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GA Review

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Reviewer: David Eppstein (talk · contribs) 00:43, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Summary of compliance with GA rules
  1. This is on the whole well written, but with a disturbing and unacceptably high amount of copied phrases and close paraphrasing. The lead could use a more balanced summary of whole article. The weasel word "unique" is overused.
  2. For the most part this is well referenced. There were one or two claims for which sources appeared to be lacking. The sources all look reliable and well-formatted. However one paragraph includes an issue with original research by synthesis, detailed below, and it is possible that similar issues exist with a paywalled source.
  3. The article does address the main aspects of its topic. It mostly avoids unnecessary detail, but see the issue with the sulfate-chloride ratio detailed below.
  4. I did not find problems with neutrality or excessive promotion.
  5. The article went through some significant changes immediately after its GA nomination but has been largely stable since then.
  6. I was not able to determine whether all the images have valid copyrights. They are relevant but some of the captions could use a little more information, detailed below.
Lead
  • I think you are misreading WP:WEASEL. That portion of that article defines weasel words as "Weasel words are words and phrases aimed at creating an impression that something specific and meaningful has been said, when in fact only a vague or ambiguous claim has been communicated.". An example of that would be "some people say that the beer tastes funny". However, I have changed "unique" to "strong".Neil916 (Talk) 01:44, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The lead primarily properly summarizes content from the article rather than including content that is not summarized from elsewhere. But the content it summarizes is primarily from the description and history sections; the ingredients and production are less well represented in the lead. Additionally, the lead does not follow the suggestion in MOS:LEAD of having four paragraphs; it has only two. So there is room to expand it to cover the other two sections better.
  • Several of the sources state specifically that this is a wheat ale. Shouldn't we link ale prominently in our article, both in the lead and the description section?
  • All ales are beers, but not all beers are ales. In some parts of the world (especially the UK) people get bent out of shape when you apply the label "ale" to something that doesn't meet their fairly narrow definition. An example that jumps to mind: [1]. Since there is no definite testing that has ever been done on the original strains of yeast, we can't say for sure that it was originally an ale yeast rather than a lager yeast, or something else altogether. Modern interpretations of the style generally use ale yeast for the fermentation. I've chosen to sidestep the naming controversy altogether by simply referring to grodziskie as a "beer". Neil916 (Talk) 01:44, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The source from which the "trumpet-shaped glass" description comes shows a photo of a glass with no stem. But our lead photo instead shows a glass with a stem. Which is the proper shape of a glass for this kind of beer?
  • Here's a link to a picture of the "real" glass. [2]. Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate any free-to-use images of that the beer and the glass. The one that I just linked to is a good image of the color of the beer, the bottle, and the shape of the glass, but unfortunately it depicts the beer as completely flat and uncarbonated, so even if that particular image didn't have copyright issues, I don't think it would be an improvement over the image that I did find, which at least shows a decent amount of carbonation and decent color (although fairly cloudy) even though it's not in the "official" glass. Neil916 (Talk) 01:44, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "several breweries began producing seasonal or year-round recreations of the historic style, spurred by interest in the style from the homebrewing community": the history section mentiones the homebrewing interest, but it neither documents brewery production of this beer post-1993 nor documents any influence of homebrewing on commercial breweries.
  • I usually don't like to provide links to breweries who do "one-off" examples of the style or occasional runs of the style, because then every garage brewery that runs off a batch of the style feels entitled to turn the article into a link farm. I am not aware of any breweries that have a constant production of grodziskie. Neil916 (Talk) 01:44, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Description
  • The article says that isinglass is used to clear the beer before bottling; however, the source for that sentence says more vaguely "finings such as isinglass". Is isinglass still used in modern production? If something else has sometimes been used, we should say so.
  • The Zymurgy article does indeed use that vague "use of finings such as isinglass" phrase, but I haven't seen any sources that suggest that anything other than isinglass was ever used. The "grodziskie redivivus project" reference specifically 1-1.5L/hl of isinglass solution used for fining. There certainly are other agents that can be used in modern production, isinglass is the only one that I know of that would have been historically used post-fermentation. Neil916 (Talk) 01:44, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article uses the phrase "excellent retention" copied from source [3] to describe the head. What does this mean? Shouldn't we phrase it more colloquially and in our own words?
