Brewing Book Recommendations?

[BeardedMag]

Hi All,

I'm travelling with graft quite a bit in the coming weeks and wouldn't mind a decent read brew wise. Be it recipes or just general beer crack.

Anybody recommend some good brew books?

Cheers

BeardedMag

 

[geigercntr]

Hi mate, there's a whole sub-forum dedicated to beer books :)

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=79

Whenever I get into a hobby, I tend to (over?)buy loads of books on the topic. My personal faves are Radical Brewing, which combines a wide range of recipes, interesting info and I also like his writing style.

For a more 'how to' recipe book, the bible is a classic.

I own Designing Gr8 Beers, but find it a very tough read. It's also showing it's age a bit too.

I've recently received the 4th edition of How To Brew by John Palmer which looks pretty strong too.

If you're a hipster type, Mikeller's book is of some interest, with some decent looking recipes, but loads of typo's and translation errors (see if your local library has it!?)

I'm also tempted (on the basis of their podcast) by Experimental Brewing

 

[strange-steve]

For recipes I swear by "brewing classic styles" which has at least one award winning recipe for every BJCP style. For a proper reading book then "brew like a monk" or "beer is proof that God loves us" are both really interesting.

 

[Spapro]

For a good entertaining read Tony Magee's 'So you want to start a brewery' The lagunitas story is brilliant, made me chuckle and smile a lot.

For process improvement John Palmers 'How to Brew' is the bible IMHO

Another one I like as real quality hardback is James Morton's 'BREW' book, nice photos and some discussion of equipment, ingredients and processes but with plenty of good, modern 'hop heavy' recipes to try.

That little lot of brew porn should keep you busy for a while !

 

[Brewdoug]

If you've got an iPad how about a couple of digital issues of Brew Your Own magazine or Craft Beer and Brewing.
They're obviously USA based but if you pick issues covering subjects that interest you probably a better read when travelling than a book of recipes.

 

[treebeard]

For process improvement John Palmers 'How to Brew' is the bible IMHO

I agree, just got the latest one on Kindle it's excellent.

 

[BeardedMag]

Quality info there mate cheers! Yeah I'm new to all this thread and forum type of thing so my bad for not noticing haha!

It's payday so I can see a few book sites getting hammered tonight

Hi mate, there's a whole sub-forum dedicated to beer books :)

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=79

Whenever I get into a hobby, I tend to (over?)buy loads of books on the topic. My personal faves are Radical Brewing, which combines a wide range of recipes, interesting info and I also like his writing style.

For a more 'how to' recipe book, the bible is a classic.

I own Designing Gr8 Beers, but find it a very tough read. It's also showing it's age a bit too.

I've recently received the 4th edition of How To Brew by John Palmer which looks pretty strong too.

If you're a hipster type, Mikeller's book is of some interest, with some decent looking recipes, but loads of typo's and translation errors (see if your local library has it!?)

I'm also tempted (on the basis of their podcast) by Experimental Brewing

 

[BeardedMag]

Thanks for the reply I'm getting amongst all the titles now. Think I might have to knick the Mrs Kindle at this rate!

For recipes I swear by "brewing classic styles" which has at least one award winning recipe for every BJCP style. For a proper reading book then "brew like a monk" or "beer is proof that God loves us" are both really interesting.

 

[BeardedMag]

Thanks mate

If you've got an iPad how about a couple of digital issues of Brew Your Own magazine or Craft Beer and Brewing.
They're obviously USA based but if you pick issues covering subjects that interest you probably a better read when travelling than a book of recipes.

 

[trueblue]

If you are after traditional British beers it has to be any of the Graham Wheeler books. I have quite a few by American authors and have come to the conclusion they don't understand British beer.

 

[BeardedMag]

I'm keen to broaden my knowledge so any info is good info at the minute. I'll add this to the growing list :)
Cheers!

If you are after traditional British beers it has to be any of the Graham Wheeler books. I have quite a few by American authors and have come to the conclusion they don't understand British beer.

