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Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainasheff and John J. Palmer

Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainasheff and John J. Palmer
80 Winning Recipes Anyone Can Brew

Browsing through the 80 recipes in this book was a great source of inspiration for my next batch of home brew. If you can’t decide what to do next, pick up this book. There is bound to be something you haven’t tried.

The title is misleading, the sub-title would be more accurate. It is primarily recipes. The book contains short introductory chapters on ingredients and brewing that other books have covered in more detail. If you don’t know what terms like lovibond, OG, FG, and IBU are I would read an introductory how to brew book first.

The recipes are primarily setup for all grain brewers. For extract based brewers the recipes are modified to ‘fit’ the style. I get the sense the authors are all grain brewers who wanted to broaden the market for their book by adding the extract formulations.

This is a great book to browse and see what a style has in common in terms of grains, hops and yeast.

Topics unique to this book:

• Recipe categories include: Light Lager, Pilsner, European Amber Lager, Dark Lager, Bock, Light Hybrid, Amber Hybrid , English Pale Ale, Scottish and Irish Ale, American Ale, English Brown Ale, Porter, Stout, Indian Pale Ale, German What and Rye , Belgian and French Ale, Sour Ale, Belgian Strong Ale, Strong Ale, Fruit, Spice Herb or Vegetable, Smoke and Wood Aged, Specialty Beers.
• A nice chart of hops and the various characteristics of each is on page 20.

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Extreme Brewing – By Sam Calagione

Extreme Brewing – By Sam Calagione
An Enthusiast’s Guide to Brewing Craft Beer at Home

This book contains 25 fun and ‘extreme’ beer recipes. The introduction surrounding the makeup of ingredients is well done and more detailed than most books. This book contains a lot of photography and the images are excellent. The intro to brewing chapter is a good review, but there are other books out there that go into more detail. Get this book for the information about using fruits and spices in your beer, or the best beer and food pairings. The recipes are extract based, which makes them accessible to beginners, but some of the recipes are also quite complex.

Topics unique to this book

• Brewing with fruit: (apricots, arctic cloud berries, black currants, blueberries, white muscat grape concentrate, raisins, raspberries, sour cherries, strawberries, sweet cherries)
• Brewing with spices: (allspice, anise, cardamom seed, chicory, coriander, cinnamon sticks, coffee, ginger, grains of paradise, juniper berries, licorice root, rosemary, saffron threads, spruce tips, st. john’s wort, valerian).
• Brewing with other ingredients: (pumpkin, pepper corns, molasses, wood chips, etc)
• Adding sugar during fermentation to boost ABV
• High gravity beers

I love the passion of this author and the Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, and highly recommend both of his books.

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The Homebrewer’s Garden – By Joe Fisher and Dennis Fisher

The Homebrewer’s Garden – Joe Fisher and Dennis Fisher
How to easily grow, prepare, and use your own Hops, Malts and Brewing Herbs

If you have ever considered growing hops, barely, or herbs this is a wealth of information. The book also contains 29 recipes that call for some of these exotic and historical ingredients. Very useful if you want to brew beer without hops or brew in styles from centuries ago.

I feel confident setting up my hop yard based on the information contained here. Contains details on everything about growing hops, from planting, stringing, watering, feeding, eliminating pests, and treating disease, to harvesting and drying. Each hops plant can yield over a pound of dried hops after the second year, and at current hops prices this is well worth looking into if you have a sunny unused area.

In terms of growing your own grains, you will need a lot of space and time. According to the book, a 20’x40′ plot can yield up to 47 pounds of grain, which is only about five all grain batches. This book also covers how to malt, which is a detailed and time intensive process.

Topics unique to this book.

• Profile of 40+ herbs used in historical brewing processes: (Alecost, Anise Hyssop, Basil, Bee Balm, Betony, Birch, Blackberry, Blessed Thistle, Borage, Chamomile, Clary Sage, Coriander, Dandelion, Elder, Elecampane, Gentian, Ginger, Ginseng, Greek Oregano, Heather, Horehound, Hyssop, Juniper, Lavender, Lemon Balm, Licorice, Milk Thistle, Mint, Nasturtium, Nettles, Raspberry, Rhubarb, Rose Hips, Rosemary, Sage, Savory, Spruce, Sweet Woodruff, Thyme, Valerian, Wintergreen, Yarrow)
• 29 Recipes containing specialty herbs, including: (Dandelion bitter, Quinoa Bitter, Chica De Jora, Chili Beer, Rhubarb Ale, Gingered Ale, Gotlandsdrika, Pumpkin Ale, Oregano Pale, Sorghum Ale)
• Growing and malting your own grain

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Brewing Up a Business – By Sam Calagione

Brewing Up a Business- By Sam Calagione
Adventures in Entrepreneurship from the Founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery

In this combination auto biography, business account, and brewery guide Sam Calagione, lays down what challenging the big American breweries is like and his mission to redefine of beer to public. It was not an easy path, but it has a happy ending. Some of the stories he went through are just amazing. He is open to sharing many of his mistakes over the decade it took to build up the Dogfish Head brand.

This was a very informative read, and I’m grateful that he is promoting craft brewing as an industry in the United States. Even if you are not planning to start your own brewery, it gets you more in touch with the industry as a whole. In terms of business sense, the insights shared could be applied to almost any area. If you are an entrepreneur who likes beer you will appreciate this book.

Topics unique to this book

• Starting a brewery
• Starting a pub house
• Managing a brand identity
• Niche marketing
• Creativity in brewing

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Homegrown Hops– By David R. Beach

Homegrown Hops– By David R. Beach
An Illustrated How-To-Do-It Manual

The book is written by a native to Oregon and a fellow home brewer who decided to start growing his own hops back in the 1980’s in the Willamette valley. Oregon, Washington, and Idaho are the best places in the United States to grow hops. The book covers all the details, from setting up the hops yard and trellis, buying the rhizomes and planting, to care, harvesting, and drying. Only 100 pages, it is concise, provides black and white photos, and is true to its title. The book is now sadly out of print. My library had it and that was how I was able to get a copy.

Topics unique to this book:

• Setting up the hop yard
• Planting and propagating hops
• Care for hops
• Necessary soil nutrients for hops
• Protecting hops from disease and pests
• Harvesting hops
• Drying hops, and plans for a home made drying system

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Brewing Made Easy – By Joe Fisher and Dennis Fisher

Brewing Made Easy – By Joe Fisher and Dennis Fisher
From the First Batch to Creating Your Own Recipes

This 90 page book is a simple introduction to brewing ales at home using liquid or dry malt extract.
Steeping grains are highly recommended by the author. Not being an advanced book it will get you started fast. After all, the best way to learn brewing is to actually ‘do it’. Step up to other books to learn kegging, lagering, and all-grain brewing when you are ready.

Topics unique to this book:

• Basic Equipment List

• Brewing Your First Batch

• Basic Sanitization practices

• Brewing Tips

• Nineteen basic recipes for ales, and one lager recipe

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