Brewing Better Beer: Book Review

Brewing Better Beer: Master Lessons for Advanced Homebrewers is book written by BJCP president, Grand Master V Judge, and three-time Ninkasi award winning homebrewer Gordon Strong. While reading his bio I was surprised to see that he lives in the same small Ohio town where my girlfriend Audrey grew up. It had been awhile since I read a brewing book that didn’t have a narrowly defined subject, so I was excited to pick up some general improvements to my process.

The concept behind Brewing Better Beer is an interesting one: the investigation of what separates the great brewers from those who simply understand the process. It does a good job of avoiding being bogged down by overly technical detail. It puts forth that at its heart homebrewing is a craft rather than an art or a science. Knowing the scientific underpinning of the process may inform your choices, and there is some artistry in recipe design and blending, but these are less essential than your ability to correctly complete the mundane tasks of mashing, sparging, yeast propagation, keeping oxygen out at packaging etc.

At a certain point after brewing seriously for a few years many homebrewers realize that there are no longer any obvious upgrades that their system requires. From that realization a driven brewer can focus on methodically refining their technique and recipes to produce consistently great results. This book also puts a focus on personal efficiency, avoiding extraneous steps to allow for quicker and less taxing brew days. Being able to brew great beer with minimal time and effort is the goal that most of us strive for.

Part homebrewing autobiography, Brewing Better Beer struggled to keep me interested. The author frequently poses questions for the reader to ask themselves about their own recipes, process, equipment, and technique. In some cases Gordon describes a particular situation and how he dealt with it, but generally does not dwell long. In the end most of these answers require personal investigation and thought (I assume most brewers like me evaluate the available options on their own). As a result, despite the 300+ pages, I didn’t come away with much advice that I’ve actually applied to my brewing.

It may be that I’ve already been brewing too long, already developing a method and system that work well for my needs. While its title suggests the book is for advanced brewers, it covers a number of things that are rather basic without interjecting any advanced information. For example information about how hops and malt are used, or options that I’d think most “advanced” homebrewers would be aware of (e.g. no-sparge brewing, all late hopping). I think this would be a better book if you are still trying to figure out what sort of system you want, or are thinking of doing a major overhaul.

There are a few really interesting sections, I especially enjoyed the passage on using spruce tips (something I’ll have to try next spring). I also found the section about his use of dark grains to be interesting (basically always using cold steeping or adding at the end of the mash to reduce harshness). I would have liked to see more information like this presented in other parts of the book that went into detail on the benefits of a particular method or ingredient.

One of the chapters focuses on the importance of BJCP styles, which I could have done without. Gordon uses the styles to define both brewing to style, and brewing off-style beers. He talks about the area between the “style space” of two beers as the place to create new styles. For example, the space between robust porter and IPA yielded black IPAs, or between Belgian tripel and IPA for Belgian IPAs. To me the best new beers come out of the ether outside the guidelines, drawing ingredients and techniques from different traditions and combining them into unique creations (or using new ingredients for the first time).

I strongly disagree with his suggestion that all beers with yeast/spice/fruit character do not meld well with hops (he points to hefe, wit, and lambic in particular). There are a number of great beers that combine hop aromatics with fruity characters (see New Glarus Crack's Wheat, Mikkeller Not Just Another Wit, Cantillon Iris, and Cigar City Mango IPA).

The book only includes a few recipes scattered through the text, mostly to illustrate specific points. I was surprised how complex Gordon’s recipes were, mostly featuring six or more malts. I tend to strive for simplicity, but it is interesting to see the intricate formulations of his award winning beers.

Michael Ferguson in the forward, and the author in the text both compare the book to Zen and the Art of Motorcycles Maintenance, a lofty comparison which Brewing Better Beer fails to live up to. I think this one would be a good book to borrow from a friend or the library because it is not one I have found myself going back to reference. It is great to see Brewers Publication putting out more advanced homebrewing books since it seems like the “intro to” market is pretty well saturated.

Booze for Free: Book Review

A few months ago the publisher of Booze for Free emailed me to ask if I’d be interested in a free copy of the book, I couldn’t turn down the irony. Andy Hamilton's focus in this book is on making beer, country wines, infusions, and other alcoholic beverages with ingredients that can be foraged. Despite the title, most of the recipes call for buying malt, sugar, yeast, etc… although there are a couple truly free recipes (like one based on corn stalks).

I found the book to be a bit of a mish-mash as it tries to cover a wide range of topices without doing any of them justice. It starts out with a brief overview of the brewing process and equipment. These sections are pretty basic, and would probably not be enough to adequately guide someone who had never brewed before. For example I didn’t see any discussion about fermentation temperatures, pitching rate, aeration etc… There is a brief mention of starters... made with refined sugar right before pitching.  I’d rather see this section skipped than done so poorly (especially as the author points out in the intro, how frequently peoples’ first attempt at fermentation go awry).

The remainder of the book is divded into four sections, each with recipes based on what is available during a season. This is a really cool way to organize a book, and it lends itself to flipping through the pages for inspiration. Each two to three page section is centered on an ingredient with information on where to find it, a bit of history/lore, and usually a couple recipes. Luckily the book mainly stays clear of the medicinal claims that turned me off of Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers.

Foraging is something that I’m interested in trying, but the instructions/descriptions aren't detailed enough to make me confident about eating something I find in the woods. In many cases the descriptions are on the vague side and lacking a way to positively identify a plant you’ve encountered. For example on the section on yarrow he mentions it is easy to confuse with hemlock, but doesn't provide any positive identifiers for picking it out.  I also can’t tell how many of the plants are available in my area (the author is English). To have a great book on foraging you’d need maps, detailed descriptions, pictures etc… The same goes for the gardening suggestions, they would only be adequate if you were already knew how to garden. Luckily many of these items are available for purchase, but that defeats much of the point of the book.

Most of the recipes seem to rely too heavily on sugar for me, which is one of the same problem I had with Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers. It doesn’t help readability that the batch sizes vary wildly, swinging from a couple pints to 50 gallons. Standardizing recipes makes them easier to quickly compare and adjust. Maybe some of my issues are in the terminology differences between English and American homebrewers. For example in his Nettle Ale #2 recipe (which incidentally calls for no malt whatsoever) he suggests that the person who gave him the recipe uses brewer’s yeast, but that he has had better luck with ale yeast… what does that mean? In that recipe he also suggests pitching the yeast when the wort has cooled to “blood temperature” and adding ½ lb of sugar to the keg for conditioning, what terrible advice!

There are some interesting tidbits to be found for sure, but when I don't like an author's basic brewing instructions I have a hard time taking their advice on other topics.

Book Review: The Everything Homebrewing Book

The Everything Homebrewing Book: All you need to brew the best beer at home! by Drew Beechum is one of the most recent homebrewing books to be published (2009), so it seemed like a good idea to pick up a copy to read and review. It is from a series of books along the same lines as "For Dummies" (books by different authors with common formatting/graphics) which might make you suspicious, but it was written by one of the most active/vocal members of the homebrewing community. This is his first book, but Drew writes a monthly homebrewing column for BeerAdvocate magazine.