  • The phrase "served in a special trumpet-shaped glass" is also a direct lift from the source, and the rest of the sentence closely paraphrases the source. Again, this should be rewritten.
  • "its unique malting and brewing process" — there's that weasel word "unique" again.
Ingredients
  • uniquely-prepared: again, don't use this word. It doesn't convey any useful information.
  • I've deleted that word, but given that this first sentence is the topic sentence of a paragraph describing a process of malting wheat that was never used for any other style and which contributes a significant portion of the flavor that makes it different from any other style of beer, what word would you find more appropriate than "unique"? Neil916 (Talk) 01:44, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm accepting the German-language sources per WP:AGF as I don't read German. This is not problematic: sources are not required to be in English, and they are properly marked for their language.
  • "For example, Sulfate ions and chloride ions are present in a ratio of approximately 2.2 parts sulfate to 1 part chloride." — how does this level of detail aid understanding? It comes across as just picking out a random number from a table. The next sentence gives some description of why this ratio is important, but I'm still left mystified at whether 2.2:1 is an unusually low or high ratio. And it's not clear to me how this is an example of high mineral content or alkalinity: it's about minerals rather than alkalinity (but I had to look up several other Wikipedia articles to figure even that much out), but is about how the minerals are balanced rather than whether they are present in high or low amounts.
  • You're right, it is all about the balance of minerals, and that was the point I was trying to make about the ingredients. Many of the historical sources that can be found about this beer describe the flavor in vague, subjective terms. "It was strongly hopped and somewhat tart". This has led to a lot of controversy when people try to recreate the style because they read that and think they need to dump a ton of hops into the boil, or think the "tart" means sour and try to make it into a sour beer. Those same historic sources go on about how the water made the beer what it was. I used a specific example of the sulfate-chloride ratio and how it affected the flavor, trying to illustrate that you can use that ratio and end up with a beer that accentuates hop bitterness, or you could use water with a high chloride to sulfate ratio, and the same exact ingredients and process, and end up with a beer that was much maltier. The paragraph tries to illustrate how much the mineral character of the water affects the taste of the final beer. If you use brewing water with 31-34 ppm magnesium ions, your beer will present a slightly sour or bitter flavor. It's sour because of the mineral content, not because it was fermented with Lactobacillus. Alkalinity in the water affected the final flavor by increasing hop utilization and affecting the pH during the brewing process. It's a highly technical paragraph that I tried to simplify as much as I could without making it excessively rambling. An in-depth article on brewing chemistry would be nice to have to link to, but I'm not aware of one on wikipedia, but I tried to link to a fairly decent source as a reference (except for the fairly annoying background). Neil916 (Talk) 01:44, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The alkalinity of the water in Grodzisk also affected the flavor of the finished beer, favoring increased hop utilization and bitterness, and bicarbonate ions present in the water would have affected the pH" reads as if alkalinity and high pH are two different things, when actually they are two names for the same thing.
  • It's not. Alkalinity refers to the concentration of bicarbonate ions. Bicarbonate ions will raise the wort pH, but other compounds, like acids or Calcium, will lower the pH. The final wort pH of the wort will depend on the final balance. Since the source water was high in alkalinity (bicarbonates) the final pH of the wort would have ended up higher unless significant water treatments were used (no historical record of that), which causes effects in the final beer (hop utilization, extraction of other flavors, etc.) than it would have if the source water was soft water. Once again, very significant in a discussion of the beer's ingredients. Neil916 (Talk) 01:44, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Although interesting and relevant, I am a bit worried that the whole paragraph about the water is original research by synthesis: combining information from one source (the chemical characteristics of the water used for this beer) with information from another source (how chemical characteristics affect beer in general) to produce a novel synthesis (how the water used for this beer shaped its flavor).
  • As I mentioned, I used that reference to provide a reader a path to more detailed information about brewing chemistry without completely hijacking the article with a lengthy discussion of brewing chemistry. Neil916 (Talk) 01:44, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Without access to the actual yeast used historically, most modern recreations of the beer typically use ale yeasts that do not contribute a significant amount of yeast character to the beer." has no footnote — what is its source?
