Comments on: Free as in beer, not as in software

By: Armand

Armand — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 18:22:11 +0000

The recipe itself doesn’t. The BBC article does…

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 13:31:48 +0000

The beer recipe does very little to explain what “Open Source” means – OS isn’t just showing everyone what the source is, but allowing it to be reworked, hacked about with, integrated with other products and so on. And it could be argued this happens with recipes (in food, at least) as a matter of course; AFAIK no chef has sued another for a reworking of one of his recipes, partly because the most vital expertise is never written down.

Incidentally, the addition of guarana is a hack/modification of sorts, but not a very good one – Guarana is that Brazilian stimulant (caffeine amongst other things) that’s in a lot of energy drinks now, ostensibly to mitigate the effects of alcohol. Of course, caffeine does very little to actually sober people up, and in fact often makes the effects of alcohol much much worse; I’d definitely recommend not mixing it with beer.

By: Andrew Duffin

Andrew Duffin — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 11:37:43 +0000

You’re right, their recipe is crap.

Mash at 55-60C? Well in brewing terms that is quite a wide range. 60C will seriously affect some of the enzymes involved. There will be a noticeable difference between a beer mashed at 55C and one mashed at 60C. It actually matters.

And what the hell are Guarana beans? Don’t these people know beer is made from malt hops water and yeast and NOTHING else? (Unless you’re a big-name UK fizzbrewer, in which case anything goes).

By: Armand

Armand — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 07:14:41 +0000

Agree its a gimmick. But liked the idea. It got emailed around the office as a way to explain what “open source” was.

Sometimes ideas need repeating…!

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 22:53:37 +0000

Wasn’t this gimick tried already with Open Cola about 3-4 years ago?