Content: As the title implies this book tries to cover just about every aspect of the expansive topic of homebrewing. Trying to cover the plethora of topics related to brewing beer at home from the simplest extract recipes through high gravity beers, equipment, process, history, etc... is a tall order for any book, particularly when there are already so many great books that specialize in a single area.

The book starts out like many, with a few chapters of basic information about beer, extract brewing, hops, water, yeast, and malt. The author does a solid job giving an overview of all the major options and ingredients available these days. He also does a good job covering some basic questions that many books skip over (like how much will it cost).

The book then goes into equipment and technique. I wish the author had been a bit more opinionated about the daunting variety of options available to the modern American homebrewer. I read a book to hear what the author suggests rather than just a list of all the possibilities. For example I would have been interested to hear about which of the gear and product Drew actually uses and why, and how he put his system together (in addition to why he didn't go with the other options).

In some places Everything tends to be a bit too anecdotal for me. For example the section on autolysis says "Conventional wisdom set a week's deadline, but award winning brewers leave beer in primary for a month with no ill effects when using healthy yeast." If you want to talk autolysis I think you need to get into different styles, yeasts, temperatures, and techniques etc... Just saying some good brewers don't worry about it doesn't give enough information to make an educated decision about your own particular situation. Similar logic is used for keg priming as well as several other "controversial" topics.

The book goes into great depth in a couple areas that are not always covered well by other books. The kegging section is especially useful with lots of tips on cleaning and carbonating. In general though I felt like several of the sections didn't bring anything new to the table (probably because, lets face it, there is much that hasn't been said about something like malt extract).

My biggest complaint about the content is the complete lack of pictures, drawings, graphs, or beer related graphics of any sort (although there are plenty of dopey little drawings to alert the reader to boxes that contain information that is either "Essential" or a "Fact"). I like the written word as much as anyone, but for a new brewer in particular the pictures and drawings can be the difference between understanding a point and missing it completely. The book I am reading now, Randy Mosher's Tasting Beer, puts this one to shame with beautiful design/pictures/graphs on nearly every page (even the paper feels much higher quality). I realize the lack of flair was probably part of the deal with the publishing company to keep printing costs down, but it is still a shame.

Recipes: The book is packed with recipes of all sorts (more than 100 all told). Some of the recipes are internet classics like Denny Conn's Bourbon Vanilla Imperial Porter, Jamil's Evil Twin, fellow Maltose Falcons member Jonny Lieberman's Blackwine IV, and many of Drew's own recipes from his website. The rest, either from the author or a variety of other homebrewers, run the gamut from simple style based beers through beers that push into areas that are too crazy even for me to attempt (like the Maltose Falcons' Methode Champenoise series of beers). However as you can see a good chunk of these recipes are available for free online, where in many cases they contain additional information/pictures not found in the book.

Most of the recipes are all-grain with an extract substitution listed. It is unclear which beers are turned into partial-mash recipes by the extract and which become extract with steeping grain. In general it seems to leave some basemalt in for a partial-mash, but this could lead to confusion in my opinion. It would also be nice to have the efficiency listed for the recipes since it seems to vary dramatically.

I like the general layout of the recipes with the details all laid out for easy perusal. Most of them contain little asides and tips for the particular idiosyncrasies of the recipe, and overall they appear to be solidly designed and tested. I will register my standard complaint that the book doesn't do enough to describe the specific flavors of the recipes, not even giving a short description of what generally to expect (this is really a shame considering that most of the recipes have half an empty page below them).

Accuracy: For the most part Everything was very well edited compared to many of the other brewing books out there. There are a few minor issues, things like wrong AA% listed for hops (5.25% AA Warriors in the Steve French recipe), which could throw someone off, but isn't a big deal. My biggest complaints has nothing to do with what is in the book and everything to do with what is not. Often the book gives a brief overview/mention of something without getting into enough detail to let someone get into it without doing additional research somewhere else.

Readability: Drew's writing may not have the same literary pop (inspirational power?) that some other homebrew books have, but it does crams a lot of concise info into its pages. I liked the way that some of the recipes were sprinkled in with each section to provide an example of the concepts being covered, with the rest tacked on at the end organized chapters by origin (Recipes from Belgium, Experiments: Recipes from the Laboratory etc...).

The use of abbreviations and symbols bothered me a little bit. For example the hops are labeled in the form "10.6 percent AA" and the malts all have "pounds" after them instead of lbs. It is a little thing, but it bothers me.

There are also some minor organizational issues. For example the last recipe in the book is for a Russian River Temptation clone which is alone in a section titled "Bacteria: The Friendly Germs", but several pages earlier there is a section on Belgian Sour Ales which does not say much about the microbes. It just seems like if you only have three recipes with non-sacch microbes you might as well lump them all together. In a similar way the sections can seem a bit out of order, I feel like the chapter on sanitation should come before the first extract brew chapter for example.

Overall: The Everything Homebrewing Book is a pretty solid first effort from one of the staples of the online homebrewing community. With its wide scope this might be the homebrewing book you would get if you had to pick just one, but if you own (or plan to own) more than a couple it becomes much less essential. While it does cover several topics very well, for the most part it just gives you a taste of topics that are covered in greater detail in other books. I don't think the introductory parts are comprehensive enough to recommend it over How to Brew for a beginner, but it might be a worthwhile addition to your brewing library if you are the sort of person who wants a hard copy of some bits from the ephemeral homebrewing internet.

Book Review: Microbrewed Adventures

Microbrewed Adventures is a combination travel log - homebrew recipe book. It covers the many beer related adventures that being the father of American homebrewing and the president of the AHA/BA has allowed Charlie Papazian to have over the years. Each of the stories has a corresponding recipe, many of which are clones or at least inspired by the interesting beers that he has gotten to sample all over the world.

Content: Each chapter covers a beer trip, or the stories of a group of like-minded brewers. Roughly the first half of the book covers America, while the second half explores the rest of the world.

I really enjoyed his story early on about Anheuser Busch's request that he brew them some homebrew (which they attempted to can with limited success) for a meeting of the Master Brewers Association. It is interesting to hear that Bud was even aware of homebrewing in 1983, let alone interested in trying what American homebrewers were creating.

For the sections on the various breweries the focus is on the people and the history, not on the brewing technique/ingredients etc... I would have liked to see more of this stuff, because lets face it I'm a nerd, but as it is this section would be good read for anyone who is just interested in beer not just homebrewers.

There is some great back story on the pioneers of microbrewing for those of you late to the game (like me). The likes of Sam Adams, Anchor, Sierra Nevada, and Bert Grant. I thought the most interesting was the story of New Albion Brewing, a brewery that was there very early on, but didn't make the jump to major player like the others. For most of the breweries in this section there is an inset with a quick discussion and page number (all the recipes are together in the last section of the book) of a recipe for one of their beers or a beer inspired by an offering that Charlie got to try at some point.