  • "mostly local Polish varieties of hops including Nowotomyski and Polish Lublin ... such as Czech Saaz, German Tettnanger and Hallertauer Mittelfrüh" is too closely paraphrased from the source "largely local varieties including Nowotomyski and Polish Lublin ... such as Czech Saaz and German Tettnanger and Hallertauer Mittelfrüh"
Production
  • There's a general issue with this whole section: it describes, in great (possibly too great) detail, a specific recipe used at some specific time for this beer. But the recipe has changed over time, and there is no indication either of that fact or of the time that this recipe was used. Some of the information (e.g. the rate of burst bottles) is very specific to this time and would depend on unrelated information like the quality of the bottle supplier and whether the beer was even primarily packaged in bottles rather than (as I would have assumed in older times) barrels.
  • "The wort was boiled for 90 to 120 minutes": source [7] says 120-150.
  • "fermentation would proceed rapidly": not in the source given for this sentence.
  • Page 2, "Yeast" Section: "One yeast strain was of a high and early flocculating type, the other one was powdery. With both working simultaneously, the wort was fermented really fast, loosing ca 50 % of its extract during 60 hours. " Neil916 (Talk) 01:44, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
History
  • "The town of Grodzisk Wielkopolski was founded around 1257": our article on the town says instead that this is the date it was first mentioned in an official document, but the context suggests that it had existed for longer.
  • "brought in brewers from Moravia and Bohemia": too similar to the source phrase, "brought brewers from Moravia and Bohemia".
  • "In 1603" — the listed sources disagree about the exact year, so don't state it as if it were certain.
  • "the town's wells had all dried up" too closely paraphrased from source [14], "the city wells ... had all dried up".
  • "The well became a municipal treasure and were credited" — should be "was", not "were".
  • "In gratitude ... as a show of their gratitude" — avoid repetitious wording.
  • "for over 200 years, the residents of Grodzisk would make an annual pilgrimage to Bernard's monastery, about 80 miles away, and leave a keg of the town's finest beer as a show of their gratitude." Aside from the weasel-worded "its finest beer" (copied from source [14]), this is almost the same as source [3], "For well over two hundred years, the citizens of Grodzisk would make an annual pilgrimage to Bernard's monastery, some 80 miles away, and leave a keg of Gratzer beer as a token of their gratitude."
    Reworded. Neil916 (Talk) 01:44, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "when Grodzisk became part of Prussia": it's confusing to have two wikilinks directly adjacent like this — there is no visual indication to readers that clickng in different parts of the linked text will produce different results.
    De-linked Prussia. Neil916 (Talk) 01:44, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "3,200 barrels (5,000 hl)" — that's a plausible number but it's written in the format one would use for converting imperial to metric units. Was it generated by converting some standard barrel unit to hectoliters or does the (Polish language) source actually give both the number of actual barrels and the measure of liquid in them?
  • The original source actually says "3192 barrels (5,000 hl)" I could not find any direct conversion from 5000 hl into one of the many known units of volume known as barrels (closest I came was [3] which stated that historically a "Beczka" of beer might have been between 130 and 160 liters. I just stuck with the unit without attempting to wikilink to the volume article. It did look like a case of false precision with the 3192 barrels, though, so I changed it to about 3200. Neil916 (Talk) 01:44, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Its peak of popularity occurred just prior to the first World War": not in either of the two sources given. One source says that it grew in popularity until the early 20th century and dwindled in the late 20th century, but without being specific about the timing relative to the war. The other says that it "experienced a real renaissance" before the war, but also that it gained new markets up to the 1970s. And reference [4] (not used in this sentence) attributes its decline to the post-WWII communist system.
  • "as testified by its high price" — lifted without change from source [14].
  • "Grodziskie is still brewed by some homebrewers in Poland with 100% smoked wheat grain bills." is sourced to [5], but that source only briefly mentions homebrewing and says nothing about how pure and how smoked the grain used by the homebrewers is. Also, what is a bill?
  • That was actually sourced to the Stan Hieronymus interview, but the statement must have gotten separated from its reference tag during editing. Fixed that. A grain bill is basically the lists and proportions of the different malts used in the production of the beer. The recipe. In Grodziskie it's just one grain, but most beers use a mixture of light and dark grains for color and flavor. I edited the statement to remove the jargon. Neil916 (Talk) 06:34, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reference 20 "Juniper Beer in Poland" is subscription-only, so I have to take it on good faith, but is used to attribute the 1993 closure in part to inability to find brewers who knew how to brew this style of beer. But the title of the reference suggests that it is primarily about a different style of beer. Does it really explicitly say that the 1993 closure happened because there were no more people who knew how to brew Grodziskie, or is that an inference from more general statements in the source?
