Free Beer

History

Vores Øl

In December 2004, a group of students from the IT University of Copenhagen, in partnership with Superflex, brewed a batch of beer in the university's cafeteria. The group named the beer "Vores Øl" (Danish for "Our Beer"), inspired by a 1994 Carlsberg beer advertisement slogan. They launched a website to promote the project and released the beer’s recipe and label design under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA 2.5 license. Since cooking recipes are not protected by copyright, the share-alike licensing approach used is legally questionable and had not been tested in any court of law.

Free Beer

The developers of the beer stated that they wanted to raise awareness of the "dogmatic notions of copyright and intellectual property that are dominating our culture." The group admitted to having limited experience with beer production. After the first batch of the open-source beer was brewed, Superflex continued developing the concept under the name "Free Beer" and designed a new label. Inspired by colourful aesthetics of the 1960s, it was meant to further underline the concept of freedom. The name Free Beer is a play on Richard Stallman's quote about free software being “'free' as in 'free speech,' not as in 'free beer.'”

Recipe

The first Vores Øl recipe drew criticism from the homebrewing community for its lack of necessary instructions. Community members were concerned the recipe had not outlined how much water to use in the mash, what type of yeast to use, the style of beer being produced (other than being dark and heavy), whether or not to add any hops, what the fermentation temperature should be, or how the beer was supposed to taste.

Due to the free availability of the recipe, the recipe has been changed several times. Major Free Beer recipe iterations (v3.0 and v4.0) were developed in collaboration with a Danish brewery, Skands, in Brøndby. The amount of sugar has been decreased by 90% to improve the quality of the beer.

Derivatives

Known derivatives using the free license include:

• Lausanne, Switzerland: Le Baiser de la Princesse (French for "The Kiss of the Princess"), in 2008.
• Schiltigheim, France: Affichage Libre, brewed for the 2011 edition of the Libre Software Meeting in Strasbourg.

Reception

Free Beer has received coverage in international print and digital media. The brand has been discussed in books on copyright. The project been written about by figures in the free software movement, including Cory Doctorow and Lawrence Lessig. In 2005, Superflex interviewed Richard Stallman on the project.

Free Beer has been distributed at technology conferences, including Summit 2008 and RMLL 2011, 2012, and 2014. The FSCONS 2008 resulted in an ebook that featured Free Beer. Free Beer was also exhibited in art exhibitions and museums, such as the Art Basel Miami Beach 2006, the Van Abbemuseum in the Netherlands in 2007, and the Taipei Biennial 2010.

In 2007, a columnist writing for BeerAdvocate regarded Free Beer's licensing structure as a "great marketing gimmick," even if superfluous, remarking that "recipes are generally not copyrightable to begin with."

Gallery

Voresol label medium.png|Original Free Beer 1.0 label "Vores Øl" (2004) Free beer bottles.jpg|Free Beer bottles based on recipe and label variants created since 2005 File:"Free Beer".jpg|Free Beer "St Austell" (version 3.2) (2007). File:Superflex, Free Beer Factory, 2008 ongoing, taiwan taipeh 3.jpg|Superflex Workshop at the "Free Beer Factory" event at the Taipei Biennial 2010 in Taipei, Taiwan File:Isummit 2008, Japan, free beer crop.png|Free Beer on sale at the iSummit 2008 Sapporo in Japan sold for 500yen. File:FREE BEER version 3.2, St Austell 2.jpg|Anti-copyright display with a "Free Beer version 3.2 St. Austell" mascot and a sign reading "Copyright is preventing access to knowledge" (2007)

References

References

1. (2004-12-30). "Danish students launch open source and shareware beer".
2. Lessig. (2006-09-01). "Free, as in Beer".
3. Drobnick, Jim. (Winter 2018). "Bottles of Art, Works of Alcohol". Gastronomica.
4. Harewood. (2005-07-21). "Danish offer a recipe for open source beer". CBC Radio.
5. Koch, Rasmus. (2007-01-01). "Free Beer".
6. "What is Free Software?".
7. (2005-07-25). "Free Beer That's Free as in Speech".
8. (2005-07-25). "Free Beer That's Free as in Speech".
9. (2006-06-09). "Photos of FREE BEER 3.0 at final production stage".
10. (2009-10-08). "FREE BEER VERSION 4.0".
11. (2022-08-09). "FREE BEER – Performa Version".
12. (2022-08-09). "FREE BEER / FREE UKRAINE".
13. (2022-05-31). "Free Beer version 8.0 – Brewery 304".
14. (2017-10-30). "FREE BEER 6.0 – The Atlantic Brew".
15. "SUPERFLEX".
16. (2008-03-09). "FREE BEER macht sich schön für die re:publica".
17. (2009-01-16). "Free Beer".
18. "Bryggeriet Skands".
19. (2007-01-10). "2006 Status version 3.0".
20. (2006-08-01). "Free Beer version 2.1 on the Apollo brewery in Copenhagen".
21. Babcock, Jay. (2005-05-22). "SUPERFLEX".
22. Balzer, Jens. (2005-05-23). "Wer will schon eine würdelose alte Frau?".
23. "English info".
24. (2008-05-03). "'Free Beer' et 'Le baiser de la princesse', les bières open source !".
25. "Le Baiser de la Princesse".
26. (2011-07-15). "RMLL has free beer (as in speech)".
27. "Bière Libre – Free Beer".
28. Boyd, Clark. (2005-07-28). "'Free' Danish beer makes a splash". BBC NEWS.
29. Cohn, David. (2005-07-18). "Free Beer for Geeks".
30. (2005-07-20). "Kopenhagen: Studenten brauen Open-Source-Bier". Der Spiegel.
31. (2007). "New Directions in Copyright Law, Volume 6". [[Edward Elgar Publishing]].
32. Doctorow, Cory. (2006-06-09). "Danish hackers launch Free Beer 3.0, with guarana".
33. Lessig, Lawrence. (2008-08-04). "How much RMS has won".
34. Moltke, Henrik. (2005). "Richard Stallman on FREE BEER".
35. "Bière Libre".
36. (2009-11-26). "FREE BEER book out now.".
37. "FREE BEER". FSCONS.
38. (2010-01-13). "Cultural and Creative projects".
39. (September 2007). "Free Beer". BeerAdvocate.
40. "Program".