How do we grow BeerAdvocate internationally?

Except for the time zone difference.

 

You really may be curious about American beer, but you shouldn't worry about it. You live in a great nexus of beer cultures.

 

Being able to isolate ratings by country might be helpful

 

1. Member since 2013, but not terribly active. I rate beers in my own database, and only tend to rate stores/pubs on BA. As to the forums, I am also pretty inactive. Partially this is a function of limited time, but it is also a result of the forums themselves. The main forum is heavily US-centric. "What beer are you drinking" and "Latest beer haul" involve fawning over all of the latest, greatest American beers. I don't have access to 99% of these beers, so they don't mean much to me, and posting the hard-to-find German NEIPA I might be drinking doesn't exactly create a basis for meaningful conversation with anyone else either. It doesn't really feel like a shared experience.

The Germany regional forum is outstanding, filled with excellent, knowledgeable posters. I mainly lurk, but also sometimes post. However, the discussion tends to be about traditional German beers, and not so very much about German craft. In addition, posting there requires a time-commitment: I only post something if I know I will have the time to contribute to whatever discussion is ongoing (or ensues). It is a small enough forum that I don't want to "hit-and-run" post, which I think is a bit rude to the dedicated regulars.

2. I occasionally check Ratebeer when I am traveling within Europe, since they tend to have a larger list of beer stores and pubs internationally than BA. But that is about the only thing I use it for.

3. Encouraging more international sign-ups and engagements would be difficult, I think. For me, it all starts with the local forums.

For BA to be international, the forums would need to be locals talking about local beer. In my experience, most of the international forums tend to be populated with Americans who have an interest in that particular area (and visit it often), expats who currently live there (like me), and the occasional local. But what is the incentive for a local German to talk about German beer in English on a predominantly American website? I'm not sure there is one...

The only thing I can think of is that BA would need to provide a service to international beer enthusiasts that they can't get anywhere else online. Some sort of gateway that brings them to the site, and then keeps them coming back.

One thing might be original content relevant to the international area. I know in the German forum, we are lucky to have a number of posters over the years who have given "trip reports", complete with photos and reviews of pubs/beers. Maybe asking those users to write a quick "article" in the same vein, and then highlighting it in a dedicated part of the website, where it is well-linked to other BA content (reviews, etc...), might work to bring people to the site. Translating it into the local language might also be very useful. But this is extra work for the poster, so some sort of incentive probably would be necessary.

Something that I would personally find very, very useful, is an international festival calendar. These tend to be local in nature (a Belgian site for Belgian festivals, a German site for German, etc...). Collecting this information (from users, breweries, research, etc...) and presenting a unified list (perhaps with integrated reviews of prior festivals from BA users), would be a resource that I think many international users would gladly bookmark and check regularly. If it is integrated well with the rest of the site, it could lead to an increase in international users and an active engagement with the local beer scene.

Wish I could be of more help!

 

(New Yorker based in Dublin, Ireland for a couple of decades)

1. Read the forums and review beers from big breweries or Beers of Fame

2. Review UK + Irish beers - Untappd + RB databases are much more complete

3. Filter Top Rated beer lists by the location of the reviewer - I'd like to see the best German Pilsner according to actual Germans.

 

Add to that list Italy (900+ breweries), Switzerland (600+ breweries), France (1600+ breweries) and Spain (400+ breweries).

It's ironic that many craft beer lovers in the US don't realize just how much the American craft movement has inspired people around the world.

 

I like your efforts, Todd! I'm practically only on BA, I like the depth and "seriousness" on the site. My activity has varied considerably, often I also post myself when having an active period.

Maybe getting from 10% to 20% international would benefit all. On the other hand taste is international. I will anyhow have to mostly imagine how many beers taste, trying to apply the knowledge to my NA beers, which still are niche.

 

1 - Probably just laziness to be honest, I tend to behave the same on most sites that I use. If there's a topic that I can add something to I usually chime in and I try and give as much info as I can to anyone who is looking for information on Ireland in particular or other places I've been to in Europe.

2 - I use Untappd to rate beers for it's ease of use as well as the fact it's so much detail on beers that are brewed in this part of the world.

3 - Good question more focus on beers by brewing location as others have said. I also like the discussions on less US centric topics - tastings of different styles, controversial beer opinions, food, travel etc. I think these types of topics lend themselves more to a wider set of viewpoints. Also a general continual reminder to people that other countries are more have very developed beer scenes - I know that it still shocks people that you can fill your boots with pastry stouts and hazy IPA's in Ireland so I'd really encourage anyone who uses the site to actively engage on the regional forums when they're travelling to another country to try and get the most out of their trip - they might be pleasantly surprised with what they might find.

