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BrewDog’s open-source revolution is at the vanguard of postcapitalism
- randomname2 11y agoUber, Tesla and Chipotle are often cited as examples of "post-capitalistic" companies. Just out of interest, what would be other such companies? And how would one define "Capitalism 2.0"/"post-capitalism" as a better version of traditional capitalism, which often has worse connotations?
- matthewmacleod 11y agoUber, Tesla and Chipotle are often cited as examples of "post-capitalistic" companies. Are they? I don't think I've ever heard that! Uber is almost one of the most traditionally capitalist organisations possible!
- pjc50 11y agoIt doesn't really deploy capital in the traditional sense though - it doesn't own its fleet of cars but rather rents them on an adhoc basis. It's very ... neoliberal? Post-Coasian?
- vertex-four 11y agoUber is just as capitalist as any other company which requires its workers to buy their own tools (which is rather a lot of them). The trick is that those tools don't actually allow you to perform the work in and of themselves - you still need Uber for a steady source of passengers and for regulatory protection, and the only way you'll get that is wage labour.
- davedx 11y agoI think that's what's commonly referred to as the sharing economy.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y agoUber's "means of production" are its data infrastructure, not its fleet of cars. In old fashioned industrial revolution terms the infrastructure is the loom, the driver network is the cloth it produces.
- arethuza 11y agoWhat about large successful worker co-operatives like the UK John Lewis Group?
- puranjay 11y agoKickstarter and Indiegogo? I would even place WordPress on that list - a tool that is perfectly usable and has all the features of the paid product, given away for free. I've used it for years and never paid a cent for it.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- elthran 11y agoThis could really confuse the "free as in beer" metaphor in FOSS software discussions
- arethuza 11y agoNever thought I'd see a company from the Broch on HN! :-)
- rplnt 11y agoCan you really make the beers using those recipes? (The answer is no)
- dan1234 11y agoActually, yes (though good luck getting Bizmark down the required temperatures). All the information you need is there and they’ve kindly converted the units into home brew friendly quantities. Some of the more exotic hops could be hard to find but they can be substituted.
- masklinn 11y ago> Actually, yes (though good luck getting Bizmark down the required temperatures). Bismarck (Sink The)[0] :) I'm impressed they specifically noted the tactical nuclear penguin could be made in a standard domestic freezer, and I love the cheeky note on the End of History > You'll have to get this one all the way down to -70°C. Taxidermy is not optional. [0] after the WWII battleship, as part of their "feud" with german brewery Schorschbrau over the "world's strongest beer"
- dan1234 11y agoYes, you’re correct. I do know the story, but I took a risk in not looking up the spelling before posting. It’s not a good drink, I think they only made it for the bragging rights.
- davedx 11y agoHah! I found those two surprisingly palatable considering how freaking strong they are. The bar I was in served them in shot glasses...
- masklinn 11y agoNever had the occasion to try the Bismarck, I did try the Penguin, approached it as a liquor and I enjoyed it. Given an occasion (and if they restarted production) I'd see myself ordering it again.
- girvo 11y agoBrewDog are one of my favourite breweries! Their collab, Black Tokyo Horizon is the single most interesting (and best, in my opinion) stouts in the world. Amazing to see that the recipes are open-source too, I guess it really is free-as-in-beer!
- masklinn 11y ago> I guess it really is free-as-in-beer! Except free-as-in-beer specifically meant you didn't have to pay for the end-product (gratis) but had no rights or idea on the IP, by opposition to free-as-in-freedom (libre) which you may have to pay for but could then use as you wished.
- Tar90 11y agoHe made a joke.
- stdbrouw 11y agoJokes that rely on things meaning the opposite of what they do are generally not that funny.
- dkersten 11y agoIts open source beer. I still have to compile it myself if I want it for free. Or I can pay a vendor (BrewDog) to do it for me. I choose to pay the vendor because I'm lazy and like their SLA.
- BWStearns 11y agoI like picking beer company as a fun way to introduce a general audience to the notion of open source and segue into a broader econ discussion. I think a better example though is Tesla freeing up use of their patents for free. Yes there's a cynical reason decipherable (more EVs -> more market) but the way they've done it is pretty open, there's nothing to stop a clever company from competing with them better for being able to use the patented tech. Not having to deal with the lawyers' billables and tying up corporate leaders in legal meetings might be the biggest benefit for them.
