Designing Great Bears vs. How to Brew

I've been homebrewing for about a year now and I'm interested in learning more. I just subscribed to BYO maganzine, and was going to start reading a new book. I'm most interested in learning techniques that would get me more consistent results and learning to formulate my own recipes. I've narrowed my options down to "How to Brew" and "Designing Great Beers".

I've read on this forum several times that "How to Brew" is one of the best books out there, but I've already read "The Complete Joy of Homebrewing" cover to cover. Am I going to learn that much more from reading this book? Or should I go with "Designing Great Bears" that will go in depth into a specific topic that I know I want to learn more about?

Suggestions?

How many batches have you brewed and are you all-grain or extract?

If you've already brewed a half-dozen or more all grain beers, then "Designing" may be more apt for your goals.

"How to" is a great resource, but it is definitely the more "entry level" book for technique and less about honing your skills.

How to Brew is available electronically... literally.. the entire book. I would suggest just flipping through it and see if it's what you're looking for.

How to Brew - By John Palmer - Introduction

I really liked it.

Also... since it's available electronically, it's free so buy Designing Great Beers and just read How To Brew online and you'll have both!

D'oh - I did read John Palmer's "How to Brew", very informative, and free.

Also - a recent thread with literature posted:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/need-help-stocking-my-homebrew-library-97907/

How to Brew always 1st reading. I read the online version twice before doing my first batch, and when I bought the book I read it cover to cover in a couple of nights. It's the Bible. I recommend a second copy to keep under your pillow.

New Lager Brewing is like an advanced version of How to Brew. He gets into topics like step mashing, yeast culturing, etc. Lots of practical information in there.

Radical Brewing by Mosher is a great book to read to learn about beer styles and get your ideas going for styles you may want to brew you haven't thought about brewing. He also has a lot of great recipes in there. My Wit recipe and my Tripel (in my dropdown) both are derived from recipes he presented in that book.

Designing Great Beers I haven't read cover to cover as I see it more as a reference book. I read the chapter on the style I'm going to brew before I finalize my recipe and brew it.

Those are my top 4 books.

BierMuncher said:

How many batches have you brewed and are you all-grain or extract?

If you've already brewed a half-dozen or more all grain beers, then "Designing" may be more apt for your goals.

"How to" is a great resource, but it is definitely the more "entry level" book for technique and less about honing your skills.

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I've got my 7th batch in the fermenter now. I have not gone all-grain, and probably won't anytime soon. 3 young kids really cramp my budget and time

So is "Designing" more geared towards all-grain? Or it is applicable to lowly extract brewers like myself too

rudy0498 said:

So is "Designing" more geared towards all-grain? Or it is applicable to lowly extract brewers like myself too

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It applies to all brewers who want to formulate their own recipes. It has general guidelines for the style, and talks about specific malts and hops which are used by commercial breweries as well as in award winning homebrewed recipes.

Radical Brewing FTW!!!!

That book is awesome

Saccharomyces said:

Radical Brewing by Mosher is a great book to read to learn about beer styles and get your ideas going for styles you may want to brew you haven't thought about brewing. He also has a lot of great recipes in there. My Wit recipe and my Tripel (in my dropdown) both are derived from recipes he presented in that book.

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DeathBrewer said:

Radical Brewing FTW!!!!

That book is awesome

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Thirded. I own an old NCJOHB, I borrow Designing Great Beers from the library when I want to brush up on something, but Radical Brewing lives on my nightstand.

New Lager Brewing is on my request list from the library.

i read designing great beers cover to cover. that was quite a feat. i often fell asleep in the middle of a style and have to re-read.

a couple of long flights helped, too

I read Designing Great Beers about 10-11 years ago and it was/is my go-to book for learning about brewing most of the styles of beer. Lots of history and other info...like what the top beers of homebrew competitions used in their recipes, etc. It's a great book for learning about the different styles and how to brew them but is not really a 'how to' book per se.

I've been reading sections of Palmer's book online (since I quit brewing for 9 years) and it is good.

Depends on what you want out of this book imo.

I don't know if you'd need a book if you were to design a bear. Ultimately mass and the sharpness of claws and teeth would be the keys to a good design. Of course, coat color would vary by intended environment.

+1 for Designing Great Beers.....read it front to back twice now and still reference it from time to time.

Bobby_M said:

I don't know if you'd need a book if you were to design a bear. Ultimately mass and the sharpness of claws and teeth would be the keys to a good design. Of course, coat color would vary by intended environment.

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Good catch, thanks for the laugh.

I don't know if you'd need a book if you were to design a bear. Ultimately mass and the sharpness of claws and teeth would be the keys to a good design. Of course, coat color would vary by intended environment.

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And make sure it doesn't have a weakness for picinic baskets.

I'm going to throw my bit in here only after reading the initial post...I would suggest both. Those are two of the books that are always at hand for me to go back and reference. I have earmarked and tabbed both of those books till they are almost worn out. I travel quite a bit and always have one of the two with me for studying more in depth. Over the past year and a half, I've taken notes from both books and each time I pick them up I add something new to my notes.

In my opinion these are two book that every homebrewer that really wants to improve and make great beers should have on their bookselr. In addtion, Brewing Classic Styles is an excellent supplement to Designing Great Beers. It picks up the styles that DGB doesn't cover and also provides some great info.

Bobby_M said:

I don't know if you'd need a book if you were to design a bear. Ultimately mass and the sharpness of claws and teeth would be the keys to a good design. Of course, coat color would vary by intended environment.

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HA!...wow i totally missed that one didn't I? Thanks for the advice though.

Get both, they are both great books that teach you two different things.

How to Brew teaches you how to brew.

Designing Great Beers teaches you how to design great beers.

Cape Brewing said:

How to Brew is available electronically... literally.. the entire book. I would suggest just flipping through it and see if it's what you're looking for.

How to Brew - By John Palmer - Introduction

I really liked it.

Also... since it's available electronically, it's free so buy Designing Great Beers and just read How To Brew online and you'll have both!

Click to expand...

Only the first edition is available online for free. Do yourself a favor and buy the third edition. Plenty of updates in there, plus you support the author.

You need to know absolutely nothing in "Designing" in order to Brew.
You need to know a great deal of the subject matter in "How" in order to Brew.

Both are great books.
Ray Daniels refers you to Palmer in the opening chapters.

If you're an extract brewer interested in honing your skills, I'd suggest "Brewing Classic Styles" by Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer.

There is one recipe for every classic style of beer and each default recipe is for extract brewing. The recipes are kept simple and the nice thing is you can brew a style and compare your results against BJCP style guidelines.

They also do a good job of talking about some basic brewing guidelines, keys to brewing a particular style and have some variations on certain recipes.

If I had to have only one book on the shelf in my brewshop, it would be that one.

Designing great beers is a great reference. My one complaint is that I'd like to see a new revision with more styles covered and some additional malts and hops. As mentioned above you can't really compare the 2 because they are different subjects. Are you more interested in tweaking/improving your process or your recipe development? With 7 batches under your belt my opinion would be focus on process for a while yet - there's really no shortage of recipes out there...