Papazian then moves on to the second wave of brewers with stories about Stone, Rogue, New Glarus, Magic Hat, and Dogfish Head (among others). These stories were more familiar to me, but there are still some interesting side adventures and details along the way. All the time you get that great enthusiasm that all of his homebrew books were written with.

With the American brewers out of the way the focus shifts to Europe. The first section covers the start of the new wave of craft beer in England. From there he moves onto Mead, one of the more inspiring sections with discussions of getting to meet the two elder statesmen of mead making Brother Adam and Lt. Colonel Robert Gayre.

The next few chapters cover some of the historic brewing countries (Germany and Belgium), as well as some other countries that people might not associate with great beer (Sweden, France, and Italy). The breweries range from the iconic (De Dolle, Andesch) to the obscure (including homemade gotlandsdricke). These chapters are great as there is not nearly as much coverage of European brewers (especially the tiny ones) as there is for American brewers.

The rest of the book covers beer from a wide range of the rest of the world, Latin American, Fiji, Africa, and Russian. These stories are interesting well in excess of what you learn about beer. Being an international ambassador to brewing for the last 20 years has given Papazian the opportunity to meet some very interesting people, and these chapters really do that justice. I really like the stories of his time in Africa, not that any of the beers I have tried from the continent have been that good (even the Guinness Foreign Export Stout).

Recipes: Just like the content, the recipes run the gamut from well known craft beers to the indigenous "beers" of the pacific islands. The recipes are considerably better than in Charlie's other beers, no standard gypsum additions, and other no major issues that I can see (although I always hate to see the same 3/4 cup of priming sugar listed for virtually every beer).

Taking into account all of the positives, I still do not appreciate that it is unclear which recipes came from the brewers and which he just whipped up after being inspired by a beer. When I post clone recipes here I try to make it clear which information I'm sure about and where I am guessing, that way people can make their own judgment.

Each recipe comes as an all-grain and as an extract or partial mash variant depending on what grains are required.

Accuracy: Most of the book is just stories, so it is hard to dispute the accuracy. I didn't note any major discrepancies or typos, which again is a major upgrade over some of his previous books.

Readability: I like the way the recipes are all grouped together. It made it easier to just read through the the narrative portion without getting interrupted, and now I can just flip through the recipes if that is all I want to do. The writing style is fun, and not too technical. I would have liked if the book lopped off some of the stuff on well known American Brewers, but I guess there are a lot of people out there who might not know the stories behind them.

Overall: I think Microbrewed Adventures is well worth a read if you want to get an overview of brewing around the world. The recipes can be interesting, but I don't think the book is worth buying for them. The stories can provide plenty of inspiration even if you aren't going to brew one of the recipes he provides. I think this book really plays to Charlie Papzian's strengths as a writer and a brewer, and despite not being a big fan of his other books I fully enjoyed reading this one. That said this is not a book I would get if you don't already own most of the great ones available.

Book Review: Brewing Wheat Beers

German Wheat Beers (Classic Style Series #7) is the oldest book I have reviewed up to this point, published way back in 1992. Thankfully not much changes in twenty years when you are talking about German brewing, so the information is still very applicable. Eric Warner, the author, studied brewing in Germany and worked at a couple German breweries, so he clearly had the right resume for writing this book. The most recent info I can find on him is that he was brewing for Flying Dog last year, not sure if he moved with them to Maryland after they closed shop in Denver (too bad they don't do a hefe their hefe doesn't live up to his reputation).

German Wheat Beers focuses on the most popular styles, hefeweizen, dunkleweizen, and weizenbock in good depth, and also briefly mentions a few more obscure styles. Weisse (German for white) and is the preferred term over there for wheat beers (much as Belgian wheats are called wits), while Americans tend to use weizen (German for wheat). So either one can be used, but for this review I'll stick with the American usage.

Content: I really enjoyed the anecdote he starts off the introduction with about his first day brewing professionally in Germany. The short version is that during the morning break of his first day on the job he ordered a coffee to the embarrassment of his coworkers, who ordered weissebier and pretzel (I can tell you I would be a lot happier at my job if I got to do that every morning).

The first chapter covers the history/popularity of using wheat in German brewing as well as some nutritional information. There is nothing too exciting here, but it paints a picture of wheat brewing as both a long standing pillar of German brewing and of its outsider status against the more common lager styles.

The second chapter gives an overview of the wide variety of wheat beers made in Germany. It covers all of the standard beers that most people have heard of, but also talks pretty extensively about BerlinerWeisse and Kristall Weizen, as well as brief mentions of other more obscure styles (Leichtes/light Weissbier, Bremer Weisse ). There is both a general discussion of flavors as well as some much more technical analysis of the various styles. This chapter is very similar to the BJCP guidelines, but includes several styles which the BJCP does not.

The next chapter covers the science behind the more common wheat beers. Issues of bitterness (low), carbonation (high), color, pH, and alcohol are touched on, but the focus is on the two classic flavor components banana (isoamyl-acetate) and clove (4-vinyl-guaiacol). Adding a low temperature rest can enhance the clove phenol by freeing up extra ferulic acid, while banana is a result of the yeast selection and the fermentation temperature. The author suggests a pretty low pitching and fermentation temperatures, advice that many brewpubs could use for their Hefes if the banana/bubblegum bombs I tend to get are any indication.

The fourth chapter covers the various brewing techniques that are employed. This focuses a good deal on the mash, but also water, boiling, and similar pre-fermentation topics are also examined. A decoction mash is emphasized and I think is important if you are going with a simple pils/wheat grain bill. That said I have tasted many fine weizens that get some extra maltiness from Munich or melanodin malt. A decoction also helps if you are planning to do a multi-step mash and do not have a heated mash tun.

Chapter five is all about fermentation. There is a lot of focus on yeast handling, pitching rates, repitching yeast, He has a brief mention of many breweries giving their weizens a short lagering period. This is something that I really like, but is not popular in the homebrewing community (where the mantra tends to be drink weizens as young as possible). This chapter finishes with a discussion of bottle conditioning.

Chapter six covers such topics as how to pour a wheat beer (including the "flashy nightclub pour"), glassware, and other related topics. There is a short section on food pairing, but nothing too in depth. There are some really funny pictures circa 1990 of Germans enjoying beer.

Recipes:The actual malt/hop bills all make sense to me (they are simple and look well constructed), but the instructions on how to brew them are severely outdated. Just the way the recipes are written goes against "modern"homebrew convention, hops are given as grams of alpha acid (with the HBUs tacked on), and hop timing is given as minutes from the start of the boil (not from the end). The recipes also suggest bottling many of the beers right after attenuation finishes (2-3 days after pitching), which certainly risks bottle bombs and is odd given that the time line he relates for commercial brewers is much more relaxed.

Yeast choice is not mentioned in any of the recipes because (I assume) there was not much in the way of commercial weizen yeasts available back then. In the source list for yeast at the end of the book he simply lists German breweries.

I used many of the general suggestions given by the book when I brew a hefe last fall. That said I certainly modified the techniques in the recipe chapter to match the advances in homebrewing since then. I went with a very simple grain bill, easy on the hops, a decoction mash, and fermented on the cool end of the spectrum. It was such a great batch that I don't think I will change a single thing when I brew it again (something I have never done).

