Clone Brews Authors:Tess Szamatulski, Mark Szamatulski

December 29, 2011 at 08:34 PM

Price: $11.00

Pros: Has a lot of good recipes that can help you make your beer similar to many commercial examples.

Cons: Perhaps not all dead-on clones.

Recommended? Yes

It's a decent book with quite a few recipes. I'm sure you could pick out your favorites and make some pretty close shots at the commercial examples.

I find it interesting that they always seem to recommend priming with extract rather than dextrose but that's minor. Extract is expensive and unnecessary, just my opinion though. Also, the way they list the hop additions in each recipe is kind of odd. For example, rather than list a 20 minute addition they put something like "after 40 minutes add 0.3oz of x". Also not a big deal but kind of different from the way we see most recipes.

July 25, 2011 at 08:15 PM

Price: $0.00

Pros: Extract, mini-mash, & AG formats Good variety of recipes.

Cons: There are millions of recipes on the web for free.

Recommended? Yes

I've gone through a dozen or two clone brews from this book and they have all turned out fantastic! It was this book that got me started with mini-mash and, since I'm moving towards AG, I love how they have included the recipes/process for extract, mini-mash, and all grain brewers. I've found it greatly educational starting off with a recipe book like this, prior to moving on to making my own recipes.
P.

2 of 5 | May 16, 2009 at 02:20 PM

Price: $15.00

Pros: - Lots of Recipes...

Cons: - Not necessarily the best recipes. Not all are true clones. - Lacks a lot of Craft Beers that are hot right now

Recommended? No

As I'll preface all of my book reviews: I've read just about every major homebrewing book and have enjoyed them all.

Go listen to 'Can you Brew it' on the Brewing Network if you want to clone beers. I used this book to clone two beers. One was pretty damn close and the other was pretty far off -- which could've been my brewing and not the book.

I wish there was a better selection though and there are a lot of avenues to find clone recipes for free. I'd suggest that you spend your money on another book before purchasing this one.

3 of 5 | September 18, 2006 at 11:01 AM

Price: $0.00

Pros: Contains a broad array of recipes for commercial beer styles from around the world.

Cons: Some of the recipes could use a little more detail.

Recommended? Yes

This is a good recipe reference if you want to clone various commercial beers from around the world, particularly the classics. The beers do come out very close to the commerical product, at least for the dozen or so that I have made. It would be helpful if they defined the malts a little better such as the caramel colors and perhaps some options on yeast strain.

4 of 5 | September 7, 2006 at 04:52 PM

Price: $15.00

Pros: Several types of beer covered from the world

Cons: Its a recipe book - thats it.

Recommended? Yes

This book covers several styles of beer and has extract/PM/AG recipies for all 150 beers.
Very good for buying several beers, tasting, and reading to see what ingredients are used to make a comparable clone version - and/or tweaking to make suitable for your own preference. The book has a few pages of info besides the recipies - but not much to speak of.
The AG recipes are infusion, one or two step mashes - no decoctions or anything else advanced. Also there is no mention of lagar techniques or storage times/temps.
All recipes use Wyeast (with the exception of cultured ones).

I would like to see other posts from people who have tried to make a clone.

Cheers.