I'm about half-way through this book for the first time. It is very much written with the audience in mind. Why would someone pick up a book like this? Because they want to brew beer. And, chapter one gets you through brewing your first batch. After that, it starts to address the questions that were certainly top of mind with me. How do I brew consistently? How does brewing work? How can I make my own brew?
While reading, I've continued to my second and third batches, enjoying both the brewing and learning.
This book told me everything I needed to know to brew beer, except for lager that I'm not really interested in. (It recommends another book for lager, though it does tell you the basics). It has an introductory chapter which is all you need for your first few batches and then you can add additional expertise as you decide to branch out into more complex recipes or all-grain brewing. The bonus for me was that it tells you a lot about yeast biology - always interesting to learn something else on a base you already have. For example, I learned how the yeast metabolism changes as the nutrients in the malt are consumed so that is why you need to do longer brew times than the cheap/fast kits recommend, because the yeast will re-ingest and metabolize some of the original by-products, and some of those don't taste as good as …
This book told me everything I needed to know to brew beer, except for lager that I'm not really interested in. (It recommends another book for lager, though it does tell you the basics). It has an introductory chapter which is all you need for your first few batches and then you can add additional expertise as you decide to branch out into more complex recipes or all-grain brewing. The bonus for me was that it tells you a lot about yeast biology - always interesting to learn something else on a base you already have. For example, I learned how the yeast metabolism changes as the nutrients in the malt are consumed so that is why you need to do longer brew times than the cheap/fast kits recommend, because the yeast will re-ingest and metabolize some of the original by-products, and some of those don't taste as good as the final products.
My brewing supply store gives me a bare-bones recipe when I buy the ingredients, but by reading the 'why' and the 'what to expect', I have much more confidence and the ability to modify my approach to match the conditions in my home. The final proof is that my first couple of batches were very drinkable and the third that I'm just bottling tastes as it should (good but flat), so I'm fairly confident that it will turn out better and carbonated.
Great introduction to the basics of brewing. I started my education kind of backwards (with Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher) but as a result I was able to understand a lot more about yeast attenuation and IBU calculations from this book. I don't know if I can recommend my style of reading to anyone else but I would definitely recommend this book to those new to brewing science.
