(Brooklyn, NY) – Remember Urkontinent? The beer that Google and Dogfish Head jointly announced the release of in September? The beer that was a collaboration between the professional brewers and the Google team using Google Docs software?
Well, I finally got around to watching the Google Talk by Sixpoint‘s Shane Welch from late July. Fast-forward to around the 49-minute mark and get a load of this:
“I also want to talk about this crazy idea I had. I think we can do this and I think we can do it really well.
There are a lot of people in here that like beer and there a lot of people that homebrew.
What if we do an idea like I showed you before where we have a template, we invite you all in as collaborators to the Google Doc. We literally devise a ‘wikibrew.’ We refine it and get it down to exactly the way that people are looking for with their input. Then we launch it.
Maybe we start out with a small draft version that we first test out here at the Google draft system. Then after a couple permutations, if we really dial it in, we maybe put it in a can.
I think it would be a really fun collaborative project to test the extent of how you can work together with people that aren’t necessarily professional brewers but may have insight on a grand scale. Crowdsource a recipe.
*Welch then talks about a ‘Google beer’ brewed by someone with the Maltese Falcons homebrew that spawned the idea.*
I was thinking of doing a real wiki-style brew where we seriously come together. It’s an experiment of trying to funnel the vision of a lot of people into a single recipe. […]
I think we can really knock it out of the park here.”
For all of the flack that Facebook gets about taking ideas, I guess it’s not beyond other Silicon Valley tech giants.*
(*that or Welch inexplicably turned down the opportunity to work with Google on this beer just a week or so later which seems unlikely)
scandalous!
“Maltose Falcons.” Remember, puns are requisite for knitting supply shops and homebrew clubs. Also, seems like Shane was screwed-over; too bad this lesson in the double-edged nature of copyleft had to happen to a good guy…
Its not even remotely possible that Google and Dogfish were talking about this before Shane gave his “Google Talk”. Wait, yes it is. This is not exactly as if Shane is talking about collaborative open heart surgery. This is putting together are freaking beer recipe. Homebrewers have been doing this for decades. With meetings, then usenet, forums, etc.
Remotely possible? Of course. But given the bang-bang timing of it all….I don’t buy it.
Homebrewing collab is one thing. Executing a cross-marketing promotion w/ a Silicon Valley tech giant is another.
I think someone from Google heard the idea and they decided to do it with their past Google Talks brewmaster, Sam Calagione. Work with the little Brooklyn guy or the guy with a mega craft brewery, on-camera charisma, the it-factor, multiple James Beard nominations and coming off of a national tv show. Which one will maximize shareholder value for the project?
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Sixpoint brewed and released a beer called “Rock Lobster” (lobster lactose stout brewed with lobster shells) on March 31st of this year. In this video dated April 23rd DogFishHead CEO Sam Calgione announces his beer brewed with Lobster Shells called “Choc Lobster”. Coincidence? Maybe…but it definitely fits that bing bang timing you mention.
@3:30