 

[Zephyr259]

I'll second the praise for Greg Hughes book and Radical Brewing; the 1st is great for brewing but the 2nd is great for reading and inspiration if you're away a lot.

Designing Great Beers is well worth buying but it can be dry at times, it's more of a working manual than a reader.

I've got all three of the Belgian tradition books, Brew Like a Monk and Farmhouse Ales are brilliant if you want to brew those styles, I've just started reading Wild Brews, I'd say it's a b it more niche since not everyone wants to mess about with sours but I think it might be fun and it's an interesting read so far even if I don't brew sours.

I've got 2 of the Classic Beer Styles series, they are from the 90s so are dated but also not since most of the book is on history of the style and historical methods and approaches which means that modern innovations aren't as important and can be used to tweak a style to your tastes and make it personal. I've got Barleywine and Scotch Ale and both are interesting.

I need to listen to the Experimental Homebrewing podcast, i wasn't sure if their book was going to be too similar to Radical Brewing.

 

[BarnBrian]

Just finished reading John Palmer "How to Brew", excellent book. He gives you the choice of skipping some of the heavy technical bits.

 

[Soton]

You might also want to consider Yeast by Chris White & Jamil Zainasheff
From it you can learn all you need to know about yeast starters and storage ect, plus a lot more if you are science minded

 

[Norfolk79]

If you've got an iPad how about a couple of digital issues of Brew Your Own magazine or Craft Beer and Brewing.

They're obviously USA based but if you pick issues covering subjects that interest you probably a better read when travelling than a book of recipes.

On that topic you can get the last 2 years worth of them on Readly, think it's £7.99 for 2 months trial at the moment, and you can download the magazines for offline reading.

 

[geigercntr]

... I've just started reading Wild Brews

I'd be interested to hear what you think of this. American Sours has been on my Amazon wishlist for a while now...

I need to listen to the Experimental Homebrewing podcast, i wasn't sure if their book was going to be too similar to Radical Brewing.

Not sure tbh. I think it's slightly more process-orientated than the freewheelng Mosher book. I'd definitely recommend the podcast though. That & Basic Brewing Radio are well-presented and informative. Unlike a lot of beer podcasts which are just overweight blokes burping and telling dick-jokes :nono:

 

[foxy]

'Brewing Better Beer' for advanced brewers by Gordon Strong

 

[Zephyr259]

I'd be interested to hear what you think of this. American Sours has been on my Amazon wishlist for a while now...

Not sure tbh. I think it's slightly more process-orientated than the freewheelng Mosher book. I'd definitely recommend the podcast though. That & Basic Brewing Radio are well-presented and informative. Unlike a lot of beer podcasts which are just overweight blokes burping and telling dick-jokes :nono:

I'll give you a review of sorts when I've read more of Wild Brews. American Sours is also on my reading list but I went with the other to start with as I've liked the other books in the series and it looked a bit more history focused where as Michael Tonsmeire is taking a more modern approach (his website is great if you haven't found it before) and Wild Brews was his go to text.

I love Basic Brewing Radio, been listening for the last year and gone through their back catalogue, skipping the occasional show which didn't interest me.

 

[BeardedMag]

I'm a quality engineer by trade so anything that gets my noggin working is good to me. Gives me something else to nerd up on

I can't wait to see the mrs face when I rock up with an ikea shelf just for my brew books haha!

You might also want to consider Yeast by Chris White & Jamil Zainasheff
From it you can learn all you need to know about yeast starters and storage ect, plus a lot more if you are science minded

 

[Brewdoug]

If you've got an iPad how about a couple of digital issues of Brew Your Own magazine or Craft Beer and Brewing.
They're obviously USA based but if you pick issues covering subjects that interest you probably a better read when travelling than a book of recipes.

Further to this post the latest issue of Craft beer and Brewing focussing on IPAs is a really good one (for anyone interested in the latest trends in IPAs obviously).
I've just taken out another annual subscription from within the app for �£14.99 - a good buy in my opinion, really wish we could subscribe to the printed version over here.