Free Beer That's Free as in Speech

darkonc writes "The CBC has notes and an interview with Dane Rasmus Nielsen who decided to reduce the confusion between 'free as in speech' and 'free as in beer' by making a beer free -- in speech. The result is Vores Oel, an open source beer. The CBC site includes the recipe for the beer which is made with Guarana beans, and gives it a bit of a caffeine-like hit. The danish site downloads include the label for the beer (which is also Open Source)."

Wait...

But will he send it to me free like a Ubuntu CD?

Re:Free Beer?

yeah yeah, find the torrent but good luck getting the beer out of your PC safely. How do you plan to get the beer out, drip it through that old unused floppy drive?

Are you crazy?

Streaming free beer over the internet is pointless without a DRM free RS-232 Bar Tap for output and only RMS has one of those.

Re:Free Beer?

Use Unix. This is where all those pipes and filters come in handy.

reduce the confusion?

... or increase it???

It can't be open source

It's already version 1.0.

If this were in the true open-source spirit it'd be 0.99_rc3_beta1.1 at most.

Free beer is one thing

Trusting the Danish for your free beer is quite another.

*ducks*

Re:Free beer is one thing

> Trusting the Danish for your free beer is quite another.

mmmmmm danishhhhh ..... beer? danishhhhhhh .... mmmm ..beerrrr...... danish? .....

that would confuse the fuck out of homer simpson!

Now that will just add to the confusion...

As everyone knows free beer will make you drink more and get drunk. When you get drunk you will speak more freely. So it will be free speach by free beer. How does this help anyone?

Except that it helps us get drunk, and that's not a bad thing, is it? ;D

The label...

But is the label free as in beer, or free as in speech?

Re:The label...

I suggest "free as in lunch", I think it might really be better than "free as in beer" ever was anyway, because it relates back to "there's no such thing as a free lunch" and basically re-enforces the idea that "free as in speech" = good, "free as in lunch" = be cautious.

You can talk about free beer all you want.

Until I'm drinking it, there is no buzz.

Important message from Heineken

As a Heineken representative, I'd just like to remind you all that THERE ARE NO ADVANTAGES to open source beer.

See our website for zillions of usless statistics and reports (compiled by and independent organisation (funded by us)), that disprove the so called benefits of open source beer.

As well as conveniently digging up all those old patents we also plan to file numourous lawsuits against the open source beer community - if you are a user of open source beer, watch out - you may be prosecuted.

Coming from an ameteur brewer..

This recipe is terrible. The most glaring error is they don't specify the type of yeast. Is this an Ale or a Lager? There's a big difference beween the two. Given the room temperature fermenting, you'd assume an Ale, but some Lager yeasts can ferment at room temperature too. Among those two major yeast types there's a huge difference among the various strains that produces very different end products.

The recipe calls for armoma hops and bitter hops. The only difference between the two is the length of the boil. Bitter hops are boiled on the order of 30 minutes, Aroma hops are boiled on the order of 5 minutes. But no boil times are specified at all. The boiling time of hops impacts the hop level of the beer, which has a major impacts on the flavor of the beer.

If this recipe were code, it wouldn't compile. You'd have to guess at the yeast type and boil times for the hops. The massive 85 liter batch size isn't terribly usefull either. Most homebrewers do 5-6 gallon batches.

Re:Coming from an ameteur brewer..

Whenever I complained about some open source app not doing what I wanted it to, some dude would always come along and whine something like, "it's free, it's open source - fix it yerself"....

Ahem... (clears throat)

"Quit complaining! it's free, it's open source! Fix it yerself"

But seriously, I agree - it definitly doesn't look ready for a version 1.0 release right now.

:-)

Re:Coming from an ameteur brewer..

It's simple - you fork. OSB-Lager, OSB-Ale etc...

Beer is already free (as in speech)

Sorry folks, but that's just plainly stupid. All IP issues with recipe for beer should be settled with Hildegard of Bingen [fordham.edu]. This German Benedictine nun was the first author to suggest that adding hops to the disgusting fluid hitherto known as beer will be generally a good idea. Since the age of Hildegard (12 century), no significant progress has been made in this topic - she has described the beer as we know it today. And as it was with many medieval philospophers, Hildegard created her "intellectual property" just "ad maiorem Dei gloriam", feel free to copy for the greater God's glory. So there is no need to make "open source beer" today - it was open source since last eight centuries.

Personally, I think the idea of adding guarana to beer is just plainly insane. Beer is meant to relax people. If I want to stay alert and awake I can drink coffee or energy drinks. Beer is something to drink when the work is over and you can relax. Guarana beer is like coffee with sleeping pills.

Re:Wired

Here's the link [wired.com] to the Wired story.

DO NOT follow their directions

The process of brewing beer is easy, but not quite THAT easy.

A good introduction to brewing is How To Brew [howtobrew.com] by John Palmer. The entire 1st edition of the book is available on the web for free at the URL above. (Perhaps predictably, it's free as in beer, not as in speech :)

GPLed Mead

The following recipe is mine (mine! mine!) and I am releasing it under the GPL. For those unfamiliar with Mead, it is a honey-wine that dates back something like 6,000 years to either Greece or Cyprus. It has been blamed on various Gods over time and is even in the English language (honeymoon refers to the practice of getting sloshed on Mead for one lunar month after a marriage.)

