As every year, there will be a FOSDEM beer event on Friday night before FOSDEM (6 February 2009).

Like last year, this year's event will take place at the Delirium Café, in a beautiful gallery near the Grand'Place in Brussels. In addition to the enormous variety in beers, the location also has enough room to accomodate the enormous crowd of geeks we tend to be.

While coming over to Brussels to attend FOSDEM, don't miss this great opportunity to taste some of the finest beer in Belgium (and, hence, in the world).

When?

Friday 6 February 2009 from 18:00(-ish) onwards, but feel free to join the party at any time of the evening. We will be there until the bar closes (well after midnight).

More, cheaper beer

Beer at the Delirium Café is significantly cheaper than at our previous location. We are also negotiating a discount on all beer again and discussing sponsorship opportunities to be able to offer some Free Beer. There are 25 different draught beers available. In addition to these, there is a cellar full of normal and specialty bottled beer. The beer menu on the Delirium website, while perpetually out of date, gives a good indication of the wide selection available.

Improved beer distribution algorithm (v3.1)

Like every year, we have made some improvements and optimizations to the now notorious Beer Distribution Algorithm. Please familiarize yourself with BDAv3.1 as described here and help us make this event the greatest ever.

What has changed

Access control

This year, we have reserved the ground floor of the bar (which has also been expanded since last year) as a private party for FOSDEM. Delirium Security will help us keep this area FOSDEM-only. If you meet a guard at the entrance to the bar, make it clear to him that you are there for the FOSDEM party.

Tokens for beer

Last year's system of pre-paying for beer and marking people with dots worked very well. We are improving on this method by introducing "tokens". When you arrive at the bar, find a member of FOSDEM staff (look for yellow tshirts). In exchange for money, you will receive "beer tokens".

Tokens are 3EUR each. One token, one beer. For the sake of simplicity, "soda" (cola, lemonade, etc) is beer too. Tokens may be bought individually, but FOSDEM staff prefers to deal with paper money rather than metal money. It's lighter and easier to sort.

Free Beer!

Possibly the coolest improvement to this year's edition: Google has kindly offered to sponsor some Free Beer to the geeks attending our Beer Event! To ensure a fair distribution of Free Beer, and not just a bulk distribution to early birds or similar, Free Beer will be distributed periodically throughout the evening until it runs out.

What has not changed

Quality of Service

To keep latencies low and throughput high, we need everyone's help. The easiest way to keep things going smoothly is for everyone to implement a transmit and receive window. Do not order individual beers -- order beers for people around you too! Trays will be made available to efficiently move more than one beer from the bar to where they are needed. Similarly, when ordering beer, please take a moment to collect any empty glasses around you on a tray and send them back to be bar with whoever is ordering beer.

Laws of Physics

Sadly, even the FOSDEM Beer Event is subject to some basic laws of physics. We were unable to get an exception for the principle that no two solid objects can occupy the same space at the same time. If you find the bar getting too crowded, it might help to go for dinner and come back. The bar will be open until 06:00. While FOSDEM staff will stop distributing tokens sometime after midnight (we have a conference to set up early in the morning), the tokens will be valid all night and after tokens run out, beer can be exchanged directly for cash too (same prices).

A note of caution

Unlike some other beers, Belgian beer is not just coloured water. Some beers contain significant quantities of alcohol and will give you a pounding hangover. FOSDEM staff is not responsible for any hallucinations you may experience as a result of this event. :-)

Be there!

A lot of work has gone into making this beer event the best ever. We've taken into account the suggestions from previous years and are confident that this edition will be a blast. Bring your friends and join us for a great evening out!

Contact and location

If you manage to get lost somehow, despite this handy little map, call Philip. He might not be able to help you find the way, but he should be able to find someone who can! :-)