Features of
Version 23
I have learned from various sources that the catalog does not necessarily
gain in clarity due to the large number of labels illustrated. On the one hand,
the interests of as many collector friends as possible should be taken into
account, on the other hand, fewer pictures would also mean a certain more.
Therefore, I tried to find out the wishes and requirements of the collectors
for the catalog by means of a survey. It was not to be expected otherwise: the
opinions range from "don't need" to "must stay in". Here
are the results in percentages:
|
Label type |
should be included |
can be omitted |
|
Misprints |
54 % |
46 % |
|
Abel with
wrong text |
69 % |
31 % |
|
Barrel labels |
92 % |
8 % |
|
Different print codes |
77 % |
23 % |
|
Numbered labels |
69 % |
31 % |
|
Different product numbers |
85 % |
15 % |
|
images from the trademark register |
23 % |
77 % |
|
Different Date imprints |
23 % |
77 % |
|
Bottles etc. |
31 % |
69 % |
|
Labels of advertising boards etc. |
46 % |
54 % |
|
Exchange meeting labels |
46 % |
54 % |
I have thought about how to fulfill as many wishes as possible. As a result,
I have come to the conclusion that I will remove the misprints, the
illustrations from the stamp register, the special exchange meeting prints and
the bottles from the normal catalog, everything else will be displayed as
before. For the collector friends who need overviews of misprints etc., these
can be displayed via the special compilations. I hope that this will help
everyone. With the misprints there are however with security cases, where a
clear assignment is not possible. I gladly accept suggestions.
Features of Version
19
In the last time I received several
inquiries about the age of different labels. Since these often date back to the
time before 1950 and I am not so meaningful there, I have consulted aids, which
I have also included in the catalog. On the one hand there are illustrations
from the German trademark register, where breweries could register beer types
with a designed label. Since in such cases the date of registration is also
given, this allows to draw conclusions about the age of these labels. On the
other hand, I have searched for sources that give information about the history
of a brewery. First and foremost this is the homepage of the brewery itself,
but also research of various collector friends on this topic, which have been
published in newspapers and magazines (e.g. "Unser Steckenpferd").
Here I would be happy if further material is added. The ad appears when you
click on the "HIST" box after the name of the town or brewery. The
historical data of the homepage of a brewery was intentionally not shown by a
link, because some breweries have no homepage anymore and then the data is
lost.
I think that with these extensions
the catalog has become even more informative.
Weimar, July 2019
Features of
Version 17
Even if progress is slow: the
catalog is still growing and has now almost reached the 34,000 illustrations.
With each addition of images, the limit of a DVD is reached and the data must
be output on double layer DVD, which does not exactly increase the runtime of a
DVD. Furthermore I was still looking for a way to effectively save the data to
an SD card to make the catalog executable on smartphone and tablet. With this
edition of the catalog we come much closer to this goal, because every picture
is only saved once (the thumbnails are missing). This reduces the number of
files and directory entries by approx. 34,000 - while the display remains the
same. There are now still about 46,000 files in 1400 folders. All further
information about this in the file "Tablet version BEK... in the directory
Data. Also the maintenance program for the individual display of the collection
results has been changed internally considerably (with the same display) and
thus a runtime improvement has been achieved.
I hope that the new version of the
catalog will also run stable for you. If you have any problems, I will be glad
to help you, and change requests are also welcome.
Weimar, February 2017
Features of
Version 13
We almost made it to the 32,500
illustrations in our catalog - but, I think this compilation is quite
impressive. Please continue to keep your eyes open and send in any pictures
that are not yet available. Starting with this issue, there will always be a
version at the end of the year - so here V13. On this version the development
with V14A, V14B, ... will be built up until a version V14 is finished. Accordingly,
the files REN_V13.DBF and DEL_V13.DBF will be available as correction files for
the previous year's version.
