Free Beer That's Free as in Speech 379
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)."
Open Source Beer? (Score:2, Interesting)
No wonder there is confusion (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The label... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Somewhat Lacking? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you are interested in starting with the hobby (and I recommend you do, you'll never look back), go to your local home brew shop and grab a starter kit, you will make some pretty good beer - certianly better than that recipe will get you.
Once you have made up a few batches, add some Gurana to a recipe you like and you will have a cafinated beer that you will actually enjoy.
Re:Somewhat Lacking? (Score:5, Interesting)
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:Coming from an ameteur brewer.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Open source beer has been around ever cince home brewing has been around. (like forever)
I strongly suggest to people wanting to get into home brewing to get some books on the subject, and make a couple of throw away batches (my first 4 batches were HORRIBLE! praanoid sterelization is key to making beer!)
I would put the recipie as not even a no compiling project but as a project that requires some dependancies but they only tell you generally..
Oh to compile you need a graphics library. and the lack of details on the rest of it is like not telling you what programming language it is.
This is not at all like that open source cola recipie that was on the net a few years ago. that one was complete and easy to make (if you can get your hands on the ingredients)
in fact that open source cola launched me into beer making. I bought several postmix pop canisters for making the pop.... found they are wonderful for fermenting my beer into larger than bottle sized batches. my "mini-keg" so to speak of lumpyale.
GPLed Mead (Score:5, Interesting)
Ingredients per gallon of water (scale as appropriate):
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:Somewhat Lacking? (Score:3, Interesting)
Did the post say _all_ tastebuds, or many tastebuds ? Some are not affected by the cold, others are. Heat has a similar effect. I'm sure you know at least one food that seems to 'taste better' after it's got cold?
Re:Coming from an ameteur brewer.. (Score:3, Interesting)
While you're busy taking offense, how about taking a break and realise it's a joke?
Either way, people were sharing code and programs long before 'open source' got around. What makes open source is the licence (and preferably some idiot standing on a virtual box shouting, 'this is open source'), and this is the first I've heard of anybody trying to attach a licence to their recipe.
How about free brewing? (Score:2, Interesting)
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NerdBrew.com
Beer through technology through beer through technology through beer through beer through beer
Re:Out of morbid curiosity..... (Score:3, Interesting)
can a person under the legal drinking age purchase these ingrediants without anyone asking for ID?
Yes. It doesn't matter what the malt, hops, yeast, airlocks, fermenting bins, bottle cappers, etc can be used for, it matters what they contain, which is not alcohol.
It's illegal for a person under 21 to buy alcohol, not barley malt or live yeast. It's also illegal for a minor to consume alcohol, but that's a different matter, since you're not going to have any alcohol for at least a couple weeks.
I did exactly this when I was at university in Ohio about 10 years ago. The summer of my freshman year I moved off campus and was working as a janitor at the school for the summer session (eight hours a night, but the work was done in three and janitors have all the keys).
Anyway, the Ohio State liquor store (and homebrew shop) was on my way home from school. At first I didn't have any problem buying beer there, but eventually someone realized that I was only 19.
But the guy who ran the shop was an old-time homebrew guy and we got to talking about beers and the making of them. He said he could sell me whatever I wanted for making beer so long as it didn't have alcohol in it.
So thanks to my janitor keys, I managed to liberate an old 20-liter spring water container from behind some disused florescent fixtures in an ancient storeroom in one of the social sciences buildings. A trip to the surplus store got me a big ol' army-size aluminum boilin' pot for about $20. All that was left were some sundries from the brew-shop -- airlock, rubber tubing, bottle capper and caps, funnel, etc.
The guy at the shop was always very helpful and willing to trade recipes, recommend this hop with that malt, and so on. We ended up sharing a few after I turned 21 (his was much better) and I kept brewing up until I finished school.
Brewing is a lot of work but has very nice rewards.