SUPERFLEX (founded in 1993 in Copenhagen by Bjørnstjerne Christiansen, Jakob Fenger and Rasmus Nielsen) as part of the Atlantic Project, are collaborating with the Real Ideas Organisation (RIO), Plymouth City College and Summerskills to develop a community-owned brewery. Building on their long-term open source brewing project, SUPERFLEX have developed FREE BEER version 6.0 (the Atlantic brew), with all profits returned to the community in Devonport. Playing on the idea of free software, they say “FREE BEER is a beer which is free as in free speech, not in the sense of free beer.” The recipe and branding elements of FREE BEER version 6.0 (the Atlantic brew) are published under a Creative Commons license. As part of the opening weekend, they will present a FREE BEER festival at The Clipper pub, a social enterprise led by Nudge Community Builders, as part of the Union Street Party.

The Clipper

One of Plymouth’s most famous venues and the city’s first 24-hour public house, The Clipper opened in 1877. A much-frequented meeting place on Union Street - when the city’s notorious strip of pubs and clubs was in its heyday during the 80s and 90s - the pub was finally closed in 2015 and has lain empty until 2018, when the local community in Stonehouse took it over, led by the grass-roots organisation, Nudge Community Builders. The aim of this social enterprise project is to turn the derelict Clipper into a covered street market and social housing. As well as providing space for micro-businesses to operate, The Clipper will provide a link between communities – making connections between Stonehouse residents, one of the most deprived communities in the UK, and the multi-million pound regeneration projects taking place in the city centre, close by.