New media are pushing onto the
market and so it becomes necessary to develop corresponding variants which can
then be used by new technology. I am thinking primarily of tablet PCs and
smartphones, which are also suitable for displaying the catalog. But my
thoughts are not going in the direction of showing the internet version (this
works already with the previous version), but the detailed display on these
devices should be possible - and this also for the individual display. A major
weak point is the number of files that represent the catalog. For tablets the
display of the overview (thumbnails) and the individual images is useful, for smartphones
you could possibly do without one (I ask for your opinion!). In the current
version, the previous single image display has been replaced by a display in a
scroll bar. This reduced the number of files by about 57,000 (to now 81,000
files in 3,000 folders). Despite this considerable reduction of files, the
loading time on a smartphone is indicated as 26 hours. Unfortunately, I do not
yet have loading times for a tablet. Surely it also plays a role whether the
data is transferred to the device via cable or whether you insert the SD card
into a PC for charging and write on it. Unfortunately, the next shortcoming
comes to light: all devices with the operating system iOS (i.e. iPhone, iPad
etc.) do not allow any other files on the device except pictures, movies and
music. So also no HTML pages - and therefore these devices are not suitable for
this. On all other devices the catalog is executable after my relatively few
attempts, if you have survived the long loading time. I personally can't test
much, I own an iPhone). I'm sure there will be changes here in the near future
and I ask all collector friends who have any experience in this area to let me
know.
Again and again I am asked if there
will be a version with labels after 1990 soon. Oh, I have thought about that.
But I see a lot of new aspects that have to be taken into consideration when
implementing such a project, e.g. pub breweries, dealer labels, the different
combinations of front, back and neck labels, contract brewing processes,
bottling in other breweries etc. Perhaps it would also be useful to divide the
catalog by federal states? Here, too, you should start with a collection of
ideas before programming anything. And that's exactly my problem -
unfortunately I don't know the new programming languages and such a catalog
cannot be built by hand. So also here opinions are needed.
Weimar, January 2014
Features of
Version 11A
Again our label catalog has grown,
although the increase is no longer as serious. Nevertheless, I hope that the
attention does not diminish and that I will continue to receive images that are
missing in the current issue. Last year I made another minor rearrangement,
which was triggered by various discussions and has now led to a uniform
approach. When assigning a brewery to a location, the name of the location is
chosen to be the same as it had in 1990 or at the time of the closure of a
brewery, if it was before 1990. This procedure is also intended to avoid that
the label names have to be changed again and again even today, if the place
names change due to area reforms and other measures (e.g. Wernesgrün -
Steinbach, Lobenstein - Bad Lobenstein etc.).
Interesting is the increase of
inquiries from completely different areas to our catalog lately. So not only
breweries or former master brewers contact me with the request for information
about one or the other label. Also the press and radio have become aware of the
compilation. Quite apart from the fact that access from the Internet is also
becoming increasingly widespread. This is another reason to continue this
project.
Weimar, January 2011
Features of
Version 09B
With the present version 09B, the
magic limit of 30,000 images in the catalog was exceeded in early December
2009. Even though this number includes the neck and back labels separately and
the counting of overprint and misprint labels is controversial, the catalog has
become an impressive work. It is the catalog of all of us, because without the
truly extensive preparatory work, I would not have made much further progress
than with the first edition in 2005. Of course, it is becoming more and more
difficult to find something new for the catalog, but the pictures shown in the
overview "Novelties" prove that not only rarities have been missing
in the catalog so far. So: keep your eyes open and send a short mail to the old
address even if only a new label was found. Also I have invested almost all of
my free time in the last years in putting up the catalog and so my own
collection has been truly neglected. I hope that I can now get back into the
collecting business - without of course neglecting the continuation of the
catalog.
I have often had the most recent
additions to the catalog as JPG files from digital cameras, which I have of
course included in the catalog, but these images are often not as high quality
as scanned images. Especially because of the perspective distortion only
moderate image material could be added to the catalog despite digital
equalization. Please excuse this. As soon as I have better pictures they will
be replaced.
I have not made any more changes to
the display system. Except for corrections of content, which are always
welcome, no changes were requested. Since there is no request for a display on
a PDA/MDA yet, this part of the program was put on hold. Maybe in the future I
will receive requests in this direction or for a completely new technology.
Weimar, December 2009
Features of
Version 07A
Issue 07A is now already a whole
year behind. I hadn't planned a new offline version for autumn 2007, because
some changes were planned but not yet implemented. These changes have now been
partially implemented and are available with today's edition. Some ideas could
still not be realized, because as always in the end time has become too short.