The recipe section includes both extract and all-grain recipes, not as conversions of the same recipes, but as completely separate recipes. There are only two extract recipes and the book itself focuses on all-grain techniques, so this may not be a great buy for an extract brewer.

Accuracy: I thought the accuracy overall was very good, although (as I said above) some of the suggestions on how to replicate the commercial practices at home are a bit outdated. It is more a book about what the pros do, so that information can always be adapted to the current homebrew "best practices."

Readability: It is not a particularly snappy read, it has lots of technical information and is clearly aimed just as much at microbrewers as it is at homebrewers. The charts are a bit dense, it would have been nice if they were simplified to highlight the important comparisons. It could use more summary sections that pull out the key tips rather than forcing you to dig through the technical justification to find the applicable sections.

Overall: German Wheat Beers must have been a revelation when it came out 17 years ago. Even today I am not sure there is a better reference for most of these styles, although Designing Great Beers comes close on all but Berliner weisse. I would strongly recommend this book for anyone interested in brewing German wheat beers. It would have been nice to hear more details about the more obscure German beers, styles like Gose (contains wheat), Roggenbier (a dunkle weizen with rye malt instead of wheat), and Dampfbier (a hefeweizen without the wheat) would also have been worth mentioning at a minimum.

This is still the definitive look at brewing wheat beers... at least until Stan (BLAM) Hieronymus' Brewing with Wheat is published.

A bit late on this review, but with the nice weather here it has been getting harder to find time to write these. After next week's Microbrewed Adventures review I'll be done with my initial set of reviews. I've got an Amazon order in for Randy Mosher's Tasting Beer as well as Drew Beechum's The Everything Homebrewing Book, so there will be more reviews coming sporadically. It seems like there are lots of other brewing books out there, any suggestions for other books I haven't covered (particularly new titles)?

Book Review: Smoked Beers

Smoked Beers was written by Ray Daniels (of Designing Great Beers fame) and Geoffrey Larson (the founder/president of Alaskan Brewing). It covers the use of smoked malt in brewing, concentrating on the German tradition (it is the strongest), but also taking a look at the use of smoke in American beers as well as throughout history.

Content: The first (long) chapter covers the history of smoked beers. The authors argue that up until the invention of coak dried pale malt a couple hundred years ago most malts (and thus most beers) were brown and smokey (there were some places that used either straw or air to dry malt to make for cleaner beers). This chapter also talks about events in beer history like the switch away from brown malt to pale plus black patent in porters (mainly because pale malt gives better extraction). Finally it covers some historic smoked beers (Gratzer, Lichtenhainer).

The second chapter covers some of the notable producers of smoked beers. Schlenkerla (the maker of several sausagey brews) and Spezial both smoke their own malt, while most other German brewers buy rauchmalt from Weyermann (which is also available to homebrewers). Schlenkerla gets their consistency from blending 12 batches of malt in each silo, drawing from 2 silos per brew, and blending 6 brews into a single lagering tank. Alaskan Smoked Porter was created because a salmon smokery is located across the street (once a year the brewers use the facility to smoke malt over alder wood). Peat smoked malt (which I just used for the first time in an Adambier) is covered last, they mention multiple phenols levels being available, but I have never seen that at homebrew stores.

The third chapter covers commercial examples of beers with smoked malt. The first part discusses the different rauchbiers made in Bamburg, many of which are not available in the states. The rest of the chapter gives short profiles of American smoked beers, ranging from smoke forward like Alaskan Smoked Porter to those that just have a smoke complexity like Arcadia London Porter. Quite a few of the breweries have gone out of business in the last 10 years (Brewmoon, DeGroen's etc...). There is lots of good information on each beer if you are looking to do a clone or just learn what makes a commercial beer taste the way it does (type of smoked malt, other malts, hops, ABV/SRM/IBU/OG etc...). I used the information here to help me when I was making my Alderwood Smoked Porter.

The next chapter covers the chemistry of smoke. This there is some pretty interesting stuff even if you just like barbecuing . The temperature of the burning wood has more of an impact on the flavor than I realized (of course flames bad, but different compounds are produced at different temps). There are also some carcinogens created unless the smoking is well controlled, filtered, and burned with sulfur (this is one advantage of buying commercial smoked malt). Avoiding chlorine (and even chloride) is important as all the phenols in smoke make chlorophenols even more of a concern than usual.

The fifth chapter covers smoking your own malt at home. This is something I have not tried, but there is loads of information on three different methods ranging from simple to complex. Smoking over a kettle grill with charcoal and wood on the opposite side from the malt sounds like what most people would do (unless you own a smoker).

The sixth chapter covers the recipes.

The appendix has a nice section of cooking with smoked beer (which includes recipes from several of the breweries covered in the book). The recipes range from the plausible like sauerbraten meatballs to the more fanciful like smoked porter cheesecake. The appendix also has as an outdated list of brewers who make smoked beers, as well as wood suppliers, and a metric-standard conversion chart.

Recipes: Ten recipes that cover the wide range of smoked beer possibilities. Recipes include a classic Bamberg Rauchbier, smoked weizen, and smoked mild. Extract (although a mini-mash is generally required for smoked malts) and all-grain versions of each are included. I have not brewed any of the recipes, but I did not notice any obvious mistakes (like many of these books seem to have).

Accuracy: It seems like an accurate book to me, no issues that I have spotted.

Readability: Very easy to read, with lots of interesting information (assuming you like smoked beers). I think the organization is well done, and there are plenty of pictures/insets to keep the pages from being bland. I could have used more practical information and less history, but that is my taste in brewing books.
Overall: If you are interested in making smoked beers, and particularly if you want to smoke your own malts, this is a must read. The commercial info is a bit outdated, but other than that Smoked Beers does not seem nine years old. That said, there are some new smoked malts on the market, for example Briess has recently started selling some smoked malts, has anyone tried those?

Book Review: New Brewing Lager Beer

New Brewing Lager Beer was written by Greg Noonan (the longtime head brew The Vermont Pub and Brewery) in 1986, and received an update in 1996. The preface indicates that this book is about lagers and ales (lagers are just "the culmination of the brewing theories of all European brewing traditions"), I think the English and the Belgians might not agree with that, but lager brewing does tend to be the most precise in its technique because light lagers have such a delicate flavor. That said there are some techniques that are used for ales, but really aren't for lagers that this book completely skips (like dry hopping).

Content: The book is divided into two section (like just about ever other brewing book), the first covers the ingredients used and the second covers the process/techniques.

In the ingredient section each chapter covers both scientific information as well as loads of information on practical things that many brewers may not know how to do.

The barley and malt chapters cover some really interesting topics like interpreting a malt analysis sheet. Malt analysis is very important if you want to do things like decide when to do a protein rest. Strangely the chapter that explains how barley is turned into malt comes much later.

