BarrelDAO drops Solana Summer Shandy Beer redeemable with NFTs

Solana Summer Shandy dropped yesterday, a limited-edition beer redeemable with NFTs. 

Unlike the newly opened Solana online store and upcoming Solana smartphone, neither the Solana Foundation nor its core network contributor are responsible for this alcoholic lemonade syrupy beverage. 

Solana Summer Shandy is the creation of community-governed brewery barrelDAO. The Solana beer will be available in a limited quantity of 333 total 16-packs of beer, and each pack is represented by a Solana NFT, which can be bought today and then redeemed on Monday.  

Each of the 16 packs is on sale for 1.35 SOL or roughly $45 at the time of writing, and that price will include shipping to the United States, Australia, and United Kingdom.

The beer cans are plastered with original artwork by Mark Lauthier and artwork references to a range of popular Solana NFT projects including DeGods, Degenerate Ape Academy, Okay Bears, Solana Monkey Business, Thugbirdz, Cets on Creck, Catalina Whale Mixer, and John Lê’s ‘The First Edition.’ 

The co-founder and CEO of Barrel Labs, Dave Goldman said in a statement that the company owns around 20 of the individual NFTs on the cans. Simultaneously, 23 of them appeared via licensing agreements reached with the holders of the individual NFTs. 

‘We painstakingly went through and licensed every single NFT used in this can design over the past three days. We knew this could spark a major debate about intellectual property in the NFT space, and we wanted to ensure that we set a precedent for other [consumer packaged goods] brands to follow,’ Goldman added.

Many brands are beginning to commercialize their NFT artwork to design and launch their own products. The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) is the perfect example, which has been used in music videos most notably by Eminem and Snoop Dog, by candy company Mars to make M&M and packaging, China’s sportswear brand Li Ning announced the launch of a BAYC clothing line among other initiatives. 

However, there is some debate surrounding the use of IP rights for NFTs. Yuga Labs, the creator of Bored Ape, has been questioned on whether current grants are effectively transferring IP rights to holders. 

For example, Los Angeles restaurant ‘Bored & Hungry’ was established in the U.S. based, Yuga Labs still owns the actual rights to each NFT’s IP.

NFT IP challenges aren’t unique to Yuga Labs. For example, Pulp Fiction Quentin Tarantino faced a lawsuit launched by entertainment company Miramax for Pulp Fiction NFTs. 

Photo: BarrelDAO