Brewing Better Beer

One of the most successful and respected homebrewers in America and highest ranking judges in the BJCP, there are few candidates better placed than Gordon Strong to give advice on how to take your homebrew to the next level. In Brewing Better Beer, the author sets out his own philosophy and strategy for brewing, examining the tools and techniques available in an even-handed manner. The result is a well-balanced mix of technical, practical, and creative advice aimed at experienced homebrewers who want to advance to the next level. The book is also a story of personal development and repeatedly mastering new systems and processes. Strong emphasizes that brewing is a creative endeavor underpinned by a firm grasp on technical essentials, but stresses that there are many ways to brew good beer. After mastering techniques, equipment, ingredients, recipe formulation, and the ability to evaluate their own beers, the advanced homebrewer will know how to think smart and work less, adjust only what is necessary, and brew with economy of effort. The author also pays special attention to brewing for competitions and other special occasions, distilling his own experiences of failure and (frequent) triumphs into a concise, pragmatic, and relaxed account of how judging works and how to increase your chances of success. The author's insights are laid out in a clear, engaging manner, deftly weaving discussions of technical matters with his own guiding principles to brewing. Learn to identify process control points in mashing, lautering, sparging, boiling, chilling, fermenting, conditioning, clarifying, and packaging. What are the best ways to control mash pH, which mash regimen suits your process, how can you effectively control your process through judicious equipment selection? Other tips on optimizing your brewing include ingredient and yeast selection, envisioning a recipe and bringing it to fruition, planning your brewing calendar, and identifying the critical path to ensure a successful brew day. There is also a detailed discussion of troubleshooting to address technical and stylistic problems advanced homebrewers often face. Through it all, Strong highlights you are the ultimate arbiter, giving advice on how to judge your own beers and understanding how balance takes many forms depending on style.

Author Ray Daniels provides the brewing formulas, tables, and information to take your brewing to the next level in this detailed technical manual.

An accessible guide to making your own beer, for beginning & advanced brewers, with thirty recipes and tips for choosing ingredients, equipment, and more. Mastering Homebrew will have you thinking like a scientist, brewing like an artist, and enjoying your very own unbelievably great handcrafted beer in record time. Internationally known brewing instructor, beer competition judge, author, and brew master himself, Randy Mosher covers everything that beginning to advanced brewers want to know, all in this easy-to-follow, fun-to-read handbook, including: · The anatomy of a beer · Brewing with both halves of your brain · Gear and the brewing process · Care and feeding of yeast · Hops (the spice of beer) · Brewing your first beer · Beer styles and beyond · The Amazing Shape-Shifting Beer Recipe · And more “Randy is a walking encyclopedia of beer and brewing, and his palate and taste are impeccable.” —from the foreword by Jim Koch, chairman and cofounder, the Boston Beer Company

Fully revised and expanded, How to Brew is the definitive guide to making quality beers at home. Whether you want simple, sure-fire instructions for making your first beer, or you’re a seasoned homebrewer working with all-grain batches, this book has something for you. Palmer adeptly covers the full range of brewing possibilities—accurately, clearly and simply. From ingredients and methods to recipes and equipment, this book is loaded with valuable information for any stage brewer.

Increase your beer IQ with this insider look at how to sip superior suds, written by one of America’s foremost beer experts. Winner of the Gourmand Award in the Beer category (US). With thousands of breweries creating a dizzying array of beers each year, learning from the experts is practically a necessity for the modern beer lover. Luckily, beer guru Joshua M. Bernstein is here to tap their wisdom for you, with sage advice about which brews to buy, how to taste your suds, and what to eat with them. Drink Better Beer features the must-know insights of more than 100 professionals, including competition judges, beer consultants, and master brewers. Find out how to shop clever by heeding two simple rules. Learn the art of selecting the right glass, cleaning it, and executing the perfect pour. Make sense of all those aromas with just a couple of sniffing tricks. Unlock the taste secrets of different styles, learn when to drink and how to know if your favorite beer store is treating their beer the way they should. Beer is getting complicated—Drink Better Beerwill give you the confidence to buy smart and enjoy your pour even more. The universe of beer is expanding fast. Suddenly there’s CBD beer, beer-wine mashups, and beer-in-a-box that’s sold uncarbonated. Brewers large and small are pushing boundaries on aroma, taste, and ingredients, while beer retailers are blurring the lines between store and bar. A second beer revolution—close on the heels of the craft beer boom—is underway, and the average beer lover is at risk of getting left behind. Thankfully, acclaimed beer authority Joshua M. Bernstein and a slew of other industry experts such as brewers, bar owners, and Master Cicerones are here to help. In Drink Better Beer, Bernstein has culled advice from a diverse array of experts to create a roadmap to beer 2.0, including detailed advice on buying and pouring, glassware, and the rise of cans, as well as new science on flavor and fermentation, how brewers are getting into food, and what the future holds. For beer lovers looking to raise their beverage IQ, Drink Better Beer is a master class in the new era of brewing.