I think that the water section is one of the most comprehensive (although I tend to think How to Brew does a more practical job). Similar to the malt chapter it covers both the scientific (bonding, anions etc..) as well as the practical side (how to read a water analysis report from your water department or a lab).

The hop section is fine, but there isn't as much to talk about as there really aren't hop analysis sheets that are available to the average homebrewer (I've never gotten anything besides an AA%). There is some good information on the structure of the hop cone, something people who use primarily pellet hops might not think about).

The yeast section focuses on a couple of areas that most homebrewers don't concern themselves with. Things like yeast washing, and pure culturing (using agar plates), but there is also some good information on using and saving starters.

The bacteria chapter really just talks about bacteria as spoilage organisms. This is interesting, but doesn't really help (really it comes down to use proper sanitation so you don't have to ever deal with unwanted bacteria).

The final ingredient chapter is a short one on enzymes that covers mostly enzymatic activity in the mash, but also a bit on yeast metabolism (both of these topics should probably have been covered in their respective chapters).

The second (process) section focuses on traditional lager techniques that don't get much coverage in the other big brewing books. Things like decoction mashing, krausening, and lagering.

This section starts out with by talking about the malting process, this is interesting, but not all that useful for the average homebrewer. I think this section would have fit better in the ingredients chapter (I am sure more homebrewers grow/process hops than grow/malt barley).

The following chapters talks about crushing the malt, something many homebrewers don't think about that much. I guess in 1996 there weren't the high quality malt mills available from the likes of Barley Crusher (which has served me well for three years), because corona mills are the only type of home option he mentions. Noonan talks about the quality of the malt having a big effect on the quality of the crush, something I had never thought of.

The mashing chapter is one of the best resources I have found on complex mashes like decoctions. That said, there aren't many malts available any more that really call for a time consuming triple decoction mash.

The boiling chapter covers quite a bit, including the use of hops, the breaks, and cooling. It mostly discusses the science behind the boil than anything practical. It devotes quite a bit of space to determining the boil-off rate percentage, something I don't think is that important as for homebrewers as the pro-brewer (I deal with boil-off as a rate rather than a percentage).

The fermentation chapter is good for lager brewing, but won't help much else. It covers a lot about yeast that I think would have been better in the yeast chapter.

The planning chapter covers doing many things by hand that most people now do with software (calculating SRM, IBUs, OG etc...). If you do this sort of thing by hand still it might be worth a read, but I think DGB does a better job.

The brewing procedures chapter coverts much of the general directions in the other chapters (which could be applied to either a pro or home-brewer) and gives specific how to instructions. It also includes a good troubleshooting section.

The last few chapters and the appendices cover sanitation, equipment, extract brewing, infusion and step mashing. These chapters are fine, but don't cover anything better or in more depth than a basic homebrew book.

Recipes: New Brewing Lager Beer includes seven recipes that cover only classic German styles. I think some of the recipes are outdated relying on malts that really aren't traditional (the Bock calls for brown malt, but no Munich malt). There is also too much cara- malt for my taste (only one calls for less than 1 lb), most of these styles should be pretty dry, and I would hope that all that effort on the decoction mashes would result in good head retention (despite that most contain carapils).

Accuracy: There are some problems here and there (like the suggestion to rack your beer to secondary before fermentation is complete, which often leads to a stuck fermentation), but overall I think this book does an pretty good job.

I also take issue with his hot side aeration discussion the the boiling chapter (which he claims happens if you expose the wort to oxygen when it is above 60 degrees). This seems like lager bias to me as there are not many ales made with the fermentation temperature starting in the 50s.

Readability: The writing is technical, but accessible. It certainly is not written with the lighter feel of something like The Complete Joy of Home Brewing or even the more recent Belgian Trilogy, but it is not as dense as Principles of Brewing Science. Noonan does a good job including charts, graphs (for the complex mashes), and pictures (which always liven a book up).

The book can be hard to reference as why certain things are included in the ingredient section versus the process is unclear. For example it seems to me that the instructions for yeast washing should be in the process section, but they are found in the yeast chapter of the ingredients section.

I would have preferred to see the two sections merged (sanitizers discussed next to bacteria, malt next to mashing etc...) particularly because the the ingredient choice for things like malt plays such a big role on how you conduct your mash.

Overall: I think this is a good book for someone who wants to know more of the applicable science behind brewing. It also is a great resource for decoction mashing, and lagering. I think it is a bit too technical for a first beer book, but I think many brewers could benefit from it early on, even if you don't have a huge interest in lagers. It is a bit dated though, so it would be worth using the information to supplement other books that take advantage of the higher quality malts available to homebrewers today.

Does anyone have other suggestions for books that give good play to lagers? Most of the other homebrew books I have just treat it as a minor variant on ale brewing.

Book Review: The Brewmaster's Table

The Brewmaster's Table is pretty much the definitive book on pairing beer and food. It was written by Garrett Oliver, the brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery (and one of the all around classiest brewers out there, I don’t think many other brewers ever wear suits). The book is aimed more at the general beer nerd audience than it is a homebrew audience, but I think pairing homemade beer with homemade food is plenty of fun.

Content: The book starts out with a couple chapters on brewing ingredients and the history of beer. These chapters are fine and well written, but if you have read a couple homebrew books most of this will be a rehash.

The third chapter lays out the basic principles behind matching beer to food. This is a inspiring chapter, with the author's pairings for a week’s worth of dinners particularly stimulating (like cassoulet and Sam Smith's Nut Brown Ale). The overall message is to decide to use the beer to either compliment or contrast the dish. For example complimenting a spicy dish with the spiciness of a Belgian Ale or contrasting a rich dish with a light/cleansing beer. One of the most radical sections of the chapter is on why beer is a better match for many foods (like chocolate, spicy food, or eggs) than wine. This chapter also covers matching beer with cheese, which is something I have really enjoyed.

Almost the entire remained of the book covers different beers and what foods pair best with them. Pretty much every major beer style as well as most of the minor ones are covered. Each of these chapter covers a group of styles (Belgian Ales for example) starting out with a general overview of the common elements. After that each chapter covers the styles individually in more depth. The book gives a brief rundown of each style including the history/ingredients/culture behind it, followed by a couple pages on the best foods to pair with it (including most importantly the ideas behind the pairings), then finally a paragraph each on some of the most notable commercial examples of the style (and which foods pair particularly well with them). The lists of commercial examples aren't particularly in depth, but I think the idea of the book is to teach you the basics so you can figure out other pairings for yourself.

The final chapter of the book covers proper beer service. This includes subjects like proper glassware, temperature, and tasting order. If they published this chapter as a pamphlet it would be perfect to give to a restaurant that puts plenty of thought into their wine selection/service only to offer a list of three beers served out of the bottle (or in chilled pint glasses).

