Free (As In Speech) Beer, V2.0

AgentPaper writes "Three years ago we discussed an open source brewing project in which a Danish brewer made his beer recipes available for public consumption and alteration. The concept has taken off, first with the 'Free Beer Project' in Denmark and now with Flying Dog's 'Collaborator' Doppelbock in the US, which was created via input from home brewers across the world. One version of the Collaborator is commercially brewed and available for purchase (and is darned tasty), but you can download the same recipe and labels, brew it yourself, and submit your mods back to the project."

Comments

Missed half the point!

[BadAnalogyGuy]

It's fine and dandy to have Free (as in Speech) Beer, but I would certainly be better off with Free (as in Beer) Beer.

Free beer is only free if your time is worth nothing.

Re:Missed half the point!

[Xiph]

When you make it yourself, it's close to half price of regular beer and often the result is better. For the experienced brewer often becomes almost always.

When you brew beer commercially, it becomes very important to make same beer every time, and to make something which easy to consume.
The consumer beer is lighter (in colour and taste), because that's what you can drink in large quantities.

If you want beer full of flavour, the price goes up, or you have to make it yourself.

Re:Missed half the point!

[timmarhy]

eh, only break even? what the hell are you brewing with? hops for a single brew cost about $8, grain costs about $10 ( 5kgs). add in about $4 for CO2 and gas. that's $22 (AUD) for 20L of beer. in real terms that's a bit over 2 slabs which would normally cost up to $60 - $80.

there is an initial outlay, lets be generous and say you got a keg system with 2 kegs a filter CO2 regulator and all the bits and pieces. you can pick those up on ebay for $400. that gear would pay for itself after 10.5 batches. thats not even taking into account the fact you can resell the equipment later on, and most probably recoup 60% or better of the cost (kegs go up in price, not down)

Re:Missed half the point!

[PopeRatzo]

My wife, who grew up in a Communist Eastern European country (yes, I bought her on the internet) spent most of her life with food and drink that is made at home. As an American IdiotTM, I grew up suspicious of any food that didn't come wrapped in plastic or aluminum.

I can even remember as a kid, wanting to go to McDonalds and my mom saying "I'll make you a nice hamburger here at home" and I'd be really upset because I preferred a skinny, greasy Golden Arches meat cookie to the fat, lovely fresh burger my mom would make. Needless to say, there's not much I wouldn't give for another burger (or anything else) made by my mom.

I can tell you, after the years I've spent married, that's changed. When I have that deep gnawing need for sustenance, I go look for an unlabeled jar in the basement first. There are few things edible or drinkable that I'm not certain could be done better at home, with love, than in a factory by workers in white overalls and hairnets.

Have you ever had home made root beer or fig preserves? Just thinking about all these things has me drooling on myself as I sit here at 7am.

The first thing I ever got from the net ...

[dbIII]

... was free beer recipies. It was "The Jolly Brewer" in postscript format made by people on alt.rec.brewing some time in the late 1980's or early 1990s. It was certainly before the web came along in 1992.

I am glad I don't have to...

[patio11]

... listen to the bug reports for this one.

"*slurrred* We've been waiting on RC2 for years now and you still haven't fixed B..b..bug #272 Sporadic Bubble Popping. Lazy bastards, I'd fork if I could tell the difference between a fork and a spoon right now."

Beer isn't software

[Anonymous Coward]

There are many of us who brew beer as a hobby. We have competitions. We help each other. We trade recipes and equipment. Some of us are a bit stingy with our beer though.

There are university courses on beer making. Beer making is well understood. It is not at all like programming. All of the effort is in the programming, once the program is written, that's it, you're done. Beer recipes are fairly simple programs that don't change all that much between beers that are quite different. The goodness of the beer is determined by the skill of the brewer. Given the same recipe, two of us will produce different tasting beers.

How you heat and cool your beer determines how the different enzymes will work and that determines how the beer tastes (in addition to the obvious hops and barley). The exact temperature profile is a function of your equipment. Beer made in a large batch with steam heat and water cooling will be different from my five gallon batches.

Beer is a craft. It isn't the same as software because the same program (recipe) won't always produce the same result. The program I wrote yesterday will run the same any time of year. Beer, on the other hand, cares when I make it. Around here, we don't brew between May and October.

Creating an open source beer project ... I don't see the point.

Re:Beer isn't software

[Tx]

Beer is a craft. It isn't the same as software because the same program (recipe) won't always produce the same result. The program I wrote yesterday will run the same any time of year. Beer, on the other hand, cares when I make it. Around here, we don't brew between May and October.

The conditions under which the brewing occurs are part of the "program", and the same program certainly should always produce the same results. If you don't have control of some of your initial variables, then you will get varying results, whether you're talking software or beer.

Re:Beer isn't software

[wrook]

As an avid brewer, I agree with your points, but not your conclusion.

One of the biggest challenges to improving your brewing is brewing to style. But style definitions are imprecise and very subjective. That's why all the style definitions come with commercial beer reference points. Dry Irish Stout - Guinness. Bohemian Pilsner - Pilsner Urquel.

With these references, anyone who has access to commercial beer can learn more about the style. They can try to intentionally brew a beer in that style. However you're still in a bind. Let's say Fuller's London Porter is considered a reference for "London Porter" - how would I go about brewing that specific style? What grain bill should I play with? Is roast barley appropriate? Where on the hop scale should I be?

The more information I can get about a commercial beer, the better off I am when I try to make beers like it. Sure, I'm not likely to be able to make a clone without a huge amount of work. But it's a good starting point for learning.

A commercial brewer that gives up this information is inviting the amateur brewer to share in the creation process. They are saying, "Please try to make something like this." And while not the same as the 4 freedoms in free software, I find the sentiment similar.

Re:Not free for everyone

[Wizard Drongo]

Think that's bad?
Ever since the English got control of Scotland, it's illegal to distill whisky without a (extremely expensive) licence.
And what is Scotland most famous for?

Literally, if I pay a few thousand pounds, I can have a licence to make as much whisky as is humanly possible. About $10,000 I think.
Yet if I make 100ml of moonshine for my own consumption, I can go to jail for 10 years.

Nothing to see here

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been home brewing for nearly 20 years.

In my experience:

1. Most brewers (home and professional) have always been willing if not eager to share their recipes with other brewers.

2. Those brewers who do zealously guard their secret recipes usually don't make very good beer, and you wouldn't want their recipes anyway.

Re:Not free for everyone

[morgan_greywolf]

In most U.S. states, brewing beer for personal/family use is okay without a license. What's considered personal/family use? In most states, it's a LOT of beer. Like 200 gallons per calendar year by ATF regs -- this is the same for most U.S. states.