PURPOSE rec.food.drink.beer was created for the purpose of discussing the various aspects of that fine beverage, made in its simplest form from malted grain, water, yeast and hops, which is generally referred to as beer. Welcome here will be discussions of interesting beers and beer styles, opinions on tastes and ingredients, reviews of brewpubs and breweries, suggestions about where to shop for beer, and other comments to consider when enjoying a fine beer. POSTING GUIDELINES Flames, pointless bickering and the encouragement of alcohol abuse will not be tolerated on rec.food.drink.beer! Contributors to rec.food.drink.beer recognize that tastes are subjective, and everyone has a favorite beer for a different reason -- every style and brand has a place in the great wide world of beer. Please do not engage in flame wars about one kind of brew being better than another or one country making better beer than another. If you don't like a certain kind of beer, you are welcome to say so, with an explanation for your opinion. Berating others for liking something that you don't is not condoned under this Charter. rec.food.drink.beer is the mainstream forum for high-quality discussions of beer. Homebrewing is discussed in rec.crafts.brewing. rec.food.drink exists for discussions of all beverages, such as wine and spirits. Clear malt beverages such as coolers and Zima are not beer and are addressed in alt.zima. Politics are discussed in soc.politics and talk.politics.misc. "Partying" and drinking games are covered in alt.party, and flame wars are held in alt.flame. You will find a lot more acceptance of and information about these topics in these groups. Advertising may exist in rec.food.drink.beer only under the following guidelines: 1. Only advertisements specifically relevant to the serious discussion of beer as outlined above should be posted to rec.food.drink.beer. 2. All advertisements should use the ADV: tag at the beginning of the subject header. 3. ADV: postings should include the product or service in the subject header. 4. ADV: postings should be limited to once each month per advertiser. 5. ADV: postings should be less than 30 lines of text. 6. ADV: postings should be cross-posted (rather than individually posted) to relevant groups. 7. ADV: postings should originate from the actual service or product provider. 8. ADV: postings may be archived in a "beer yellow pages" on a WWW page maintained by John Lock at Requirements for ads to be included on this site: --Ad size *must* be <2k (about the average typed page or a screen full of text). --Ad copy for the Web page will be taken directly from the posting unless otherwise requested. Of course, some folks may want to be included in the Web page without posting at all: contact John directly at jlock@mindspring.com for more information. --Ads included in the WWW page must originate from the actual business. ARCHIVES The rec.food.drink.beer archives are available via anonymous ftp at . Available files include: o rfd-beer.charter - this document (maintained by cverver@u.washington.edu) **also at o rfd-beer.faq - rec.food.drink.beer FAQ (maintained by jlock@mindspring.com) **also at o beer-atlanta - A Beer lover's guide to Atlanta, Georgia (maintained by jlock@mindspring.com) **also at o beer-book-list - a bibliography of beer-related book titles o beer-by-mail.faq - How to get beer through the mail (maintained by cverver@u.washington.edu) o beer-calories.faq - caloric contents of ~200 popular beers (maintained by binger@hsh.com) o beer-capacity.faq - Measures of Capacity FAQ (maintained by AK200032@Sol.YorkU.CA) o beer-guinness.faq - Guinness FAQt and Folklore (maintained by AK200032@Sol.YorkU.CA) o beer-learning.faq - How to Learn Beer and Beer Tasting (maintained by AK200032@Sol.YorkU.CA) o beer.mags - subscription information on selected beer magazines (maintained by jlock@mindspring.com) **also at o beer-no-calif-pubs.faq - A Beer lover's guide to Northern California (maintained by kpapai@rahul.net) o beer-ontario.faq - A Beer lover's guide to Ontario, Canada (maintained by AK200032@Sol.YorkU.CA) o beer-records.faq - Beer Records FAQ (maintained by AK200032@Sol.YorkU.CA) o README.camra - CAMRA info o reinheitsgebot.deutsch - German text of 1516 Bavarian Purity Law o reinheitsgebot.english - English text of 1516 Bavarian Purity Law These files (and many others) are also available via WWW at the Virtual Pub <, "a place for network beer aficionados to gather information about themselves and other things beer-related." Many thanks to the maintainers of the FAQs and to all who contribute to rec.food.drink.beer, making it one of the friendliest, most informative newsgroup on the Net! ----- This Charter and the FAQ are posted twice monthly. The specialty FAQs are posted monthly.