Thanks to the great response and cooperation, the scope of the catalog could be
significantly expanded during this time. Many thanks once again to all
involved. But not only the extensions, but also the submissions for quality
improvement were gladly accepted and added to the overview. From this point of
view, I am very satisfied with the progress in the creation of the catalog,
even if I did not manage the one or other thing.
1. The increase at some breweries led to such a
large number of illustrations that the loading times, especially when viewed
directly from the DVD as well as on the Internet, caused a considerable delay.
Here only a splitting of the pages to be displayed could lead to an
improvement. However, it was not easy to integrate this into the generation of
the HTML pages, because the separation should be done at a reasonable point.
This has now been achieved and we have to see if the size per page is so
reasonable. Therefore I would like to ask for your opinions on this topic. The
following pages or previous pages can be called from the respective page or can
be selected directly in the selection menu by the number [02], [03], ...
indicated in square brackets.
2. For the display of the anniversary, city
festival and other events. Special labels the splitting was also realized.
3. First attempts were made to create a version
for a PDA / MDA (the small pocket-sized PCs or cell phones), which also led to
useful results. However, the splitting of the display pages still has to be
reproduced here. As soon as a version for this catalog version is available, I
will offer it via the homepage. It should then also become part of the normal
DVD
4. A revision of the allocation to series within
the catalog is still pending, but this will be done in the course of the year.
5. I have not yet formed a final opinion about
the update version for this DVD, because the increase is still so big at the
moment. I will announce this on the homepage or by mail.
6. The allocation of the Berlin labels is not yet
completely finished. There is still work to be done with the support of other
collector friends, which has not yet been realized.
7. For legal reasons the well-known copyright
sign was omitted and instead an (E) for "Einsender" was inserted.
Weimar, April 2008
News and changes from version 07A to
version 06B
Also over the winter, which was
almost only an autumn, many collector friends participated in the expansion of
the catalog. Thus, new images could be added to the overviews and poorly
resolved image material could be replaced by images of better quality. In
addition to the offline version, I am also observing the acceptance of the
internet presentation and I am pleased that the overviews are accepted here as
well. So after the issue 06B I had added 3 internet updates. This will be
maintained in the future. The amount of labels added will also decide in the
future whether I will send a new DVD or whether I will offer an update by mail
or download. In any case, I recognize that the work I have started is
worthwhile and I will continue to work on it as before. In this context I would
like to thank all active collectors for providing me with pictures. Without
this cooperation the project would stagnate. The following changes were
realized in this issue:
1. The compilation for Berlin had already proven
to be problematic in the first edition. A correct allocation especially of the
older labels was difficult, if not impossible. Now that I received more than
1000 images of Berlin labels in February, I had to face the task of
classification again. After consultation with some collector friends, I decided
to include the area of all of Berlin in the overview. Even though this will
broaden the topic a bit, I hope for broad acceptance.
2. Due to the expansion and size of Berlin the
brewery/publisher overview became very extensive. Therefore a separation into
breweries and publishers was made and the overviews were additionally provided
in a keyword and catalog sorting.
3. The separation of neck and back labels has
been completed (except for a mistake on my part). So the number of images is
not equal to the number of labels, but therefore e.g. the size information
corresponds to reality (if the material does not contain any errors in this
respect). Also it was tried to name these neck labels with the identification
letter "Q" and the back labels with the identification letter
"R".
4. Single beers were rearranged. "Dark
single beer" and "Malt beer" keep/get the code letter
"M", while "Light single beer" and "Light single
beer" are filed with the code letter "F". There may still be
some gaps in this renaming action.
Weimar, April 2007
News and changes from version 06B to
version 06A
Thanks to the help of many collector
friends, the catalog that had been started could be considerably expanded again
this year. In the process, facts came to light that could be partially
eliminated, but also those that I will have to postpone to a later date. All in
all, I think that this compilation is accepted and that it is worthwhile to
continue working on it. In this context I would like to thank these active
collectors for providing me with pictures. Without this cooperation the project
would stagnate.
1. Since the release of version 06A, a website
has been set up that includes the overview form of the catalog (the complete
catalog would take up too much space and cause long loading times). The
statuses set there are updated at shorter intervals than the offline version.
