Best Book for Weird ingredients

Anyone have a book they would reccommend for brewing with different ingrediants. I know all the basic books have like 5-10 pages of brewing with weird ingrediant but im looking for something a little more in depth?

Any ideas?

I have a book called "Radical Brewing" by Randy Mosher. I'm not very radical, so I never read it, but it seems the last half of the book is using unusual ingredients.

Radical Brewing is a pretty good read, and has a few chapters on ingredients.

Radical Brewing is my favorite brewing book, and it covers everything from the canonical style to the truly weird. It's also just a fun read, and includes a lot of history and background. Just make sure you check the errata before brewing anything.

http://www.radicalbrewing.com/rberrat.html

Get the book Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers by Stephen Harrod Buhner it is a sort of compilation of old (often centuries old) non hop (and sometimes non malt) beer and ale recipes along with a pretty good explanation of the various herbs and their medicinal/biological effects on the human body.

I'm borrowing it from a friend of mine right now and I definitely am going to have to purchase it.

Extreme Brewing by Sam Calagione is another good one.

Sacred and Herbal to me is iffy...it's an interesting read, but the author is NOT a brewer, and knows very little of the true brewing process, and some of what he writes about is not technically beer. And I wonder how safe some of the stuff it actually is.

If you are starting off in brewing and don't have a lot of know-how, I would NOT look at that book for help.

Radical Brewing is a great book for getting into unusual ingredients and odd styles, and it IS written from a homebrewing perspective, and it is good for any level of brewer from the stone cold extract w/grains brewer to the all grain brewer.

Revvy said:

Sacred and Herbal to me is iffy...it's an interesting read, but the author is NOT a brewer, and knows very little of the true brewing process, and some of what he writes about is not technically beer. And I wonder how safe some of the stuff it actually is.

If you are starting off in brewing and don't have a lot of know-how, I would NOT look at that book for help.

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I can agree with that, though it is a great source if you are looking for especially weird ingredients/inspiration. The author is an herbalist so he does know what he's talking about with regards to the adjuncts in the recipes.

Cool Thanks guys,

I think ill pick up radical brewing and in a few months when I'm done reading it, i'll try the others.

Thanks for the input
CoreyG

CoreyG said:

Cool Thanks guys,

I think ill pick up radical brewing and in a few months when I'm done reading it, i'll try the others.

Thanks for the input
CoreyG

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The other reason I have the book is just because Randy is a very cool guy, and has done much for the homebrewing community. You'd really appreciate it, and you'd really like him. The first half of the book (which I've skimmed through several times) is well written and he's easy to relate to.

I have both books, and I can say you'll be well off getting Radical Brewing first...lots of interesting info in there. Extreme Brewing is also good, but it's a little more beginner...all the recipes are extract. There's some nice stuff at the end regarding food...a few (food) recipes and info on pairing beer and food.

I'd also check out this site...lots of great info and recipes on alternative brewing herbs/bittering agents. I've brewed a couple of gruit ales, and actually ordered some of my herbs from the related site (it took a while to get the stuff I ordered, but otherwise was very satisfied, and made some interesting unhopped beer during the last major shortage in 2008....)

Hey Yooper,

Randy? Is that the author? Do you know him?

Are alot of these authors part of the Home Brew Talk Community?

Corey

I'm not sure about Randy Mosher, but I know Ken Schramm (The Compleat Meadmaker) posts occasionally in the Mead forums....