Dave Line's Beer Kits and Brewing

[bitter_dave]

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Could not resist! Thoughts on the book to follow...

[MashBag]

Wow.. thats a "geordie" kit on the cover.

[bitter_dave]

Wow.. thats a "geordie" kit on the cover.

And strangely it seems to be in a box! There are no references to Geordie beer kits in the book as far as I can see though.

I seem to recall that Graham was less than impressed by this book. I bought it out of curiosity really, as I saw a copy for only a few quid. As much as anything Dave Line writes really well. I quite like it for what it is.

This book is clearly aimed at the relative beginner. It starts with beer kits, then moves into malt extract brewing. At the end he explains mashing and there are some recipes using diastatic malt extract (no longer available), adjuncts and a bit of pale malt in some cases.

It's kind of like an entry into the hobby, for people maybe not ready for his other books. I can imagine reading this before bbltyb. It was published in 1980 shortly after he died. I have the 1987 printing, so it must have been knocking around in the hobby for a few years? Maybe some of our forum members had it? The beer kits/malt extracts and equipment described are now out of date, which means presumably it had only a relatively short-lived impact. It was certainly long gone by the time I started brewing in the mid 2000s.

Some might shudder at the quality of kits from the time or the acceptance of adding 1kg of sugar in the book. However, he does encourage some tweaks to beer kits (the use of different sugars, dry hops etc) and show a path to developing further into malt extract brewing and a bit of mashing. I can imagine it being a useful book to have in the early 1980s when starting out.

There are also some nice bits where you get too see how innovative and experimental he was a brewer for the time. I was also surprised to see a reference to Cornelius kegs and there is a very short bit at then end on home-brewing in the US which had only just been legalised. Leaving aside the personal tragedy, it's such a shame for the hobby that he died so young.

If you are just interested in brewing and tweaking beer kits there is not much point in buying this book. There is more advanced stuff online, given the passage of time since this was published. However if you see a copy for a few quid and like Dave Line's writing I think it's worth picking up.

[Jim]

I don't remember ever seeing that book around in the shops at the time (and I used to browse HB sections in bookshops a lot). Odd.

[bitter_dave]

Example beer kit recipe

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[bitter_dave]

Some beer kit tips:

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[MashBag]

I read the recipe and could taste it.