Got your attention? It works every time... from the SUPERFLEX / FREE BEER/ Recipe (version 3.0), 2006. Design in collaboration with Rasmus Koch

A new arts project to be unveiled at Tate St Ives on Sunday July 7 has taken concept art to a whole new level by combining the ubiquitous freebie of the internet age, the free download, with that great British iconic beverage, beer.

Forget those passé free downloads from the internet that allow you to create personalised web pages or tailor-made software packages – so old hat. Now you can download Free Beer (version 3.2), a free online beer recipe that allows you to change the recipe and even produce the beer without having to pay for permission.

The idea is the brainchild of Danish artists collective Superflex, who have already seen Free Beer (version 3.0) produced in Italy, San Francisco and California – as well as their home country of Denmark – last year.

Now Superflex has teamed up with Cornwall’s St Austell Brewery to produce Free Beer (version 3.2), which will be launched at Tate St Ives as part of Social Systems, a contemporary art exhibition organised by Cornish arts organization ProjectBase taking place at different venues across the county. The beer will also be available in Cornish pubs.

"The whole ProjectBase ethos centres around bringing new international artistic collaborations to Cornwall and widening the experience of contemporary art with new audiences," explained Sara Black, Director of ProjectBase and curator of the exhibition.

They will be boozing on the beaches of Porthmeor to toast Tate's latest art exhibition. © Tate St Ives

"FREE BEER certainly achieves those aims and it's been fantastic to work with the St Austell Brewery team who have been exteremely open minded and committed."

Published under a ‘Creative Commons licence (Attribution ShareAlike 2.5)’, the beer recipe software is available to anyone with a computer and mouse. The idea is that once downloaded from the web, you can access the ‘source code’ to modify, improve or share the file with others without charge, just like any other free download.

Not only will you be able create your own unique beer recipe but, along with the use of branding software that is also available free online, you’ll even be able to produce your beer – or maybe get someone else to produce it for you. And as there’s no copyright, it can even be produced on a profit-making basis.

Although creating your own beer could be the ultimate art statement, it looks like Free Beer (version 3.2) as brewed by the St Austell Brewery might be difficult to beat. The new beer is made from the finest quality Cornish spring water sourced from the brewery’s well and locally grown premium Maris Otter barley.

That’s not all. There’s a special ingredient designed to give even the most jaded and unadventurous of beer-drinkers a kick. This is guarana, an ancient Amazonian bean long renowned for its special energising effects and ability to produce a natural ‘high’.

Get your hands off my beer! SUPERFLEX / FREE BEER/ Bottle (version 3.0), 2006 Photo: Heine Pedersen

You'll know by now where this one is going so it’ll come as no surprise to learn that a pub quiz has been organised to launch the new beer. So sharpen your pencils and your brain and head down to Tate St Ives on Sunday July 8 at 7.30pm for the Free Beer Cornish International All-Comers Pub Quiz Challenge.

What exactly do the organisers hope to achieve from this new art project? With her tongue firmly in her cheek, Sara Black added: “We’ve had the hard job of having to taste test the results and we’re looking forward to seeing drinkers getting the Free Beer round in and experiencing contemporary art for the first time in their local pub!"

If you don’t manage to make it to the pub quiz, don’t despair. The beer will be on sale at Tate St Ives and in pubs, restaurants and hotels across Devon and Cornwall until September 2007. It will also be available at the St Austell Brewery Visitor Centre and online at www.staustellbreweryshop.co.uk.

Brew your own art-beer by downloading a pdf of the recipe