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Pass Over a Frosty Mug of Home Brew Version 1.0
"With the proliferation of free (open-source) software, it was only a matter of time before open-source beer became reality." So stated a spoof news article in 1998 that turned out to be prescient. There now is such a thing as free beer -- or at least a free recipe for beer -- thanks to a group of Danish artists and university students in Copenhagen.
Last week, the artists' group Superflex opened a store called Copyshop that sells, among other copyright-busting items, "the world's first open-source beer" -- Vores OL, translated variously as Our Beer, Free Beer and Free Beer 1.0 (www.voresoel.dk). The recipe and brand are available under a Creative Commons license, which means that anyone can brew the beer, tinker with the ingredients, and distribute it as long as they publish their version of the recipe and give credit to the originators.
Superflex developed the beer as part of a seminar at the IT University of Copenhagen. "We wanted to take a finalized legal document from the digital world and apply it to an analog, real-world product," said Rasmus Nielsen, a member of Superflex.
Mr. Nielsen said that home brewers around the world have asked for further technical details of Version 1.0, which contains an exotic ingredient: South American guarana beans, which supply a mild caffeinated boost. "We've effected a slight merger of the software world and the equally geeky world of home brewers," Mr. Nielsen said.
But home brewers are a picky bunch. Alan McLeod, an Ontario lawyer who reviews beers on his blog, which he calls "A Good Beer Blog" (beerblog.genx40.com), said that "if you take the information provided and run it through a popular beer recipe calculator, you get a beer which is somewhat pale and normal strength, at 5.2 percent, but with no real idea as to the final exact flavor." PAMELA LICALZI O'CONNELL
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