Brew Your Own or Zymurgy?

[simbabrew]

I was thinking about subscribing to one magazine, any preferences!

 

[waynorth]

BYO has been much more technically sound the last couple years. Craft Beer and Brewing is also very good for different reasons.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

I subscribe to Craft Beer and Brewing and I also get Zymurgy through my AHA subscription.

As far as a focus on beer, I like CB&B much better (Zymurgy often dives into food topics or other non-beer beverages). With both, you also get access to extra online content (though it seems more and more CB&B content requires All-Access or Industry Insider access). If I could only pick one, I would go with CB&B. I have considered upgrading to the $99 All-Access level for access to their video library.

I have generally looked at Zymurgy as one of the overall benefits of being an AHA member. Sadly, many of the perks have been declining in value (less discounts, National Homebrew Comp entry is very expensive, Homebrew Con seems to be near dead, no educational session at HBC means no online session recordings). I do like the AHA access to award winning and clone recipes, and often when you subscribe you get a free item (such as a book, one year I got 1lb of hops).

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

I agree with what @waynorth & @CascadesBrewer said above.

I was thinking about subscribing to one magazine, any preferences!

If you are a "beginner" or perhaps "intermediate" home brewer CB&B all-access has a solid video library. I like the magazine, but it is quarterly. Digital back issues are available as part of the subscription.

BYO is good (but recently perhaps a little thin) and is 6 issues a year. Recently, they added digital viewing of the actual magazine. And back issues are available with the appropriate subscription.

I currently subscribe to one of these two for a year.

I'm on hiatus with Zumurgy/AHA/BA. The forum is still free (no membership required) and it's worth a visit periodically to keep up with their future plans.

 

[MaxStout]

BYO goes deeper into the technology of home brewing, and their articles are well-written. I signed up for a 1-year sub a few years ago, it took 6 months for them to get the first issue to me. No complaints about the mags once I finally received them.

Zymurgy is getting more and more OT these days. You Can Ferment That foodie articles and oddball niche subjects. It seems they are running out of home brewing topic ideas. A plus side of AHA membership is access to some very good recipes. The online access to PDFs of 20-or-so years of back issues is well worth the price of admission if you have the time to sift through that.

 

[Witherby]

Our homebrew club takes advantage of the AHA club insurance and it requires AHA membership so I get Zymurgy as a bonus out of that. Not what it once was but still some good articles and I’m actually into the newer fermentation content.

I’ve subscribed to BYO for 12 years and keep resubscribing. Gordon Strong’s style profile columns alone make it essential reading.

I’ve subscribed to Craft Beer and Brewing for maybe five years and they may be the best magazine of the three (and most expensive?). Great coverage of the best breweries but an equal emphasis on homebrew recipes. But not equipment or process for homebrewing. Unless you pay for the extra videos.

BYO is the best all around for pure homebrewing content from recipes to troubleshooting to ingredients and experiments and equipment.

 

[jdauria]

Zymurgy is a shadow of what it used to be, BYO is definitely the better of the too and Craft Beer & Brewing is really good too. However, Craft Beer & Brewing, while having recipes in it, is really more about commercial breweries and their beers, but there is usually a decent homebrewing article in each issue.

 

[rallenhall]

I swapped my BYO subscription for Craft Beer & Brewing years ago, primarily because BYO and Zymurgy seemed like duplicates and Z was part of my AHA membership. Have kept every issue of CB&B, it's a slick, well written publication that begs to be browsed. Zymurgy, however, seems to be hit-or-miss these days. I really don't understand the reason for including articles such as baking cinnamon rolls (Sept/Oct 24). Back to the OP's question, if I had to choose between BYO & Zymurgy, it would be BYO.

 

[hottpeper13]

In 2017 these mags were putting out very thin articles without all the info, don't get me started on all the useless advertising. I ended my subscriptions and joined the MBAA. I go to meetings with professionals and the Technical bulletins are papers written by experts with PhD's or years of brewing. All meat and potatoes, no fluff. I do like veggies thou.