  • Reference 20 doesn't have anything to do with the closure of the brewery, but it has to do with the communist government putting an emphasis on large-scale production of cheap, simple beers at the expense of emphasizing small regional styles like Grodziskie. References 4 and 18 related to the closure of the brewery due to unprofitability and the lack of ability to find people who could brew the style, but that happened after communism. The juniper beer article was primarily about another small-scale unique alcoholic beverage that was traditionally produced in a different region of Poland and was an interesting read, but the part of interest in the grodziskie article was a part of the discussion that discussed regional culinary traditions under the communist government and the difficulties they faced in producing and promoting their products in favor of inexpensive mass-produced [garbage]. Neil916 (Talk) 06:34, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In 2011, the Polish Homebrewers Association formed the Commission for the Revival of the Grätzer Beer in 2011" doesn't need two dates.
  • The Graetzer beer label image is labeled as being public domain because its copyright has expired, but to check this one needs to know the date the label was published, which is not listed. This would also be helpful information to include in the caption. Do you know how recent this label is?
  • I don't know. I didn't upload the photo, so I decided to AGF and assume that it was correctly tagged, but I have no way of verifying that or providing additional information. Neil916 (Talk) 06:34, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Similarly, it would be helpful to label the photo of the bottle by its year, to put it into context with the history.
References
  • No specific issues found in this section. All sources look adequately reliable for what they're used to source.

—David Eppstein (talk) 06:14, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, David. Thanks for looking at the article. I'll be going through this in the next couple of days and responding here. Neil916 (Talk) 20:00, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, thanks. Would it help if I put the nomination on hold to give you more time to respond? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:42, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That might be best- I haven't had an overabundance of spare time in the past week or so. Neil916 (Talk) 23:52, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
David Eppstein, Neil916, it has been three weeks since the above exchange, which was also Neil916's most recent edit on Wikipedia, so nothing has been done here or with the article. What are the chances that some progress can be made in the near future? BlueMoonset (talk) 01:28, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe we should set a deadline for improvements to be made before the nomination is closed as a fail? How much longer would be appropriate? —David Eppstein (talk) 05:35, 21 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
David Eppstein, how does two more weeks sound? That puts the deadline at the end of January 4, past the holidays and New Year. Although Neil916 is an intermittent editor, last year he made seventeen edits from December 30 to January 3, so there's some hope that he'll be available to edit at the same time this year. Standard holds start at one week, so a month plus over a week total strikes me as generous, but allowing for holiday interruptions. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:15, 21 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That works for me. Jan.4 it is. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:44, 21 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think this article is too over-detailed:
...It is a unique style, featuring a clear, light golden color, high carbonation, low alcohol content, low to moderate levels of hop bitterness, and a strong smoke flavor and aroma. The beer tastes light and crisp, with a unique character coming from the smoked malt, the high mineral content of the water, and the strain of yeast used to ferment the beverage. The beer was nicknamed "Polish Champagne" because of its high carbonation levels, and because it was valued as a high-quality beer to be used for special occasions...
333-blue 23:21, 3 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe, but the copied text is a more serious problem. Anyway, there is still one more day and a few hours left in my time zone before the deadline, but this may well all be moot very soon. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:25, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Copy-right problems? That may cause an immediate failure. 333-blue 10:41, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I have gone through and answered the questions. Sorry, but I don't feel that I would be able to provide a polite response to 333-blue's suggestion that the article contains too much information. My responses to David Eppstein's comments were, unfortunately delayed as I got really busy in real life at the end of the last year. I will ping him to have him take another look at it at his convenience. Neil916 (Talk) 06:34, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

At this point, the easiest way to handle this would be just to make a new GA nomination once you think it's ready. However, some of your non-responses (e.g. "I don't know" in response to the question over image licensing) look like they could be show-stoppers unless they are actually handled. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:37, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I have deleted the images from the article. I will resubmit the GAN. Neil916 (Talk) 08:02, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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