder what the need would be for more regions?
2 Likes
