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 4 February 2011 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).

Beer, Beer and some more Beer

This year's beer event will again take place at the Delirium Café, in a beautiful alley near the Grand'Place in Brussels. In addition to the enormous variety in beers, the location also has enough room to accommodate the vast crowd of geeks we tend to be.

There are 25 different draught beers available. In addition to these, there is a cellar full of regular 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 The beer menu on the Delirium website, while perpetually out of date, gives a good indication of the wide selection available.

Beer Distribution Algorithm v3.2 (stable)

After about ten years of incremental improvements to our notorious Beer Distribution Algorithm, we appear to have reached a stable version with last year's v3.2. We have no changes to the algorithm to announce this year.

Security measures / 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. The Delirium Café has offered us an extra room so we will be able to move around a bit easier. 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. Wearing appropriately geeky attire tends to do the trick, as does mentioning the name FOSDEM.

Beer Tokens

Tokens are 3EUR each. One token, one beer. For the sake of simplicity, "soda" (cola, lemonade, etc) is beer too -- at least as far as tokens are concerned. 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.

When you arrive at the bar, find a member of FOSDEM staff (look for flashy yellow and orange tshirts). In exchange for money, you will receive "beer tokens".

Free Beer!

We will continue to offer the tradition of Free Beer! 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.

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.

The Delirium Café staff is working hard to make our evening as pleasant as possible, but we're legion.

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 later. The bar will be open until 06:00 (that's 6am to intercontinental geeks). 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 price).

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 (as a side note, consuming lots of (pure) water helps preventing that). 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 as well as a great opportunity to socialize with fellow contributors from all around the world.

Contact and location

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