Brooklyn Brew Shop’s Beer Making Book takes brewing out of the basement and into the kitchen. Erica Shea and Stephen Valand show that with a little space, a few tools, and the same ingredients breweries use, you too can make delicious craft beer right on your stovetop. Greenmarket-inspired and seasonally brewed, these 52 recipes include Everyday IPA and Rose Cheeked & Blonde for spring; Grapefruit Honey Ale and S’More Beer for summer; Apple Crisp Ale and Peanut Butter Porter for fall; Chestnut Brown ale and Gingerbread Ale for winter; and even four gluten-free brews. You’ll also find tips for growing hops, suggestions for food pairings, and recipes for cooking with beer. Brooklyn Brew Shop’s Beer Making Book offers a new approach to artisanal brewing and is a must-own for beer lovers, seasonally minded cooks, and anyone who gets a kick out of saying “I made this!”

Three-time Ninkasi Award winner, Gordon Strong has been a towering presence in the homebrewing community for many years. Now this Grandmaster Beer Judge invites you on a guided tour through over 100 of his own as-brewed recipes. While discussing the fundamentals of homebrewing, the author also invites you to develop your own style, with tips on recipe formulation and ingredients substitutions. In the initial chapters, Strong cover the basics of brewing, summarizing a variety of processes relating to water adjustment, mashing, and hopping. The author concisely and clearly lays out techniques like infusion mashing, step infusion, decoction, cereal mashes, and hybrid mash schedules. Get the rundown on adding hops in the boil, first wort hopping, hop bursting, whirlpool and steeping, hopbacks, and dry hopping. Learn the basics of recipe design and how to think about style recipe profiles; know the intensity of your ingredients and what contributes to a balanced recipe and how that might differ between styles—do you know what makes a balanced IPA versus a lambic? Make intelligent substitutions with ingredients you have and become comfortable scaling recipes, accounting for volume losses, mash efficiencies, and differences in hop utilization. The recipes themselves are tried and tested, provided by the author as he has brewed them, including specific advice and sensory profiles, plus insights into the creative process behind each recipe. There are myriad IPAs and everyday styles for easy drinking, such as pale ale, blonde ale, wheat beer, altbier, Kolsch, and brown and amber ales. Classic and modern lager recipes include Vienna, dunkel, Maibock, Oktoberfest, bock, and schwarzbier. Dark beers are plentiful, with dark milds, porters, and stouts, making a nod to both American and classic English versions. Stronger fare is on offer with barleywine, strong ales, and winter warmers; lovers of Belgian beer will also find an eclectic selection of traditional recipes, as well as some saisons and biere de garde. For when the creative juices are really flowing, the author includes a collection of experimental and historical recipes that may not find a place in any set style—pale mild or dubbel American brown ale, anyone?—but are delicious nonetheless.

Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation is a resource for brewers of all experience levels. The authors adeptly cover yeast selection, storage and handling of yeast cultures, how to culture yeast and the art of rinsing/washing yeast cultures. Sections on how to set up a yeast lab, the basics of fermentation science and how it affects your beer, plus step by step procedures, equipment lists and a guide to troubleshooting are included.

Greg Noonan’s classic treatise on brewing lagers, New Brewing Lager Beer, offers a thorough yet practical education on the theory and techniques required to produce high-quality beers using all-grain methods either at home or in a small commercial brewery. This advanced all-grain reference book is recommended for intermediate, advanced and professional small-scale brewers. New Brewing Lager Beers hould be part of every serious brewer’s library.

Award-winning brewer Jamil Zainasheff teams up with homebrewing expert John J. Palmer to share award-winning recipes for each of the 80-plus competition styles. Using extract-based recipes for most categories, the duo gives sure-footed guidance to brewers interested in reproducing classic beer styles for their own enjoyment or to enter into competitions.