The very last section of the book is a terrific 7 page list of foods with the best beer styles to pair with each. It covers everything from mundane every day foods like burritos (American pale and brown ale, altbier, smoked beers) and chocolate (Sweeter fruit beers, imperial stout, stronger American stout, Baltic strong porter) to more opulent fare like foie gras (Sweet doppelbocks, sweet barleywines, off-dry strong dark Trappist or abbey ale, off-dry framboise and kriek, stronger Flanders red and brown ales, strong Scotch ales) and pheasant (Biere de garde, dubbel, strong dark Trappist or abbey ale, old ale, strong British bitter (ESB)). I often take a look at this list before picking out beers for a dinner party or just when grabbing a beer to have with a dish that I have never tried with beer. Certainly not every pairing I have tried from the list is sublime, but it does provide good general guidance (different examples of a style and preparations of a dish will pair better/worse with each other).

The book also contains several very well done sections of photos interspersed throughout. Many of the photos feature foreign brewmasters, or beautiful shots of food and beer pairing from restaurants that take both seriously.

Recipes: Sadly there are no recipes, but it is a pretty thick book already. It would be nice to see another book tackle cooking with beer at the same range of simple to sophisticated that this one brings to pairing (too many beer cook books revolve around beer can chicken, or beer boiled brats, not that there is anything wrong with either of those things but they have been done to death).

Accuracy: No complaints on the accuracy, it is a very well edited book, and I have not noticed any inaccuracies. Flavor and pairing are such personal things though that different people might think the suggested pairings are better/worse than I do.

Readability: The book can be a bit dense to just sit down and read, but the reference at the end and the general structure make it easy to reference. After brewing a beer I often read the section on the style to give me some ideas of things to pair it with. The book is well written in general and just has a passionate feel to it.

Overall: The Brewmaster's Table will make you excited to pair beer with food, even if you are just having takeout Chinese. I think this is a great book for anyone who wants to know more about pairing beer with food, beer nerds, homebrewers, or foodies just getting interested in beer. Are there any other great beer and food books that anyone else would recommend? I have plenty of cookbooks that have a few beer recipes, but not one that focuses on it.

The picture is of a frisée salad with some awesome bacon (the dressing was just leeks cooked in the bacon drippings with a splash of sherry vinegar), poached egg, and some roasted tomatoes and potatoes. I went with Victory's (100% Brett) Wild Devil, a beer with enough dryness to cut through the richness of the egg and bacon and some bitterness to compliment the slightly bitter frisée. I thought the pairing worked well, but the beer was a bit more bitter than I think is ideal with a salad (even one as flavorful as this).

Book Review: Brewing Up a Business

Brewing Up a Business: Adventures in Entrepreneurship from the Founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery is a very different beer book than any of the others I have reviewed so far. It is not a book on how to brew better beer, instead it is the story of Sam Calagione the founder of Dogfish Head.

This book is relevant to homebrewers because I think most, if not all, of you have had the same though, "Why don't I start a brewery?" This book takes a look at everything that went into making Dogfish Head a success, and it was a lot more than just brewing tasty beer.

Content: The author covers the basic story of how he got, what is now, one of the most popular craft breweries off the ground. The book starts out more as an autobiography, but quickly goes into how Sam discovered good beer, homebrewing, and came to start a brewery.

The most memorable anecdote from the book is from the early days of Dogfish Head. Sam didn't have enough money for a multi-barrel brewhouse, so he bough a big homebrew system and brewed many times a week. With so many batches to brew he got bored and often tried interesting ingredients from the brewpub kitchen, leading to some of their well known beers. So something that could have been a hindrance to his business ended up providing a real benefit.

Most of the book however covers things that have little to do with brewing great beer. Marketing, image, and promotion dominated large parts of the book. It is interesting to hear both the successes (like brewing Midas Touch based on archaeological data) and the failures (like some upside down labels, or rowing a case of beer across the Delaware River for their first "export" from Delaware).

Sam often tried to apply the lessons he has learned at the brewery to any small business. Things like encouraging innovation from your employees (stacking cases differently to improve efficiency), crafting a recognizable brand (he is particularly fond of their font), and dealing with sales (especially the value of good sales people).

The book also has some good tips for keeping yourself going when you are working long hours for what seems like no profit. On top of this is just gives a flavor for the life at a small brewery (selling T-shirts a rest stops for gas money coming back from festivals etc...).

Recipes: Brewing Up a Business doesn't have any recipes, but you can check out Extreme Brewing if you want some Dogfish Head recipes.

Accuracy: I've never started a craft brewery, but I think it is reasonable to assume that not everyone has the same situation so what worked for Sam may not work for you. At the very least there aren't any glaring inaccuracies that I could find.

Readability: Sam was an English major, and his writing shows. The book is well written, interesting, and easy to read.

Overall: This of the sort of book that anyone vaguely considering opening a brewery or brewpub should read. It is pretty light on the hard details, but it gives you a feel for what starting a small brewery is like. I think the market for craft beer has also changed immensely in the last 15 years, it may be that this book is most applicable if you live in a part of the country/world where there is not a big craft beer presence.

I have yet to read Beer School from the founders of Brooklyn Brewing, anyone read both and want to suggest one over the other? Any other good books out there for people considering (dreaming about) opening a brewery?

Book Review: Barley Wine

Published in 1998 Barley Wine is one of the last in the Classic Beer Styles Series. It was written by Fal Allen and Dick Cantwell two pro-brewers from the Pacific Northwest. The book covers the general styles of American and English Barleywine with most of its advice based on the style as a broad term rather than as the specific BJCP styles.

Content: The first chapter is an interesting look at the history of strong ales loosely in the English tradition. The authors claim that parti-gyle brewing was the genesis of the style (although I find it hard to believe that ever brew day resulted in a portion of 10%+ alcohol beer, it seems like many brewers would have blended the runnings to make lots of moderate gravity beer). While these strong ales were made for centuries the the term barleywine didn't come along until Bass started using it in the early 20th century. English taxes on high gravity beers nearly eliminated the style by a few decades ago, but new English and especially American breweries took up the style again and made bigger/bolder/hoppier versions. The book is 10 years old, so its analysis of the American barleywine scene is a bit dated, but gives a good impression of how much the industry has changed even in the last decade.

The second chapter covers the various aspects of barleywine flavor. The overview of flavors is pretty generic without much discussion of the huge varieties of flavors that can be found in barleywines (particularly among the examples of English and American styles rather than between the two categories). This chapter also includes a brief overview of the different "families" of barleywines (The barleywines made on the East Coast being part way between the malty English and hoppy Pacific Northwestern). The authors add a short bit about big doppelbocks and their similarity to barleywines, but this is never mentioned again.

The third chapter covers the ingredients used in producing barleywines, but also wanders into the fermentation/aging process. For the malt bill the general message is to keep it simple with a high quality pale malt and just a couple specialty grains. There is a short section on sugars (mostly to say don't load the beer up with simple sugars), but they really don't give many specifics/details on the interesting sugar options available. For hops there are general instructions for American and English style beers, but not many specifics on which hops work best or in what combination.

For yeast strains there are general guidelines, but not specific examples of which yeasts are the best choices for a barleywine. There are some notes on pitching rates and aeration, but the way the information is presented makes it more useful to pro-brewers who know how many L/min they are running O2 or what cell count their yeast is. For aging instructions it suggests a long primary fermentation followed by a warm secondary fermentation before cold aging. At the end of the chapter there is a brief note on aging barleywine on oak (including the traditional place of wild microbes), but again the details are pretty lacking.

