Novice/Advanced Homebrewers

Is it really important? Use your judgment.

 

The way I look at it the novice forum is for those who just started.... and for those who have been doing it long enough that they know they don't know anything, while the Advanced forum is for those the have done it for a little while and now think they know everything (isn't that the way forums usually work )

 

That's why I'm on this side
But I thought this idea had been discussed and shot down before. I like interacting with the new brewers, not only can I give advice but I always learned from their questions and the replies. Stupid threads I just ignored. now I'll have to go back and forth between the groups, wasting more of my valuable work day.

 

hopefully, novice will be the place where various helpful threads and links are stickied to help out aspiring homebrewers.

as for distinguishing between novice and advanced, hopefully (and this is the big hope) this will be determined by the poster of the question, and responders won't be dicks about it or spend all day arguing about what's novice and what's advanced.

in other words, yes, "VERY ACTIVE FERMENTATION; NO BLOW OFF TUBE!?" is going to be posted in advanced. posting duplicate topics or having epic arguments about "that belongs in novice!!!" is not the answer .

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re: where's the line between novice and advanced homebrewer, i'm not sure, but i'm well on the side of novice. like, not even close to the line. edit: and i'll probably post in advanced more than novice, if that gives any indication of what the distinction means (ie not much).

 

I have always discriminated between the two on the old forum; it's usually pretty obvious. My practice has been to pick one beginner question per day or so to reply to, hoping to help someone out, and then do my arcane bullshitting with those who obviously know what they're doing. This new format will actually help me do this.

BTW, I celebrated 25 years of homebrewing this month. I have not poisoned anyone or had a single bottle bomb, so I must be 'advanced'

Edit: didn't mean to quote rocdoc in my reply; it will take me a day or 2 to get used to this newfangled stuff.

 

This would require a moderator to make it work.
Since it's work...it might not work.

Take it away Todd...

 

There are milestones that some brewers will reach:
1. Have you brewed all grain?
2. Have you entered a contest?
3. Brewed any difficult beers?
4. etc.

Any one of these could qualify you for the advanced forum, IMO.
Experience is important but experience isn't everything.

I've been making various sorts of alcohol for over a year now. I don't know everything by any means and I haven't solved all my problems (next steps: temp control, better work environment), but I think anyone who's no longer naively looking for brew kits and beginner equipment could benefit from more advanced discussion.

 

Beginner or advanced does it really matter? We are all home brewers and both groups need each other! (at least this is how I feel about it) I can already see there is going to be nothing gained by separating homebrewers into two groups.

 

I'm having a bit of trouble with the split - I don't know where I should lurk.

 

As stated in this thread: http://beeradvocate.com/community/threads/nice-looking-forum.3/#post-3294

I don't like it. I don't mind subforums, but I much rather see them as axeman9182 suggested (in linked thread) as something along the lines of:

• Ingredients/Recipes
• Equipment
• Processes/Techniques
• General Homebrew Talk

Maybe Ingredients can even be moved with Processes/Techniques and the Recipe sub forum can be specifically for reviewing recipes.

 

I agree with Charles. I sort of liked having the forum in one place, so that I could easily pick and choose what I wanted to read and comment on. Sometimes the topic was an "advanced" and sometimes it was "novice." In other homebrewing fora (e.g., AHA, Brewing Network, etc) I find myself not sorting through all the different subcategories. Seems like work (even though it's just pointing a mouse cursor and clicking). I guess I'll have to adjust my browsing habits. I hope there continues to be advanced homebrewers providing insight to novices, and like Pahn said, I hope we don't see much quibbling about where a thread really belongs.

 

Thats a good point to. It was easy to just have one big forum to pick and choose from. I don't visit homebrew talk much as there is just so much going on (and when I did, it was usually just label design).

I still think a "recipe review" sub forum is not a bad idea. I think it would be nice to have them all sorted nicely in one spot. This way, someone who is just looking for recipe ideas can hop on there and have plenty to look through.

 

Personally, that sort of breakdown is the reason I mostly avoid a certain other popular forum. Too much work to jump around.

 

Yea, after I gave it a second though, I agree. I still don't think we need novice/advanced though.

 

I agree with VikeMan that the sub-categories has gotten out of control in some forums and that we should try and avoid that here. However, I think it would be great if we broke it into two and had a Recipe sub-category and a General Homebrew Talk sub-category.

 

I think the difference should be as much about the question as it is the poster's status. For example I just posted a question about a broken auto-siphon. Doesn't really seem like an advanced question to me so I put it in the beginner forum. Before the forums went down, I asked a question about three BIAB scenarios, from my perspective that was an advanced question because only an advanced homebrewer could fill me in on the relative advantages of the scenarios I was proposing. With that said, I can see now that although my broken auto-siphon question might be simple, it might be only an advanced brewer that would be able to answer it. So, I think I agree with the Recipe and General division instead of Beginner and Advanced.

 

I agree that this is a little confusing for many. Not really sure it's necessary. I've got about 15 batches under my belt since last April of various styles. Have studied brewing relatively extensively. Haven't moved to all grain yet. I wouldn't consider myself a novice or advanced.

 

and can explain to you why everything you're doing is wrong.