Ingredients per gallon of water (scale as appropriate):

• 4 lbs. of any light-color honey
  
• 3 acorns (crushed)
  
• 1/4 pint of extra-strong tea
  
• Juice of two medium-sized lemons
  
• 3-4 tbsp malt extract
  
• 1 sachet of Mead or Champagne Yeast
  
• 2 x 1 gallon brewing jar
  
• One airlock
  
• Pint jug
  
• Wine siphoning kit
  

Method:

Boil the acorns in a 1/4 pint of water, until the water turns yellow. Strain out the acorns. Boil the gallon of water separately, then let it cool slightly. Add the honey, tea, the water from the acorns and the lemon juice. Stir gently. It is recommended to remove the scum off the top, but I never do. Allow the water to cool to just above blood-warm and pour all but 1/4 pint into a brewing jar.

Heat 1/2 pint of water in a jug until blood-warm and dissolve into it the maltose. Add the yeast and stir. Let to sit until the yeast is active and a good froth has formed.

Pour the yeast mix into the brewing jar, then rinse the jug with the remaining 1/4 pint to get the remaining yeast. Also pour into the brewing jar. Shake the brewing jar to ensure a good mix, but not so much as to lose any of the mixture out of the top.

Fill the air-lock with water (assuming it is a type that uses water) and stopper the brewing jar. Place somewhere warm (most yeasts do best around 78'F). Regardless of what anyone else says, I do recommend direct sunlight.

Wait until fully fermented, then use the wine siphoning kit to siphon the mead into the empty brewing jar, minus the sludge. Stopper it again and let it settle for a day. Clean the original brewing jar carefully. Place the full brewing jar in a cool, dark location.

After six months, siphon back to the original brewing jar, stopper it up, and place it back in the dark. After another six months, bottle into dark glass bottles.

Mead is "best" after being left for 4-5 years, but is extremely drinkable within a day or two of being bottled.

I use just about any old mead or champagne yeast, but the one that seems to be the most popular is Wyeast's #3632 Dry Mead yeast. If you want something that'll give you an extra kick, START with that until it finishes, then pour out 1/4 pint to make a fresh starter kit. This time, use a high-tolerence yeast (champagne will go to 17 or 18%, but there are yeasts now that'll go to 25%). Once started, pour back into the main brewing jar and let it finish.

If you want a slightly fruitier flavor, add 1 lb. of blueberries or some other soft fruit, when making the original mix.

If you want a "cleaner", softer flavor, don't use the acorns.

Re:GPLed Mead

But what good is an open source recipe when it is written in Shakespear-ish measurements like "lbs", "gallons", "sachet", "F" and "pint"?

Says the guy with RGB colors in his sig. In my country, we only use HSV, you insensitive clod!

Re:Somewhat Lacking?

Unless you are already a homebrewer, don't try this recipe - it's a difficult grain recipe, and looking at the recipe, will not will not be a fantastic beer.

A fantastic beer is all a matter of personal preference. The history of beer in north america was changed dramatically by prohibition. During that period, they were brewing awful stuff, and serving it very very green. What was discovered, if you chill the beer till it's 'cold', folks liked it better. If you look into the specific reason why, it's kind of hillarious. A liquid chilled the way north americans prefer beer (ice cold), will numb many of the tastebuds when it flows over the tongue. Those are specifically the buds that react to the flavour of yeast. When prohibition ended, the brewing industry held onto this concept, because it allows one to serve a green beer, and nobody will taste the yeast. Ever notice how much the industry spends promoting 'cold beer'? That simply because they know, if folks are drinking it chilled, they can sell a beer that's got a horrible yeast flavour, and nobody will notice.

The recipe in question as given on the website will produce a very interesting beer, but, its definitely a european beer. That means it should be served just below room temp, not well chilled, and, it does need to be fully and properly cured, to get rid of the yeast flavours. the majority of the flavour from this particular beer will be lost if served chilled the north american way.

If you are doing your own brews, it's a very interesting experiment. Make up a traditional european beer, then try 2 bottles side by side. Chill one 'the north american way', and treat the other exactly the way you would treat a good red wine (8 to 12 degrees below room temp). The chilled variant will taste awful, the room temp bottle will have a host of interesting flavours. Repeat the process with an american beer, and you'll find the room temp bottle will have a horrible yeasty aftertaste, which you dont notice when trying the chilled bottle.

But, that's the beauty of open source beer :) for our north american folks that prefer ice cold beer, they can fork the recipe, and refine it for one that has acceptable flavours when served chilled, and disregard the yeast artifacts, the the chilled serving will hide them.

Re:Freedom

Its free as in Free beer, but not as in free beer.

Shame. *hic*.

Don't forget - all drivers are incompatible with this open source release, DO NOT DRINK AND DRIVE

Re:Open Source Beer?

I certainly hope so, since after you drink it you'll have a hard time not producing derivative works...

Re:Open Source Beer?

Great, now all the toilets will be plugged up with copies of the GPL... which has to be distributed with said derrivitive works.

MadCow.

Re:caffeine LIKE?

And the caffeine in coffee and chocolate ISN'T natural? Natural != healthy. The nicotine found in tobacco is perfectly natural: the plant makes it as an insecticide. And even though it's perfectly natural, I doubt snake venom beer would be very good for you (okay, okay, it has been found that small doses of certain snake venoms can actually help patients overcome certain disorders, but in general, not a good idea.) Or how about a nice tetrodotoxin [emedicine.com]saki? It's made from the all natural pufferfish, a Japanese delicacy.

And then there's the fact that guarana has not been evaluated by the FDA for safety, effectiveness, or purity. All potential risks and/or advantages of guarana may not be known. Additionally, there are no regulated manufacturing standards in place.

Now, the caffeine in guarana beans is generally disgested much slower than in, say, a cup of coffee. However the effect when you grind up the bean and mix it with a carbonated alcoholic beverage would probably be to extract the caffeine directly into the liquid, where it can be digested quicker. Not that I'm against mixing caffeine and alcohol within moderation... just as long as you know what's going on and understand that, yes, you are taking risks.