The forth chapters covers the brewing process. Most of the tips here could be applied to brewing any big beer. This chapter really doesn't provide any revelations because for the most part brewing a big beer is exactly the same as brewing any other beer. Sure you might opt for a longer boil, and you need to pitch more yeast, but these changes are pretty once you are aware of their necessity.

The fifth chapter covers commercial examples of barleywine. Like BLAM each beer has a short profile with OG/FG/IBUs, malts, hops, and some other details. Some recipes have loads of info (Brooklyn Monster) while some have hardly any (Anchor Old Foghorn). It was interesting to read through the specs for beers that I had had, but much of this information is available on the breweries' websites, and might not be up to date anymore anyway. The English beers are some of the more interesting to look at because many of them either don't make it over here (Fuller's Golden Pride) or are no longer produced regularly (Bass No. 1). The most interesting note is that they were told that Thomas Hardy's is fermented warm with a lager yeast (or at least was at the old brewery, not sure if it still is at the new brewery).

The sixth chapter contains the recipes. After the recipes there are a few appendices that cover things like festivals, troubleshooting, and a list of commercial barleywines. The troubleshooting is nice, but the other two sections are pretty badly outdated at this point (Beer Advocate and Rate Beer both have replaced these sorts of listings in books.)

Recipes: The recipes were written by a variable who's who of homebrew authors (Greg Noonan, Randy Mosher, George Fix, Charlie Papazian, and Ray Daniels) as well as some pro-brewers. This is nice for variety's sake, but it can be annoying because you can't make generalizations (for starters although not listed the efficiency seems to vary considerably between the recipes).

The recipes range from English to American in style, with some oddballs like Adambier, dark barleywine, and German barleywine. The recipes look pretty good for the most part with some interesting ideas, but some of the recipes have issues, like one that calls for peated malt as the base (20 lbs in 5 gallons). Having just used .5 lbs in 3.5 gallons I can say that much more than that wouldn't be too tasty to me. I would have liked to see more notes on how the beers turn out (flavor, color, peak age to drink etc...).

A couple of the recipes have extract equivalents, but for the most part they are all-grain or a moderate mash with an extract boost. It would have been nice to see all of them as all-grain with extract equivalents. Having the extract boosters on some means that everyone needs to do some conversion (it is easy enough to take an all-grain recipe and swap out some pale malt for extract).

Accuracy: Overall there are very few cases of things being incorrect, but many cases of information simply missing detail. In general it just feels a bit outdated (for example I don't think they ever mention making a starter).

Readability: My main complaint is that for whatever reason the same topics are covered in multiple places. For example in the chapter on flavor the alcohol section talks about the Free Mash Act of 1880 (which started taxing beer based on OG), why isn't that in the history chapter? There is an especially large amount of overlap between the chapter on ingredients and the chapter on process, combining the theoretical with the practical would have made reading this book much easier.

The book reads more like something that was written for pro-brewers doing their first barleywine more than as something aimed at homebrewers. Dealing with all that extra malt/hops/yeast seems like a bigger problem on that larger scale than it does at home. The book also seems to assume a good deal of knowledge on the part of the brewer (like how to get 30 million cells per ml of wort) that I think might bare repeating for the homebrewer.

It is a pretty quick read, well written (very few typos or editing mistakes), but there is a lot of filler in there giving it a bland generality.

Overall: Not a bad read, but most of the information is available other places. If you have never brewed a barleywine before and Designing Great Beers doesn't have enough information on the style for you this might be worth picking up. I could also see this being a good buy if you are really interested in recreating commercial barleywines as there is quite a bit of info on that.

Book Review: The Homebrewer's Garden

If brewing your own beer is the next logical step for many people after realizing that they love drinking beer, then growing your own ingredients in the next step for many people after they learn that they love brewing. I think the idea of growing hops at home has been really boosted by the hop shortage (which makes growing hops seem like a real cost saver) and the popularity of fresh hopped ales (something that is only possible if you have a very local source for hops). Growing grains and herbs for brewing doesn't have the same popularity, but there are some homebrewers out there doing it.

Content: The book is divided into three main sections covering the growing, processing, and use of hops, herbs, and grains.

Hops: This is the section I think most homebrews will be interested in. The chapter does a good enough job covering the subject that someone who doesn't have any/much experience gardening can do a pretty good job. It starts with simple topics like what type of hops to choose, where to plant them, and how to plant them. It then moves onto more complex topics like soil pH adjustment and trellis design. There are plenty of good drawing when it comes to something like trellis design that are very helpful.

The book was written more than 10 years ago so it may be a bit lacking on some of the newer varieties of hops. That said I think most people start out growing something classic like cascades before moving on to sterling or sunbeam (plus whoever you are buying the rhizome from should be able to give you some basic information).

The next sections is on identifying pests, diseases, and nutritional deficiencies and how to treat them if they occur. Most of the treatment options are do-it-yourself organic (using soap to deal with insects for example), I would have at least liked to hear briefly about the commercial organic options. Using the advice from this book I have two pretty strong healthy hop plants they don't get much yield but I blame that on the medium sun stop where I planted them (against the suggestions of this book).

The end of the chapter covers the harvest and post-harvest treatment of the plants and hops (drying and storage). There are instructions for building an oast, but I've had pretty good luck with my small harvests just laying them out on screens or using the microwave.

Herbs: The instructions for growing herbs are much more general than the chapter on hops because there are so many types of herbs used in brewing. It starts with general directions for starting the plants from seeds, divisions (that is dividing an already growing plant), root cuttings, hardwood cuttings, and offshoots. It then gives some basic tips for caring for, harvesting, drying, and storage that can be applied to most herbs.

Next is a section where about 40 herbs are featured with a page featuring information on what growing conditions it prefers, approximate usage rate, and any other relevant growing information. This section is more what Sacred Herbal and Healing Beers should have looked like. This section is helpful in couple ways. If you are thinking of growing herbs for brewing this is a great reference, but even if you aren't interested in growing the herbs yourself the suggestions could be put to use when using bought/gathered herbs. Many of the herbs also have culinary applications, so if you want to grow your own sage/basil/chamomile this wouldn't be a bad book to have.

Grains: Barley is covered first in great detail. The instructions cover everything from soil preparation, through planting, care, harvest, threshing, malting, and kilning. The more complicated and difficult part seems to be the malting and kilning. The process is explained in enough detail that it seems doable on a small scale, but I haven't tried it so I can't vouch for how complete/accurate the instructions are.

Next comes a section on the various other grains that can be grown and used in beer. I was surprised to learn that it can be dangerous to malt rye or oats at home due to the possibility of poisonous butryfying bacteria, so the author advises against trying it. Some of the grains covered include corn, sorghum, and wheat. For each grain there is a list of some of the available varieties, each one has a short paragraph of basic information along with the days to maturity.

