Friday Beer Event
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, 1 February 2013 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 The beer menu on the bar’s website, while always out of date, is a good indication of the wide selection available.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 the algorithm used: v3.2. We have no changes to the algorithm to announce this year, at least up to now—if we change our mind, we will let you know you in time.
Security measures / access control
We have reserved the ground floor of the bar 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 €3 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 the fundamental 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 socialise 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! :-)
