As part of the Atlantic Project, SUPERFLEX is collaborating with the Plymouth-based Real Ideas Organisation (RIO) and Summerskills to develop a community-owned brewery in Devonport, producing FREE BEER. All profits from this social enterprise will be returned to the community, in one of the most deprived boroughs in the UK.
The name plays on a well-known quote by free software activist Richard Stallman: “’Free software’ is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of ’free’ as in ’free speech,’ not as in ’free beer’.”
FREE BEER version 6.0 (the Atlantic brew) is an “open source beer” based on classic ale brewing traditions but with “added real ideas”. The recipe and branding elements of FREE BEER are published under a Creative Commons license CC BY-SA 4.0, which gives anyone the permission to produce, modify and make FREE BEER available to others by the following conditions: “You must credit SUPERFLEX and RIO / Summerskills”. If you change, modify or create a derivative of FREE BEER you must distribute the result under the same license.
The first brew of FREE BEER version 6.0 (the Atlantic brew) was launched at Tate Modern, along with SUPERFLEX’s Turbine Hall commission, on Monday 2nd October.