Even if you aren't willing (or don't have the space) to grow your own grain you might consider making some crystal or toasted malt from store bought pale malt. I have made some toasted malt before, but I have never tried producing crystal malt. Playing with your malt seems like a pretty easy way to give your beers a unique house character that no one else will have exactly. I'd suggest making batches big enough that you can save some and adjust your usage based on your first try using it.

Recipes: The recipes themselves are all geared towards using the homegrown ingredients discussed in the rest of the books. Some of the recipes sound like tasty ideas (Honey Basil Wheat and Spruce Ale), while others sound pretty out there (Quinoa Bitter and Rhubarb Ale). I haven't brewed any of the recipes as is, but most of them look solid to my eye and there are certainly some interesting ideas in there (especially considering that it was published long before Radical Brewing and other "interesting" homebrew books).

The recipes are mostly given as extract plus steeping grains, but each has an all-grain equivalent listed as well. Clearly some of the recipes were all-grain originally and couldn't be easily changed to a steeping grain version (one recipe calls for 1/2 lb of quinoa in the extract recipe and 6 lbs in the all-grain). In general there is a lot of steeping of grains that need their starch converted (toasted malt, oats, rye etc...), so if you are an extract brewer watch out for that.

Accuracy: I don't have any major issues with the accuracy of this book. That said, I am not even close to a competent gardener, so I cannot be as exacting as I normally am in my critique. That said, some of the amounts for the herbs seem a bit high (and the ranges are very broad in general). The rosemary in particular seems very high (1.5 oz) after trying just a few grams in a flavorful 11 gallon batch and getting enough resiny flavor for my taste.

Readability: It is a well designed book, and the reading is pretty easy. Really it is more of a reference book, something you can grab when your hop leaves look a little yellow, or to find out how much dandelion you might want to use in a spring saison you are planning.

Overall: I think this is a very worthwhile book if you are planning to grow hops, and might even be worth it if you just want to play with making your own toasted/crystal malts or adding herbs. I certainly will be referencing this book often for the 20 rhizomes I recently planted with a few friends at a local community garden.

If you can't come up with the $10.17 to buy this book, and all you want to do is grow some hops here is a free hop growing manual by Rebecca Kneen.

Book Review: Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers

Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers: The Secrets of Ancient Fermentation by Stephen Harrod Buhner is a book that takes a devotes more than 500 pages to the ingredients and techniques that were once apart of beer brewing before the pale European lager conquered the world. It covers some beers that most beer nerds will have heard of and a few will have brewed, gruit, kvass, and sahti for example, but for the most part it talks about things that very few people will have heard of (let alone brewed), nettle beer, oak bark ale, and saffron beer for example.

To being truthful I have not read this entire book. Large sections are not so much about the flavor/technique of using these ingredients as much as they are about the history and supposed health benefits of the different herbs/spices discussed. I do not see enough evidence to support the health benefits of self medicating with plant material, so these sections just did not hold my interest.

Content: The first chapter starts out with a nice story about the trek into the rain forest to taste a primitive beer. A beer which given the rapid spread of "culture" and mega-breweries is now in danger of being a forgotten relic of the past. The tale and the rest of the first chapter provides the framework for the rest of the book: tradition, respect for nature, and the healing powers of plants.

The second chapter covers honey and mead. The author claims that traditionally mead makers would simply put the entire hive (angry bees and all) into the water to extract the honey. He claims that this technique lead to getting a much better nutritional punch from the mead as it contained such ever popular folk remedies as royal jelly, venom, and propolis.

The third chapter talks about yeast. I had heard some similar stories of how people originally preserved their yeast between batches (drying it onto a stick, vessel, or cloth), but it was interesting to read about this in more detail since wild yeast is something of a passion of mine. The author makes an attempt to talk about wild yeast, but ends up referring to several strains of bacteria as yeast (clearly microbiology is not his strong suit).

The fourth chapter looks at "sacred" indigenous beers. This is one of the more interesting chapters as it covers different styles that you may have heard of, a couple of which are still produced commercially. I have gotten the chance to try some of these beers like Sahti, and while it was not to my taste I could see someone actually wanting to brew a full batch of it.

The next chapter is a pretty short chapter looking at the role of alcohol culturally and on the body (through the eyes of native people). The author's main point is that alcohol has a long standing role as an important additive to human life and culture, and is inseparable from the alcoholic beverages we enjoy.

The six chapter discusses the different grains used in brewing. It makes you appreciate just how lucky we are to have malted grains so we don't have to use the amylase enzyme in our saliva to covert the starches in grains to sugar. The chapter does a good job discussing the fact that the barley we consider to be the basis for brewing is really just one of many different base grains used through the history of beer.

The seventh chapter looks at "highly intoxicating" brews. This may be the chapter that some of you are the most interested in. That said given the low level of "modern" (that is to say reliable) sources sited I would be worried about throwing in some of the proposed ingredients into one of my brews.

The next two chapters talk about the wide variety of brewing ingredients that come from trees and other plants. Each section talks about how a particular herb/spice/bark/extract was traditionally used in beer making, its purported health benefits, and a sample recipe to try. The outlandish health benefits that are claimed for many of the ingredients often make you laugh, as do the calls to arms against the modern treatment of disease.

The appendices cover such things as basic (and I do me basic) brewing technique, mead making, and sources for some of the stranger ingredients mentioned. The brewing instructions are so lax that they make Charlie Papazian look like an uptight process nerd. I understand that ancient people did not have star-san (or germ theory) and still made passable beers, but I doubt many batches hung around for more than a week after brewing.

Recipes: The recipes are pretty much all over the place. Many of the recipes appear to have been plucked directly from old texts, so they should make for pretty authentic beverages. That said for the most part they seem like they would taste terrible. Many of the recipes contain no malt (lots of sugar/molasses based recipes).

I often feel like the herbs/spices used are also in ludicrous amounts (1/2 oz of saffron in a 1 gallon recipe? Granted he is trying to get a psychotropic effect, but that's $132-$230 at Penzeys). Things like this make me doubt whether the author tried brewing many of the recipes in the book. It would have been very interesting to see the tasting notes for some of the recipes at least.

As a result I don't feel confident using them as a guide when designing my own recipes.

Accuracy: My major complaint is the author seems to take anything that was written before 1900 and assume that it is accurate. If a claimed health benefit or recipe sounds a bit off, the author should make a note to let the read know. Citing several hundred year old references for the aphoristical qualities of gruit ale as if they were from a recent issue of JAMA seems irresponsible to me.

In general this book is written by someone who doesn't seem to care about science. He calls yeast a plant for example (a kingdom level mistake is pretty embarrassing).

Readability: Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers is a pretty dry read unless you are interested in more than just the brewing information. If you have an interest in a particular additive or historic beer that section would be a decent reference, but in terms of a casual book for the average homebrewer it is close to unreadable.

Overall: While it has some interesting parts, overall it is not a great brewing book. If the historical recipes section of Radical Brewing really caught your imagination this would be a worthwhile read, otherwise you probably don't need a copy.