BeerBorg

I don't know if this is already being discussed on the forum, but I saw that Mr. Beer is advertising their Mr. Beer University right on the main page of the site. Videos, help lines, email support, and a text book just to name of few of the tools they will be providing. I don't know all the details of the mass exodus from the other forum, but some of the best help (and encouragement) I ever received was from people on that board. I've found that brewing is a community more than anything else, and just having someone tell you what to do is no way to really learn. Just my two cents. Would love to hear other thoughts on this.

I'm a little confused by your post. To me, the title seems to infer that since there is now a Mr Beer University, you won't have a need for a forum? But in your post, you mention that you got the best help and encouragement from the other forum. So, I'm sure it's me and I'm just not reading into it correctly. I hope that you mean that you learned more from the forum, than just from a couple of their videos, instructions etc. etc.

But I will say this....I think you'll find that a good majority of the people that took part in the exodus that you mention found their way right here on the BeerBorg. So if you got some of the best help and encouragement on that forum, I hope you stick here, because you'll continue to get the same help and encouragement here that you got over there. And, thanks to this forum, it doesn't have to be so Mr Beer centered. We can openly discuss not only Mr Beer topics, but can also discuss Brew Demon, MoreBeer, Midwest Supplies, all grain and many, many more topics.

Again...I hope you'll find this place very similar as the old place, as many of us used to be on the other forum.

If you really want a shot at BeerU this thread is for you. People from this site are taking and discussing the free online beer chemistry class provided by the University of Oklahoma.

But a little more seriously I think having the information provided can be a good thing but controlled experimentation is really important for learning the process of beer making as I feel it is part science and part art. There is also a lot of information out there that is old or not necessarily true at the scale homebrewers work at. For example in another thread we were talking about keep hop material out of the fermenter and I stated that I make sure to cool my wort to the 70s to avoid hot side aeration. As others pointed out hot side aeration really isn't a problem but many people still believe and say it is. So I really appreciate communities like this because it helps me learn through other peoples experiences as well as my own.

As to Mr. Beer doing the BeerU I am glad they are doing things to help provide their users with support. I am done with their product and their company but it is how I got started and if it wasn't for the community in the forum I would never have learned to make good beer and probably would not still be in the hobby.

I can see where BD might have been confused from the title of the thread but if I am interpreting your post this is the gist:

I've found that brewing is a community more than anything else, and just having someone tell you what to do is no way to really learn. Just my two cents. Would love to hear other thoughts on this

.

You are perceiving a: read only the info we post and that is all the info you need to make beer in two weeks, no need to look/research anywhere else, just follow the instructions and place another order.

Whereas what you get here is:

The Borg has always been a community of like minded individuals who enjoy a camaraderie unlike many of the other brewing forums.

We enjoy sharing with, joking with, playing games with, teasing ( ) and supporting each other in general through life's victories and challenges more like a support group than a forum;

or maybe more like a local brew club than a brew forum.

Each beer or brew day of one of our members (units) is a brew of interest to us all and we share, assist, question, advise, copy, join, celebrate, emulate and if necessary mourn a loss.

We are the a collective; your brew day is our brew day, once you are one of us resistance is futile.

Is that kind of what you were getting us started at Blax?

If so then yeh you're right and also .

The sad truth of all of this is that they drove us off of the MR B site. Banned some of us for life.

Thanks Brewbirds....You obviously have a better way with words than I do. Very well said.

After my hiatus I was happy to find this place. I recognize some of the users from the old MrB. forum. It even has the happy camaraderie of the old MrB forum. But just what happened to move this party to its new home?

GOF wrote: But just what happened to move this party to its new home?

Nothing really bad, a software upgrade gone bad that turned the site user un-friendly, nobody could log-on, and had a hard time to navigate.

I think everyone came here when they discovered that they could no longer post images, edit their profiles, PM other members, or search for posts on the Mr B forum.

Rebel_B wrote:I think everyone came here when they discovered that they could no longer post images, edit their profiles, PM other members, or search for posts on the Mr B forum.

And it still seems to be like that.

I got started with Mr Beer and that will always mean something. However, I started LEARNING with the borg so my loyalty now lies here. Its really that simple.

Ah, OK then. I noticed how short on features the MrB forum had become. But there seemed to be some amount of animosity towards the 'upgrade' and little things, like the mention of lifetime bans and such, that had me wondering.

The title was meant to be sardonic! I can see how it was confusing, but what I was trying to comment on is the fact that Mr. Beer would rather try and get people to brew their way than allow a thriving and dynamic community offer its help.

blaxbear wrote:The title was meant to be sardonic! I can see how it was confusing, but what I was trying to comment on is the fact that Mr. Beer would rather try and get people to brew their way than allow a thriving and dynamic community offer its help.

That's the message I figured you were conveying

So it makes me wonder if that was their motive all along.

Well, maybe not so Machiavellian as that, but what I mean is they allowed the community software to tank because they wanted to move along to this step eventually. Putting a program like Mr. Beer University in motion takes a lot of time, and it would seem to me that the timeline sort of fits everything that's gone on. So even though the MB Community fell apart, it was actually a result (not a cause) of this new thing, despite it happening prior to the introduction of MBU. Death by neglect, as it were.

I'd be interested to see just where this "course" takes a person. Do they introduce steeping grains, PMs, all the stuff we eventually began covering (and still cover here)? Or, as seems more likely, is it geared toward keeping a brewer shackled to the MB products and methods forever?

Which I can't see happening in a lot of cases, because once people get the brewing bug, they want to explore the entire field, not just one corner of it.