Should we expand the United States forums again?

I do appreciate you opening up discussion and hearing our feedback to possibly revert back to the prior regional groupings.

Many great breweries and discussions were lost in the shuffle after combining multiple regions into four overall, at least in my experience with the new Midwest (12 states) and Pacific (13 states) folders.

This would be especially helpful in the West region, allowing the traditional Northwest and Mountain states to allow their brewery scene to shine outside of the shadow of California discussions which dominate the folder.

I also see the same benefit for Midwest, separating Chicago/Illinois and Minnesota and allowing discussions from other Great Lakes and Midwest states a chance to develop.

Thanks!

 

I'd consider Minnesota a Great Lakes state. I like the big 10. Cheers!

 

I'd like the old "New England" with just 6 states, as opposed to the current 6 plus NY/PA....

Prosit!

 

IDK …I’ve grown to love the folks from Illinois (Chicago) @ChicagoJ @Jaycase dozens more on a daily basis. (Mid west)

 

My gripe with regions comes more in stereotypes and casual conversation than the way it's broken up here on BA. I tend to follow most forums I find myself traveling thru regardless of their label. I just absolutely hate when the term Midwest is applied to almost half our entire country, especially when a huge chunk of that archaic "region" is within the eastern half. No one here has ever heard me say this though...

 

Surprisingly I am liking the West forum. When the Northwest forum went away I thought Oregon and Washington would get lost in the blizzard of California posts, but it hasn't happened and also have read much interesting posts I would not have read before.
Also West includes Idaho which i always thought should have been on the Northwest forum from the start.
So my vote is to keep them as is.

 

New York has a Great Lake all to itself. Well, except Ontario has a minor claim.

My point being, the regions can be arbitrary, and so what of it. I’m happy to join any regional grouping as it so fits. Provided there are no barriers based on my hometown identity.

@ChicagoJ makes a good point about less populous areas being overwhelmed when lumped in with the “big” markets.

Count me in with the go-back-to crowd.

 

No offense to my mid-atlantic-type BA compadres, but I have zero interest in what happens in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It's just clutter to me.

I wouldn't mind seeing New England divided into NNE and SNE but, really, that's just me asking for shit.

 

And get ready for a bucket-full. I remember watching Fletch in a movie theater back in NJ. There was a throwaway line about chemical factories in NJ, that nearly caused a riot.

 

But then you would miss out on conversation and camaraderie.

 

I like the current Northeast forum. I miss having the DMV states in the same forum as the Mid-Atlantic as I think they seem out of place with what is currently categorized as the South. IDK what the best way to arbitrarily divide the country into smaller forums is, but I do know many will have strong opinions. The best thread in terms of user interaction since the merger of the NE and MA forums has been the what Northeast beer are you drinking thread.

 

I don't know if you need to go all the way back to 10, but I think that a north, central, south, division along the east coast. A north and south division of the west coast. And 2 or 3 categories for the middle of the country would be nice.

That gets it to 7 or 8 regions so maybe 10 isn't a bad option

 

I'd favor going back to the original 10 forums, but please don't go back to splitting the DC metro area into two separate regions. Maryland, DC, and Virginia should be in the same forum. I don't have a strong preference on whether it's Mid-Atlantic or South-Atlantic.

 

I would just hope to have a heads up so we can have a "so long" thread for the NY/New England breakup.

 

I really like having all of the Chicago, St. Louis, and Wisconsin brewery/news/discussion threads in the same forum with Minnesota. It's a one stop shop for all of the breweries I want to keep tabs on.

However, if the desire is to prevent one area from dominating the discussion and seek new growth as threads for other breweries and areas then Chicagoland should probably have a dedicated forum.

 

This sounds nuts because I was pretty anti-combining of the forums in the first place but I’ve seen a comraderie develop between the Mid-Atlantic and New England crowd, as @Sheppard pointed out, in the NE WBAYDN thread and I’d be pretty sad to see that go. We’ve lost a few very valuable posters for whatever the reason (they were supposedly banned) but it’s a great thread and I don’t know how that would be able to continue if we get split up. I suppose we could start one in each sub-forum and quote-unquote visit each other, but it might not be the same. The posts get lost in the sauce in the main forum thread so I’m voting to keep them the same although I suspect that might not win.

 

I'd be fine with the "original 10" or the current version. Keeping CA together with WA & OR would be good as there's a lot of commonality with CA, especially in the northern section.

Then there's Greater Idaho, after taking on chunks of CA, NV, OR and maybe bits of WA. That'll be a job untangling that one....

 

If there is one thing I dislike it is constant change. Just promise that whatever is decided here is what sticks.....change just for the sake of change is pure stupidity.

 

Being in NC, I find having TX and OK, even LA and MS a real stretch.