 

I haven't been as present here lately as I used to be but as far as my two cents go from the perspective of a Quebec BA: There was a lack of participation previously due to the heavy-handed-sounding rule that established the site as English only. That meant (in addition to probably other factors) that a lot of the potential users and reviewers used RB from the get go. Eventually this rule was changed but by then a lot of that use by "foreigners" had shifted to Untappd. When I first joined there was a decent-if-dwindling Canadian section. We had some good participation, a variety of voices and provinces represented, recurring trade threads, etc. I had some great conversation and even made a few friends. However, with the change in where Canada appeared in the forum list that almost completely evaporated. Both of these issues have since been "fixed" but I worry that the damage has already been done and it will be difficult to pull more people in at this point. Part of why I have been reviewing less lately is honestly due in large part to this. It is a ghost town. It becomes daunting if you are one of only 3 or 4 people faithfully reviewing beers and you put all the work of reviewing and uploading everything only to have the beer never receive another review and eventually be automatically retired. That said, I hope that this push for more international participation is successful and that the mistakes of the past will help more people join. I have been very happy lately to see one or two reviews in French, I hope they stick with it!

Also, while we're at it. I wish we had our province next to "Canada" on our avatars again. It helps when interacting with US users and other Canadians since we see a lot of travel and visitors from border-adjacent areas of the US and since Canada's liquor laws make our distro be similar to separate countries in a lot of cases. Just a thought.

 

I agree with much you said. The people I have met that were on BA and no longer contribute is due to the elitism and negativity on the forums. They just want to enjoy a beer, not be judged by their choices. Ironically those people heavily criticizing are here and gone in a flash.

 

I live in Japan, and I'd gladly except bonus beer karma for helping to expand the information available out here.

 

I love the beer advocate app all the time, but I like the way you can post beers on untapped. I still don't know how to post beers on this app. It really seems confusing to me.

 

1. If you solely use BA, but you're not overly active, why?
   I will use BA first while in the US, but not internationally.
   The US centric content is limiting - there's SO much more out there.
2. If you use other platforms over BA, why?
   Each platform has it's pros and cons. Also, BA reviews tend to be higher on average than they are warranted - perhaps a reflection of too little international exposure, content?
3. How do we encourage more international sign ups and engagement?
   Build your platform with features - Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Pacifica, etc. That way you'll have something of interest for each area and we will learn more about what's happening around the globe. It's a big world and it's getting smaller every webclick. Optimize content by having regional reps from your organization responsible for their area.

 

AMA's from some European brewers is a good idea. Let's face it, most US brewers have, relatively, similar backgrounds, viewpoints, and philosophies; it would be interesting to hear from brewers with a different background and culture

 

Ask the Americans to post in the foreign forums to help stir up interest / activity

 

1. If you solely use BA, but you're not overly active, why? I only use BA and try to be active. I try to upload beers and new brewers from Australia whenever I try something new.
2. If you use other platforms over BA, why? Only use other platforms except when researching new beers or breweries to upload.
3. How do we encourage more international sign ups and engagement? More difficult - based on what is written so far I think that an easy to use APP would be attractive, but not sure why that would disproportionately interest international users. I suspect that partnerships and visibility are likely to be important, but I have no special insights into how to proceed to achieve those things. A couple of things that may be worth considering: a flag against a user name so the site appears more international and diverse and an invitation to participate in a national forum group, which may facilitate increased involvement by registered users from outside the US.

Hope this goes well - the more users the better the coverage!

 

Lots of folks have identified partnerships with local/regional beer media as a possible strategy, and I know I've seen an expressed desire for the return of "articles" or something similar to ba.

Could ba partner with beer news blogs and host links (posted regionally, like a "beer news and releases" tab within international sections) and space for discussion? This would obviously be easiest to implement in English speaking countries, but language is always going to be a hurdle for a text based discussion platform.

I know that I'd be interested in reading more knowledgeable first person stories about the beer scenes elsewhere so it might drive some more traffic into the international sections generally

 

Although I know this is a slippery slope with "regions" my suggestion is from a personal angle.

When I am planning a beer trip to the US, I will frequent the "Mid-Atlantic" subforum to get ideas for brewerys and taprooms to visit. I have got region-specific advice and info many many times.

While I am not sure about the technical aspect of adding more sub forums, in the Canada forum, BC/West/Ontario/Quebec/Maritimes subforums may go a long way to encouraging people to start brewery specific threads, or even more local-specific threads.

 

Honest feedback here, my personal perspective, I occasionally visit the Canadian forum, we have a huge amount of beer fans, but there's maybe 1 thread every week or two, it's like the same 10 or so people who interact with eachother.

Issues:

1) Have moved almost exclusively to other apps to interact with other like minded beer folks (Slack, twitter). Lack of focused categorical discussions on forums, lack of real time interaction (and ease of interaction through apps).

2) Site is very, very American. I don't know how else to say this differently, but it just is.

3) Beer has become hyper localized, the beers I drink have very little to do with beers that someone in Ontario or Vermont consumes. I don't care very much about hearing about beers that I'll never see or drink.

Solutions?

1) App/interface - I'd favour Untappd integration that offered links to long form reviews, articles, key forum discussions and topical chats.

2) Would be good to feature more international content, focused on those forums perhaps. More social accounts highlighting international content. If you give people more international content to engage with, you'll get more engagement. Local bloggers, writers, etc.

3) Branch out to more local sub-branches or sorting options. Go beyond the one thread per province approach. More local related points, identification. Instead of a Poobah, maybe a "local star" or something. Relate more things to an individuals area and community.

Haven't been here in a while, saw this and thought I'd give my 2 cents. Happy to help!