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."

Missed half the point!

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!

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!

I have made beer for many years (extract and all grain), and I can tell you that most real ales and lagers, the best you can do is about break even. Meaning, on the high end side of beers, you can do allot better because their transportation costs kill them, but for many of the domestic beers its very close... I will admit that all grain brewing is cheaper than extract, but... Well you get my point...

Anyway, the reason I still brew my own beer is simply because I think the quality is better, just as I think OSS is as well. Most import beers ae oxidized quite heavily by the time you get them, just as with most commercial software (Vista comes to mind here) is as well, but if you brew it completely on your own, especially with natural carbonation, then that living beer can last for at least a decade. For OSS, it actually is allot longer... :)

Re:Missed half the point!

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!

Listen, we might looking at this for a different perspective... Can you make beer cheap??? Absolutely.... Can you do that to match the exact quality of a true premium... That is allot harder...

Realistically, from my experience to get the same quality and consistency of true premium ales/lagers there are allot of things required. Excluding lagers, the cost of yeast starter prep work, mash tuns, water purifying/ph correction/mineral corrections... Even with ales you must keep the at the optimum fermentation range of 65F during the entire primary ferment. This takes equipment, time, and cost which all most be figured in. Also, keep in mind that the cost of time is a big one. Also, it must spend several weeks in the secondary being monitored for clarity, and depending on the type of grain might need additional clarification related items/procedures. Once again... Time and Expense... Third, the time and expense to bottle as I general do not like artificial CO2 because for most premiums it alters the unique living beer taste... I could go on, because I hope you are seeing my point... Making beer is easy... Making true high end beers (which is where the true savings is) is not...

In short... I do this because I do believe it makes a difference and I appreciate the added quality of taste, but I really do not pretend by saying that I save money by doing it. I am constantly reminded with the amount of equipment, and the space it takes up, that saving much money is unlikely...

Time is money!

Do you go to the movies? If so, do you factor in the price of your time along with the tickets and popcorn?

When drinking beer, do you factor in the time it takes to drink it, as well as the cost of the beer itself? How about going out to dinner? Do you tack on an additional $100/hr for your time?

How do you pay yourself? It seems like it would get a bit circular. "Hey, Self, here's the $100 I owe you for the last hour. Don't spend it all in one place, you know you have payroll coming up in an hour!"

Re:Missed half the point!

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 ...

... 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.

Not free for everyone

In some jurisdictions you need a license to brew beer. I doubt that's included...

Re:Not free for everyone

Like where? A licence to mix water, sugar and yeast? That's just about the stupidest thing you could ever require.

My, my, what is the world coming to when people can't even get the ingredients in beer right.

Water, hops, malt, yeast. That's all it is.

Re:Not free for everyone

As far as I know, all the ingredients required to make amphetamine are legal. Mixing them is not, though.

Re:Not free for everyone

Utah seems to require one, even for personal brewing, although if you're wanting to sell it commercially, I think you have to register with the ATF as they will want to TAX you. http://www.atf.gov/alcohol/info/faq/beer.htm [atf.gov] has more info

Re:Not free for everyone

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 [atf.gov] -- this is the same for most U.S. states.

Re:Not free for everyone

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.

Re:Not free for everyone

Homebrewing beer is illegal in Alabama, for one. It can even get you into actual trouble [freethehops.org].

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

... 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."

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

You wouldn't need to tell the difference if you used sporks [xkcd.com] more often. Although dangerous cross breeds and alcohol probably shouldn't mix...

Beer isn't software

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

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

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.

microsoft

waiting for someone to bring microsoft into this discussion... its not a matter of if, but how and when
"1 pint ought to be enough for everyone"

Re:microsoft

I think it's when they start offering "Microsoft beer (TM)", that tastes suspiciously like Open Beer, although not quite the same. And it has a small dog on the label, and every fourth can explodes when you open it.

Not to mention that the newest beer only comes in ten-liter cans and you need to buy a larger fridge to store them.

Re:microsoft

and there's a confusing license scheme for the various degrees of crippledness:
MS Beer Home Edition -- available only as a six-pack.
MS Small Beer Server
MS Beer Enterprise Edition
MS BeerCE -- tastes like water but at least it's potable, er, portable.

And don't forget MS Trace, for counting the number of hops.

Nothing to see here

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.

Free as in beer?

This sort of thing just shows how stupid the whole "free as in beer" v "free as in speech" thing is.

Beer is not free "as in beer". You have the pay for the stuff. It is, on the other hand, something that anyone can make and sell in a traditional manner without worrying about infringing any sort of patent or intellectual property belonging to the ancient people who invented it.

Speech is not free "as in speech". If I go and write a story about wizards called Harry and Dumbledore, I'll get sued. If I lie to your boss that you've been stealing from work and you get fired, I'll get sued.

We don't need such weird terms. "Free" in the first sense is simply an abbreviation of "free of charge", so just don't abbreviate it if you want to be clear. The Latin term "gratis" is also well-known in English.

If you absolutely insist on a term to specifically say the opposite, then "liber" is the perfect Latin counterpart to "gratis". There is also the derivative "liberal" which has several senses connected to freedom and generosity, and would be quite sufficient.