 

[elproducto]

I swapped my BYO subscription for Craft Beer & Brewing years ago, primarily because BYO and Zymurgy seemed like duplicates and Z was part of my AHA membership. Have kept every issue of CB&B, it's a slick, well written publication that begs to be browsed. Zymurgy, however, seems to be hit-or-miss these days. I really don't understand the reason for including articles such as baking cinnamon rolls (Sept/Oct 24). Back to the OP's question, if I had to choose between BYO & Zymurgy, it would be BYO.

This. I dropped Zymurgy and BYO because the content was often regurgitated, or very tangentially related to brewing beer and uninteresting to me. I love CB&B and have subscribed for a few years now. I think I'm still paying $3/month and I read every issue cover to cover. The podcast rules too .

My one quibble would be that there is an increasingly concerning trend of them hiding recipes and content behind their all access paywall, which is a fair bit more expensive.

 

[kevin58]

I was thinking about subscribing to one magazine, any preferences!

I used to get both of these and I noticed some changes in the choice of articles at Zymurgy a couple years ago. I found that there were fewer and fewer articles that interested me. There was a lot of non homebrewing content in every issue of Zymurgy. It got so bad that I checked the mail one day, flipped through it and ended up pitching the entire issue into the trash can before I even got back to the house. That's when I started doing a side by side comparison between the two and without fail BYO magazine had far more homebrewing information than Zymurgy. I even emailed them and mentioned one of their articles about Japanese food fermentation. The AHA's response was 'well, it is fermentation after all'. When my subscription ended last month I did not renew.

 

[bwible]

I subscribe to both.

You get Zymurgy for joining the AHA. I don’t get much else out of being a member so if they ever stopped printing Zymurgy I would not be a member anymore.

I always thought Zymurgy was more technical and in depth, more about the science and theory of things, where BYO was more the Nike “Just Do it” mag with alot of how-to and build it yourself articles.

I don’t like that BYO took to selling a seperate online subscription and you can’t look at alot of their online content without paying a seperate subscription fee on top of the magazine.

 

[bwible]

This. I dropped Zymurgy and BYO because the content was often regurgitated, or very tangentially related to brewing beer and uninteresting to me. I love CB&B and have subscribed for a few years now. I think I'm still paying $3/month and I read every issue cover to cover. The podcast rules too .

My one quibble would be that there is an increasingly concerning trend of them hiding recipes and content behind their all access paywall, which is a fair bit more expensive.

They’ve been printing magazines since the 80s and 90s. Of course there is going to be repeated content. There’s only so much they can cover. How many articles can they do on Kviek yeast? I think every magazine had at least one Kviek article every issue for a year.

 

[bwible]

I have old issues of Brewing Techniques. Loved that mag.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

I used to get both of these and I noticed some changes in the choice of articles at Zymurgy a couple years ago. I found that there were fewer and fewer articles that interested me. There was a lot of non homebrewing content in every issue of Zymurgy. It got so bad that I checked the mail one day, flipped through it and ended up pitching the entire issue into the trash can before I even got back to the house. That's when I started doing a side by side comparison between the two and without fail BYO magazine had far more homebrewing information than Zymurgy. I even emailed them and mentioned one of their articles about Japanese food fermentation. The AHA's response was 'well, it is fermentation after all'. When my subscription ended last month I did not renew.

I got the email about the latest Zymurgy issues "The November/December 2024 issue of Zymurgy magazine includes featured stories on Adaptive Homebrewing, Preserving Sub-Saharan Brewing Traditions, Beer Hiking in Bavaria (Part Two), and kuit, a traditional Dutch beer style that pre-dates the use of hops." Is this what homebrewers want to read about?

I had the prior issue set aside because I still had a few articles from the last two CB&B magazines that I wanted to read, but I got to Zymurgy over the weekend. Man that was a quick read. Besides being very thin, there is a lot of non-beer content and it cycles back to the AHA view that all homebrewers are just wanna-be pro brewers. The two pages promoting the AHA "thing" at GABF did not age well based on the feedback. At least the Troegs recipes look decent.