Review: Homebrewers Guide to Vintage Beers

I’m a bit of a beer/brewing book collector, I have a Library of twenty or so books, and my amazon wish list is sure to have a few brewing books on it. I have recipe books, basic brewing books, advanced technique books, scientific books, historical brewing books, books about starting a brewing businesses, the list goes on. I have so many unread, that I made a goal for 2014 not to purchase any more books until I’ve gotten through the backlog. Fortunately I preordered this book back in March of 2013 so it doesn’t count as failing against that goal. When this book finally arrived I did not expect to pick it up for some time, or do what I did, read it cover to cover in a week. Continue reading

Book Review: IPA: Brewing Techniques, Recipes and the Evolution of India Pale AleBy Mitch Steele

This is a book I was looking forward to from the moment I heard about well over a year ago. Mitch Steele the head brewer at Stone brewing has been a guest on the brewing network quite a few times, and he also happens to be a member of Brew free or Die.
I’ve read the other two books published by Authors from Stone Brewing Company, so why would this be any different. The book has two main sections, the history of IPA to a vast collection of IPA recipes. Along the way manages to correct the myth of the origin of the name, and perhaps introducing a new one, alluding to brett in the original IPAs. There are lots of historic brewing statistics, to be honest, I mostly ignored them. Continue reading

Brewing Books

Book Review: Beer is Proof God Loves US. Charles W. Bamforth

Brewing isn’t all boiling and fermenting, and cleaning. You can buy a kit at the store, but to get a real understanding of brewing, styles, and history, you have to read and research.The title is pretty much over the top; and so are many Dr. Bamforth’s stories. This isn’t a book about brewing, despite Dr Bamforth’s decades of experience and knowledge, it’s more the tale of a life long participant in the brewing industry, from both the in and outside perspective. Continue reading