The catalog is available to all Internet users via www.bieretikettenkatalog.de.
2. Through active cooperation, the number of
illustrations in the catalog has risen to over 19,150. However, it should be
noted that a small percentage of the existing neck and back labels are
considered separately. This fact will be considered for all labels in the
future. . For the offline version, all images received up to 31.7.2006 were
used.
3. The included program will also allow updating
of the collection file, which may be maintained for your own overview. A
separate update run is provided for this purpose, which is also shown in the
program description.
4. For the extension of the catalog I was also
provided with graphical material that did not quite meet my requirements.
Besides the wrong image resolution and / or an image ratio unequal 1:1, I also
received images of color-copied labels, which were created on bad copying
technology. In the end, I decided to include this image material in the catalog
and replace it with better images at the next best opportunity. I hope for the
approval of the users of the catalog. The material is mainly from collector
friend Streithoff, who received these color copies from other collectors. It is
easy to recognize by the color shifts.
5. Another problem is the given dimensioning.
Since it is impossible to measure every label and enter it into the database, I
decided to read out the image properties and enter this information as size.
Inaccuracies caused by bad cutting technique on the original as well as
twisting and canting and inaccurate cropping of the image on the PC cannot be
avoided and can be ignored. Unfortunately, I also have pictures here that
deviate from the original to a much greater extent. With labels, which are not
available in the standard size, a size determination is then very difficult.
These mistakes are especially with copies from the internet, but also with
material from collectors. For this reason I have revised the series composition
once again and checked the sizes by machine. In case of obvious mistakes a size
correction was made in this case. If I receive labels from 'safe sources' as a
replacement, these will be replaced as well. In general the same labels are
affected, which have already been noticed because of their pixel resolution.
Weimar, August 2006
News and changes from version 06A to
version 05B
Issue 06A considerably extends the
number of labels displayed and provides new functions and views. This should
make the catalog even more handy and eliminate weak points. In detail the
following changes and extensions have been made, which were also realized on
suggestions of collector friends, for which I would like to thank you at this
point:
1. Since errors cannot be avoided absolutely
with this compilation, they have been eliminated, as far as known.
Unfortunately, this does not exclude the possibility that new mis-assignments
have crept in now. Once again, I would like to point out that labels that
contain absolutely no indication of the brewery origin have been classified in
the overview under "U077 - unknown manufacturer". In case of a
possible assignment (e.g. Lübz export labels) a synonym assignment can be
made. Here, too, reliable information is requested.
2. The compilation now contains about 16.000
labels, but not all of them could be provided in the quality I aimed for
(original size with 200 dpi resolution). These labels can be recognized in the
view by an imprecise representation and the marking with a symbol
"AUFL" below the picture. In case of provision of better picture
material, these should be replaced in the following time.
3. Newly added labels in edition 06A are marked
in the view with a "NEW" symbol below the label.
4.
With the number of labels, the number of breweries and
publishers using labels has also increased.
5.
To further link the breweries and publishers, an additional
overview "all publishers to one brewery" has been added.
6.
In the brewery overviews, a link to the publishers can be
provided if available.
7.
For some places synonyms were created to make it easier to
search (e.g. Wittenberg - > Lutherstadt Wittenberg).
8.
For some labels a clear assignment to the brewery is not
possible. Synonyms were created here as well, so that although these labels are
only included once in the catalog, they are displayed at different locations
(e.g. Brauerei Greifswald, publisher Ahlbeck and Anklam).
9.
In cases where a year can be determined for the first
appearance of a label, this is also displayed in the remarks line (e.g. for
anniversary labels). A "<" in front of the year number is to be
interpreted as "before", a ">" correspondingly as
"after", while a "=" indicates the exact year. The marking
of labels with this property has not yet been completed and will be extended in
the next editions.
10. A simple program has been
created (I am still looking for a better solution with a graphical display),
which allows to maintain a file with the indication of the labels present in
your own collection.
This output will be
used as a basis for further additions in the future. I ask for a lively
participation.
© Harald Burger,
P.-Schneider-Str. 60, 99425 Weimar, Phone: +49 3643 505485, Mail: H. Burger