I'm looking to a couple of books on homebrewing??

[mindless2]

Just wondering what books people have found that have been beneficial to their understanding of homebrewing and helped the create great brews!!

There are so many books out there on the hobby, hard to choose! !

Thanks
T

 

[Braufessor]

Do you currently have any books? Anything you are looking for in particular?

How to Brew by Palmer is a really good book for beginner-intermediate information on process.

Brewing Classic Styles is a great recipe book to get a foundational type recipe in every style area.

Gordon Stongs new book Modern Homebrew Recipes is good. I liked his other book too.

AHA puts out a lot of good books - many are more specific as to specific styles or specific ingredients: http://members.brewersassociation.org/store/?_ga=1.61458732.1281473053.1448407388

 

[myerstyson]

How to Brew by Palmer is a really good book for beginner-intermediate information on process.

+1 on How to Brew!

I also like Clone Brews by the Szamatulski couple.

 

[HomebrewSupply]

How to Brew by Palmer is a really good book for beginner-intermediate information on process.

Brewing Classic Styles is a great recipe book to get a foundational type recipe in every style area.

Gordon Stongs new book Modern Homebrew Recipes is good. I liked his other book too.

All three of these are great choices, especially How to Brew.

 

[Auger]

How to Brew is a great one, and Gordon Strong's Brewing Better Beer is excellent for more advanced all-grain brewers really looking to fine-tune their methods and recipes.

 

[Vandulus]

+1 on How to Brew, but I recommend this as a second book to read as it can get quite technical. I'd suggest Charlie Papazian's Complete Joy of Homebrewing 4th Edition to read first and help ease you into the concepts.

 

[Braufessor]

Another great resource is listening to podcasts..... great "Brew day" listening. Check out The Brewing Network - especially "brew strong" and "can you brew it." Lots of the earlier episodes cover all kinds of brewing techniques, questions, recipes, etc..... Fair amount of sophomoric humor - but lots of good info in them too.

Basic brewing radio and beer smith radio are also very good, more focused and on topic, none of the language/"humor".

All have good interviews and can teach you a ton about brewing. I listen to them every brew day.

 

[lhommedieu]

+ 1 Gordon Strong
Stan Hieronymous: Brew Like A Monk
William Bostwick: The Brewer's Tale: A History of the World According to Beer

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

If I had it to do again, I would not buy books on brewing in general. The internet is far too capable and current a resource for that. And methods change a lot in a little time.

I would, however, keep buying books specific to styles. Styles may come and go in popularity. But the recipes rarely go obsolete.

 

[msa8967]

Just wondering what books people have found that have been beneficial to their understanding of homebrewing and helped the create great brews!!

There are so many books out there on the hobby, hard to choose! !

Thanks
T

This is a great book on getting into brewing starting with doing simple extract brews and going into all-grain brewing. As a teacher I can appreciate the author's writing style on trying to keep things simple w/o providing too much information that might over complicate the process.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1616089172/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

[mindless2]

Awesome guys !! Thanks at least it narrows the list down!!

 

[Denny]

Just wondering what books people have found that have been beneficial to their understanding of homebrewing and helped the create great brews!!

There are so many books out there on the hobby, hard to choose! !

Thanks
T

I'm partial to Experimental Homebrewing.... There's also a podcast called "experimental Brewing".

 

[mindless2]

Thanks Denny gonna listen to the podcasts shortly! Will check out the book as soon as I get home!

 

[mindless2]

I've been brewing about 2yrs so much to learn!! I've been reading about off tastes... but that's one I find hard to translate to my taste buds... deciphering bitterness....... anyhow the Internet great for material. But I like a good book or books...

 

[Wiscohio_brewer]

How To Brew does a good job describing off flavors. One book that really helped me a lot was Tasting Beer by Randy Mosher. He describes several styles and their flavor profiles. Helped me a lot with tasting and critiquing my own beer.

 

[Braufessor]

I'm partial to Experimental Homebrewing.... There's also a podcast called "experimental Brewing".

I neglected to mention these earlier... .both are great. Denny and Drew have a lot of great info in both resources.

The podcast is new and has a few episodes out. Interviews, brew news, humor, brew experiments..... it is well done and look forward to future episodes.

I also have the book - very good. The thing that I like best about the book is it really digs in to experimenting and testing things out in your brewing in a systematic, organized way. Lots of people talk about "trying something different" with their recipes, processes, etc. However, lots of times brewers do that in a rather haphazard way. Even if they do something they really like - often, they can't identify what they did, or how to repeat it. This book looks at evaluating and experimenting with your own process/recipes in a way that will help you identify the effect of different variables on your finished product.

Once you have a good process down - this really is the way to make significant improvement as a brewer.

Another resource along these lines is Marshall Schott's website - Brulosophy: http://brulosophy.com

 

[Oginme]

'How to Brew' is my "go to" book for basic brewing information. Gordon Strong's 'Brewing Better Beer' has also given me some new ideas for process/methodology.

For recipe design, I like Ray Daniel's 'Designing Great Beers' for basic methodology
Once I've designed a recipe, I usually check with 'Brewing Classic Styles' if brewing something to style. I just received Mosher's 'Modern Homebrew Recipes' and will also be using that as a guide. Usually, I am just checking my recipe versus these to see if I am way out of character for grain/hop choices, brewing process hints, and other hints.

When brewing something deliberately out of style, I look to 'Radical Brewing' and 'Experimental Brewing' for helpful ideas or ways to incorporate flavors.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Depends on what you're looking for.

As far as what's been mentioned,

Brewing Classic Styles is a good source for proven recipes and some style knowledge.
Designing Great Beers is great for learning to design your own.
How To Brew is good for general brewing technique.
Brewing Better Beer assumes you know what you're doing already but will help you elevate to the next level, from good to award winning.

For me, I've gravitated beyond general brewing texts, and am generally not interested in broad, dedicated recipe books unless they have something else to offer (like style history). I've been reading more specific brewing science, and more foundational, technical books. The "Brewer's Element" series (ie Malt, Hops, Yeast, and Water) is good. Style-specific books are good as well (just read Sutula's Mild Ale, Brew Like a Monk, American Sours, Wild Brews, IPA, etc). Read a book dedicated to cellarmanship/cask maintenance (Cellarmanship is the not so ironic title). Just started a book specifically on QC/QA/consistency (Bamforth's Standards of Brewing). And brewing science texts are good too.