- mbenjaminsmith 11y ago> there's nothing to stop a clever company from competing with them I wish I could remember where I read/saw it, but Musk stated that the goal of Tesla was to make the market shift to EVs, not generate profit. My memory is a bit hazy but I'm pretty sure he even said that after that goal was reached, he didn't care what happened to Tesla. With that in mind, the motivation for opening up patents seems pretty straightforward.
- RobertoG 11y agoI admire the spirit but, it's a public company, is he not exposing himself to legal problems with this kind of statements?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- mbenjaminsmith 11y agoThat's correct; IIRC, they were private at the time.
- mbenjaminsmith 11y agoI'm surprised there's no discussion of "Gypsy brewing" in this article. The pioneer of Gpysy brewing, Mikkeller, has brewed beers in collaboration with BrewDog before and Gpysy brewing is counterpart to this "open IP" style of doing business. I think it represents a much more interesting vision of "postcapitalism" than just opening up IP. Renting out excess capacity (in a brewery or other production facility) allows IP-only companies to get into the business. Not only has it allowed Mikkeller (and others, including his estranged twin brother) to get into beer with litte or no capex, it's allowed him to operate on different continents, solving another host of problems for working in a global marketplace. Apply that model to other industries and there could be a Cambrian explosion in innovation and creativity.
- colinramsay 11y agoBrewdog got lambasted for using another brewery's excess capacity (I think it was Meantime) because people felt that it was less authentic since it "wasn't being brewed by Brewdog". While I don't necessarily agree with this, I thought it was relevant to your comment.
- themartorana 11y agoYeah, it's a silly line, like saying your code isn't authentic if you didn't own the laptop you wrote it on. It's funny the things people will find to pass judgement on.
- dbcooper 11y agoYeast contamination can be an issue, as can water sourcing.
- themartorana 11y agoWell yeah, that's why you use a well-run brewery until you can afford the upkeep of your own. Besides, Meantime is a great brewery. I doubt those concerns - while legitimate - were high on the list with that brewery.
- varjag 11y ago> “Oh, and if you are from one of the global beer mega corporations and you are reading this, your computer will spontaneously combust, James Bond style, any second now.” Wouldn't that be Mission Impossible style?
- sageikosa 11y agoI'm thinking Inspector Gadget.
- falcor84 11y ago> ...the Linux version of Unix for free ... I don't usually nitpick about this, but I felt that this was really poor phrasing. If they want to discuss the evolution of "open source", it's just not ok to be so hand-wavy, and before getting to Linux, they should mention GNU and the GPL.
- humanrebar 11y agoI'm confused by 'postcapitalism' as a term, probably because I've never considered facts, including recipes, to be capital that someone should own. Can you have a contract with someone that knows lots of facts and can put them to use? Sure. Can you own facts? Not without a government-granted monopoly. And government-granted monopolies are not capitalism as I understand it. I feel that IP monopolies are better described as 'corporatism' since those rights are directly proportional to your ability to enforce them with a legal team.
- drabiega 11y agoLike most words, it depends on what your purpose is. Knowledge behaves like capital in many senses. You can pay to acquire it or hire someone who has it, and doing so can help you or your organization to be more productive. Thus in at least some contexts it's useful to refer to it as a type of capital.
- humanrebar 11y agoThe same similarities apply to services, but we consider labor and capital to be distinct.
- stdbrouw 11y agoThat's a bit of an arbitrary distinction. Without the government monopoly on violence, what's to stop me from knocking your door down and forcing you to perform free labor for me? Do you think ownership is part of the natural universe, something that can be read off of molecules and determined with a microscope? Every exchange, be it of goods, services or ideas, relies on a regulated marketplace.
- sageikosa 11y agoI think the correct response to that is "you and what army"?
- humanrebar 11y agoWe're veering into the we worn paths of rights theory. But I'll point out that theft of precious matter is universally condemned in modern societies. And telling someone else's jokes is rarely criminal. I believe there is a natural distinction between matter and information. It's obvious in physics and I'm not sure why we feel the need to muddy the water with our legal code.
