Are there any other requested changes to style names or descriptions?
It sends us to the right page but the styles listed there are not the newer names and all the new styles introduced last year are missing
Anyway, why don’t you just remove access to those old TOP PAGES (https://www.ratebeer.com/top) and change the links URLs to the new up-to-date format ( https://www.ratebeer.com/top-beers ) everywhere on the site?
I suggested earlier:
Pale Lager - Intl / Premium to Pale Lager - International / Premium
Dark Lager - Intl / Premium to Dark Lager - International / Premium
Amber Lager - Intl / Vienna to Amber Lager - International / Vienna
Red Ale / Intl Amber Ale to Red Ale / International Amber Ale
Pale Lager - India / Hoppy to Pale Lager - India / Hoppy / IPL
BarleyWine / WheatWine / RyeWine to Barley Wine / Wheat Wine / Rye Wine
Pale Ale - Australia / NZ to Pale Ale - Australian / NZ / Pacific
IPA - Hazy / NEIPA to IPA - Hazy / New England / NEIPA
Pale Lager - North Am. / Light / Rice to Pale Lager - American / Light
Sour - Flanders Red / Bruin to Sour - Flanders Red / Flemish Bruin
Pale Ale - Belgian to Pale Ale - Belgian / Farmhouse
Zwickelbier / Kellerbier / Landbier to Kellerbier / Landbier / Zwickelbier
Belgian Ale - Pale / Golden to Belgian Ale - Pale / Golden / Enkel
Pilsener - Czech / Svetlý to Pilsener - Bohemian / Czech / Svetlý
Blonde Ale / Golden Ale to Blonde Ale / Golden Ale / Sparkling Ale
Pale Ale to Pale Ale / Extra Pale Ale / XPA
We would probably need those styles too based on the high number of known examples (and with lots of tags):
Pale Ale - Hazy / New England / NEPA
IPA - Hazy / New England / NEIPA | Flavored
IIPA DIPA - Double IPA | Flavored
IIIPA TIPA - Triple IPA
Dark Ale / Black Ale / Ruby Ale (for everything not brown ale, stout or porter)
Grisette / Table Beer
I would split IPA - Sour / Wild in 2:
IPA - Sour
IPA - Brett / Wild
I would split Sour - Milkshake / Smoothie from Sour / Wild Beer - Flavored because those things are completely different than the traditional barrel-aged fruited sours / wild beers, there’s just no comparison between those 2.
…but hey…it’s not up to me alone to decide 
I just would like decision on the Pale Ale style. If it is mostly xtra pale ales that should be in title and we should start moving tons of brews there or we should just nuke which I think most folks want.
Generic Pale Ale was instated for all Pale Ales which are not described as APA or other listed substyles.
The current definition seems pretty clear on the matter.
Maybe it could be renamed to something like Pale Ale / Extra Pale Ale / XPA so it would be more evident where to put XPAs.
Yes thats what i was referring to. since when i brought up should we start moving all all xpa’s to this style i was told ‘please don’t’. there are tons of pale ales with “extra” moniker for example the one below i brought up before
https://www.ratebeer.com/beer/sweetwater-420-extra-pale-ale/172/
This has been agreed on. No rice in the name, and no sentence about rice in the description.
No. This has been raised multiple times, but in NZ, the term Pacific Pale Ale is often used to to describe beers made with hops from the Pacific NW, and so adding this would be confusing.
The issue with adding new styles is that it has been more than a year since we added a lot of new styles and we have tens of thousands (maybe even hundreds of thousands) of beers that have not been updated. Without a mass of admins willing to change things, which we most certainly don’t have, there is nothing to be gained from adding new styles. All we do is make the database less accurate and the site look more stupid. One of the primary reasons Untappd has a shitty looking database is they constantly update styles but not beers and we should avoid doing that here. Once the database is up to date with last year’s changes then perhaps we can discuss splitting things again.
This is not a good idea because of two reasons: 1. Not all XPAs go there and 2. It makes it seem like it’s a category for just XPAs when it isn’t.
The reason for this is that XPAs are a complicated thing to admin, because it is used incredibly inconsistently. It is used in three different ways.
- To mean a pale ale that is extra pale, i.e. much less malt presence than an APA. These should go in pale ale.
- To mean a pale ale that is extra pale ale, i.e. a stronger APA. These should usually go in APA or sometimes even American Strong Ale.
- Just a way for a brewery to put an X on the label and make it look cooler. These should usually go in APA.
As a random admin dealing with lists on these forums, raspberry goses or imperial stouts stuffed with coconut are easy to deal with because their style is pretty clear. Things that require knowledge of the beer / local scene are much harder and should be left to local admins or at least admins who have had the beer. The Sweetwater one you link is a great example, because from the description it reads very much like they just randomly wanted an X on the label, since they describe it as a ‘west coast pale ale’ which is exactly what APA is for, but I could be wrong since I’ve never had the beer.
3 Likes
And we will never have masses of admins… So we will always have tons of correction to make, we already do… The database isn’t more accurate if the styles don’t reflect today’s reality, it just make the website look like even more the ghost of an ancient past… We just have all Triple IPA being considered the same as double IPA, a a Dark Ale, being considered a Stout or a Porter, in a random fashion…
Sorry, but you think we look like a ghost of an ancient past because we don’t have ‘dark ale’ as a style? Something no brewery with their finger on the pulse has put on a label in decades? I can only imagine all the hazebois visiting this site and thinking, oh how archaic, they don’t even have a separate category for table beers.
Triple IPAs are in a category called Imperial IPAs, and that’s fine, because that’s exactly what they are.
Stouts, porters and brown ales are already big vague categories, dark ales fit perfectly into those categories.
If we are adding Triple IPA, there should also be Triple NEIPA.
We should definitely not create a smoothie style of anything as that is something that is very subjective and not something that can be easily determined by admin. Also sour/wild is a broad category anyway that encompasses barrel aged sours and more traditional kettle sours.
The pale ale classification is confusing. Making it about extra pale ale doesn’t really make much sense as I always thought of those as a variant of APAs (which is also a fairly broad style).
1 Like
To be fair, with respect to dark ales, I believe it is an appellation used more commonly in Canada than in the US where no one uses it to differentiate a style.
I’m not saying one style or another is a game-changer, I’m just saying that the website should not decide to stay still and not go with further style updates based on the fact that we current admins can’t manage the job.
They should update them if needed to, BUT the DEVs should make their part too (like helping with mass-style change for example, or recruiting more people if needed), it shouldn’t be just admins who do all the job.
The website stood still for 10 years and they fell short against competition to a point of what we are right now…
That is exactly the problem, this style covers too much distinctive products that are totally different and that are only classed together based on one dominance in the taste…being sour.
this is like if we had only one DARK ALE style and porters and stouts would all be in there because the main taste dominance is being roasty.
Funnily enough Dark Ale is pretty common in the UK and of course annoying vague. Even breweies like Siren. That seems to be a UK thing though where breweries use Pale, Amber and Dark, etc, instead of unfashionable terms like Bitter or Porter.
Anyone know if there’s a list / descriptions somewhere of the stuff that is not rateable on the site? Would be great to know what has explicitly been excluded so people don’t accidentally add them, and I thought this was around at one point, but I can’t find it. I’m thinking of stuff like: kombucha, hard seltzers, hard root beers, hard coffee, etc.
@joet Your question was answered by both of us, yet this has still not been followed up on. Please fix it.
1 Like
Yes. That is correct again. Thanks.
1 Like
2 posts were split to a new topic: Questions: If ratebeer could add one MAJOR feature set, or change the site in some MAJOR way in order to modernize, improve itself?
