Advice on brewery website content

In message , Zen News writes

Your "contact us" button doesnt always work!. Ive got this twice:

"Sorry, the file you requested is temporarily unavailable or it may not exist

Please try the following: Wait 30 seconds and click your browser's Refresh button. Check the spelling of the URL to make sure the address is correct. Click your browser's Back button to return to the previous page. "

This is repeatable using this sequence:

front page - where to find them - castle tavern - newmans brewery - contact us.

thanks, fixed.

Make sure your title tags agree with your links (the title for Reviews is 'Outlets').

I'm sure you realize this, but for accessibility reasons, it's always good to give any image a title or an alt tag, particularly if they're used as a link. On the other hand, you can skip them when you're using a text link (it can be confusing, but not necessarily).

Nice roundel, pixelated round the edge though.

Yeah, the pixelation is caused by trying to blend to a transparent background. I think I need to make it's background the same as the site background them anti-alias it to that.

Spot on. Don't bother with a transparent bg for the web.

Are you a trained graphic designer?

I need to recruit a graphic designer who has experience in beer-world graphics for a beer-related project which I can't actually tell you anything about as yet for contractual reasons.

Where are you? The business is in London.

JP

Zen News wrote:

background them

Looks pretty good here - using Mozilla 1.6b for OS/2. Is the dark blue background on the front page intended to be stepped around the Newman's Brewery logo? The way the text in the CAMRA logo overlays the dark blue background is not very good.

Working on the logo, as it is blended to a transparent background, it doesn't work. Am going to blend it to the background colour and hope it is smoother.

have moved the Camra logo left a bit, can't see the problem on either IE, or firefox on windows XP, but I guess it is running into the dark blue on your browser.

Is it any better now??

Rgds, Bruce.

p.s. I was actually looking for ideas on content that you guys would be interested in, but thanks for all the design tips and debugging !!!

Sorry, I'm not a designer, the logos were done by a design company in Bristol.

I just hacked the website together for a friend!!

Thanks for the compliment, I think.

Rgds, Bruce.

Bruce, would you like to take a look at a local craft brewer's site for some ideas. Prolly the best craft beer in Japan.

OS/2! That's a blast from the not too distant past, Jim.

Wayne

Your tag line says since 1994? I tried to get it to run on my PC, but there was some kind of hardware I had that OS/2 just couldn't deal with. I ended up with a Slackware Linux distribution and never looked back. There's still a lot of OS/2 out in corporate America, especially the financial services industry. Lots of ATMs use it.

CB

This is OT but I used OS/2 from Warp 3 until eComStation 1.1. I switched to Linux permanently last year after finding it a hassle to boot Mandrake to watch a DVD then back to OS/2 to do stuff.

Now back to the beer.... I'm drinking a crappy number from 1 of the big 4 breweries here in Japan... :-(

Wayne

In message , Zen News writes

Something I would like to see (but maybe it's just me, look at my domain name) is a map, showing where The Castle Tavern and the other outlets are. As it is, suppose I had an urge for a pint of Wolvers, where would I go?

(Pedantry: the pleistocene is not "historic", it is prehistoric)

Nick

ok, I'll see what I can do. Thanks for the pedantry!!

Zen News writes

I'd like to see more pics, maybe of the brewery being set up & an explanation of the brewing process with 'action shots' of beer being brewed, (I know it's been done before, but you'd be amazed at how many drinkers know very little about the process; they might take more of an interest in their new local brewery - you could also make more of the ways in which craft-brew is, ahem, 'different' to mass-brew).

Perhaps to help market the brewery, you could mention the URL on the pumpclips? I also think it would be good to have the brewery address (or at least county/town as I'm unsure where the Mendips are!) plus email & phone no. on the homepage. The email contact page looks a bit unfinished too.

Maybe also a bit more about the personality of the brewer/owner, and 'firming up' the writing in general E.g. the Woolly Mammoth Weis is described as being "produced using the German method" - to my mind that would include a mash of at least 50% wheat-malt, fermentation with bavarian wheat-yeast (or for berliner-weisse some weird lactobacillus thing) & being re-fermented in bottle or keg to very high levels of carbonation. My guess is only some of the above relates to this beer.

The Bite IPA is described as light & refreshing, but also complex & powerful, seems a bit confused to me?

I'm guessing the Stout is Irish style, rather than Irish(?) & "based upon original recipes developed within the heart of the Celtic Island" sounds like Caffrey's style market-ese Blarney to me.

Will "all real ale enthusiasts" really "immediately love" the Wolvers Ale? It's described as robust, refreshing, & fine for all-year drinking, fair enough, but what does it taste like? & which award did it win?

Does the brewery only self-deliver or can pubs from outside the area get the beer thru any wholesalers? (I'm guessing not due to the brewery size & overwork of the brewer, but might be worth a mention on the site?)

Overall I though the site looked pretty good, I liked the simplicity & quick downloads (I have a PC from the pleistocene era) I enjoyed reading the local CAMRA piece, the pumpclips look very nice indeed & despite my many comments above, the site definitely made me want to taste all of the beers!

I'm going to go out on a limb here - did you produce The Castle Tavern site as well? ;~) Best of luck, cheers MikeMcG

Yes more pictures and technical information too! What's the brewing capacity and how many days a week do you brew. Things like that.

Me too! The descriptions sound a little bit Madison Ave. Like what I might expect from a SAB/Miller, AB, Heineken, Coors/Molson (see I spelled it right this time), InBev web site.

I also noticed that the description of the brewery said that all the beers were named after Pleistocene period animals that can be seen in nearby archaeological digs, but I've never heard of an animal called a "bite" and the tap handle pictured on the web page shows something rather feline, perhaps a Lion. That was a little confusing.

Me too!

Most ATMs world wide used to use OS/2 but they are rapidly migrating to Windows - I've even seen a Windows error message box on an ATM.

I bought OS/2 2.1 at Christmas 1993 and have been running various versions as my preferred OS ever since. My original 386 running Warp 3 Connect is used as a print server.

Do you have permission to use the CAMRA logo? I think you'll find you need it.

Phil.

CAMRA linking policy...