- notahacker 11y ago"Vanguard of postcapitalism" because they publish a recipe? I'd say it was a publicity stunt from very effective brand marketers; they might as well have treated "No Logo" as an instruction manual. The Brewdog logo on the bottle matters more than the recipes to its target market, and the counterculture stance is all part of that. Brewdog's advantage over other craft brewers is branding rather than brewing. And yes, it's also good for publicity when trying to crowdfund from "the misfits, the independents, the libertines”, perhaps because "the financial institutions of the City [which] gave rise to the bastardisation and commoditisation of beer" weren't too keen on their 115x revenue valuation. Nice of the Guardian to take those claims at face value (linked article) too. But seriously, I'm struggling to think of anyone in the beer industry that tries to "make money out of keeping beer recipes secret", especially with most of the best-selling beers relying rather less on taste than Brewdog. Coca-cola, of course, famously emphasises their closely guarded recipe, but as with Brewdog's "open source", that's more about the corporate mythology behind the brand than any serious fear that someone might even slightly dent their brand and distribution network by making something that tastes the same rather than merely similar.
- bedhead 11y agoI know this company. Their marketing REEKS of lame desperation. The whole company is basically like that one old Toyota commercial where the guy equated a Corolla with punk music (or whatever generic car it was). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLhfxI8T2cU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLhfxI8T2cU
- stcredzero 11y ago"Vanguard of postcapitalism" because they publish a recipe? One of the obnoxious things I've noticed about capitalism, is that its current incarnation seems to incentivize bait and switch. You develop warm fuzzy feelings about a brand, but then they start to outsource production, or sell their brand to a national brewer. This seems to happen a lot to beer, often with a change of taste and a degradation of product quality. With "open source," at least the customer can homebrew their own and do an AB test. (Same sort of thing happens with startups, I've also noticed.)
- dbcooper 11y agoI do like Brewdog's "Dead Pony" light IPA. Hoppy with a good bite, and light enough (3.6% abv) for an easy session with some movies. Excellent 3 to 4 % abv ales are a hallmark of English brewing. A superior light IPA though is Tuatara's "Iti". 3.3% with a good hop bloom, plenty of bite, and not a hint of an off flavour. I suspect they increase the mineral content of the water to give it more bite. I'm drinking one right now. :) Now a good sub 4% pilsner - that I may never find.
- GordonS 11y ago> Excellent 3 to 4 % abv ales are a hallmark of English brewing Oi! Brewdog is very much Scottish!
- aminok 11y agoAn article about postcapitalism that doesn't promote violence-backed top-down compulsory programs like tax-funded basic income? What a breath of fresh air.
- Dowwie 11y agoWhen capitalism is discussed, it should be according to the following kind of definition: 1) economic exchange of resources is achieved through market transactions 2) means of production is privately owned and its availability is discretionary 3) labor is organized in a fashion where economic decisions governing the organization are made by a board of directors
- brudgers 11y agoThere's a pun on "free as in beer" in here somewhere.
- meo2 11y agosince the new labels came out, I like the punk and especially the 5am less. I still like the libertine. I was wondering if they were being prepared differently or in a new brewery or something that coincided with the new labels. I'm drinking them far away from the UK, so not sure if there are other issues at work. Cool brewery though. I've loved a couple of their collaborations.
- GordonS 11y agoHome brewing is something I'd really like to get into. I imagine I'll have a lot of failures though, before I start producing anything decent - can the quantities given be lessened, e.g. quartered, and still get the same taste result?
- 55555 11y agoYes.
- fbernier 11y agoIt's great, and what makes it so great is exactly that. It's highly possible to brew 5 gallons batches with the very same ingredient quality as any microbrewery and a process which is the same but at a smaller scale. You also have to advantage over microbreweries to be more creative and test out stuff in your recipes because making 5 gallons of not so perfect beer is not the end of the world. All the professional brewers I know were homebrewers before and still are.
- EdwardMSmith 11y agoIf you start with pre-assembled kits, they're really quite difficult to screw up, and the results are usually quite drinkable. The pre-assembled kits are usually 5 gallon/19 liters, although 1 gallon kits are available as well, but cost goes up (per yield). The next step after would be taking recipes, either from the kits you already made, or found elsewhere, and assembling the ingredients yourself, tweaking where you want to make a change.
- randogp 11y agoWould be great to have machine-readable data. Any hint? (sorry if it is obvious my background is in wet lab biology)