Good books on brewing?

[JackA]

Can anyone recommend books, targeted for the homebrewer, which go into a fair amount of detail? Something a bit beyond the beginner level so that I can start trying to perfect my beers

A couple I have found just glancing over Amazon:
How to Brew: Everything You Need to Know to Brew Beer Right for the First Time
Designing Great Beers: The Ultimate Guide to Brewing Classic Beer Styles
The Big Book of Brewing
A Guide to Craft Brewing

Thoughts and suggestions?

Thanks

[mark]

The Big Book of Brewing and How to Brew would be a good start.
I have them both.
TBBoB is fairly basic, but it gets the points across well and gives a good grounding to go on to read How to Brew.

ATB

[koomber]

The Big Book of Brewing and How to Brew would be a good start.
I have them both.
TBBoB is fairly basic, but it gets the points across well and gives a good grounding to go on to read How to Brew.

ATB

How to brew is a fantastic book on brewing.

[Aleman]

How to brew is just about acceptable as a brewing book . . .It is very US Centric and many of the practices and cautions in there relate to the problems they have on that side of the pond.

How deep do you want to get into the theory and science of brewing?

TBBOB is basic and contains as much as you need to know . . . it is out of date so things have moved on somewhat, but is still a good grounding in British brewing practice.

If you can find a copy Homebrewing: The CAMRA Guide by Graham Wheeler is more up to date (but still almost 20 years old), but really was my bible for many years.

John Alexander Guide to Craft brewing is probably the most up to date book, but I found it to be dis jointed, and poorly organised . . . still a good book though, and the only one to cover serving beer from the wood at all.

Designing Great Beers is Half Good . . . but when he starts on the analysis of the winning beers from two years of the US National Comps (from 10-15 years ago) you have to ask just how relevant that is today.

If you want a basic this is how you brew book then Graham Wheelers Brew British Real Ale is spot on . . .plus it contains 130+ recipes for British beers

[boingy]

A couple of links to recent threads on here that may be of interest:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=33846

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=31399

And one link to the full text of the first edition of How To Brew, published (legally) online by the author as a plug for the latest one (3rd edition):

http://www.howtobrew.com

[raiderman]

You can get Wheelers original for a fiver secondhand on amazon, its 1990. but other than ingredients where more exotic malts are now available and new hops have been introduced the basics of brewing haven't changed. It has the advantage of being very well organised and written It comes with a number of very good recipies which give you the ability to work up from malt to all grain and inbetween and then develop your own. I'd buy that and print off the brupacks discription of hops and malts available that'll give you an update on what else is available and you're away. Wheelers newer book summarises all off this and contains brewalike recipies for commercial brews many of which replace malt with sugar, which is a cost cutting exercise we can avoid.

There are newer books, but many are american, so they weigh everything differently and if you've drunk their pale ales you'll know their beers don't taste like ours so the recipes can be a little odd. I bought The Complete Joy of Homebrewing Third Edition (Harperresource Book) by Charlie Papazian (Paperback - Oct 2003) for my son. I thought it pretty good with some interesting ideas, pitching 2 strains of yeast for instance. He doesn't like it, didn't like the american flavour of some recpies and didn't know which ingredients to substitute to anglise them and nicked my old copy of Wheelers book!

[Blackjack]

John Palmer author of How To Brew has a website called, surprisingly, http://www.howtobrew.com

And most helpfully appears to contain the entire text of the book ( I think).
The portions I have read seem to go pretty deep into the science of brewing, which is what I was looking for at the time, and I think that is the value of the book. I certainly would not take an americans word on anything that involves food or drink and I would rather die than than take their word on beer. Have you ever drunk in a US "Brew Pub" ?

[raiderman]

Have you ever drunk in a US "Brew Pub" ?

I'm rather fond of the San Francisco Brewing Co on Columbus, which is a pre earthquake barn of a place, I find american beers fall into distinct categories - the drinkable and the strange. Drinkable are their lagers and wheatbeers which can be as good as the best european brews, strange are their pale ales which aside from Fat Tire I can't get on with, stranger still is their habit of rally weird brews, coffee stout which is just undrinkable, there s a place called Thirsty Bear which specialises in these things, after the coffee I passes on vanilla, my wife did quite like the watermellon lager, but I can't vouch for it!

[Blackjack]

Have you ever drunk in a US "Brew Pub" ?

I'm rather fond of the San Francisco Brewing Co on Columbus, which is a pre earthquake barn of a place, I find american beers fall into distinct categories - the drinkable and the strange. Drinkable are their lagers and wheatbeers which can be as good as the best european brews, strange are their pale ales which aside from Fat Tire I can't get on with, stranger still is their habit of rally weird brews, coffee stout which is just undrinkable, there s a place called Thirsty Bear which specialises in these things, after the coffee I passes on vanilla, my wife did quite like the watermellon lager, but I can't vouch for it!

Aah! That explains my incompatability, now I understand . I would never dream of sullying my palate with Lager or Wheatbeer (except in an emergency).
JP
ps seperate post tells how I have made a terrible mistake

[padley1985]

you can get wheelers book on amazon at the moment and im reading through Moshers "radical Brewing" and its a great read and I would definitly recomend it as it goes into different areas to wheeler.

[JackA]

I have Wheeler's BYOBRA, and while it's a great start, I'd love a bit more detail!

[Jon474]

+1 for Home Brewing by Graham Wheeler.

Has been my brewing bible for many a year.

Jon

[raiderman]

Aah! That explains my incompatability, now I understand . I would never dream of sullying my palate with Lager or Wheatbeer (except in an emergency).
JP

As a man who spent a happy afternoon last August at the Coliseum drinking blue moon which is wheat beer and who has an annual drinking trip with his 2 middle sons to Munich every year I'd have to differ. I reckon munich is the best drinking city I've been to and I'll accept wheat beer isn;t for everyone they serve fresh unpasturised lager which doesn't gas you up. Unfortunately they serve it in litre mugs - which makes pub cralwling serious business