Books and Magazines
Listed below are brewing related books, magazines and other literature recommended by members of the Auburn Brew Club. If you’re just beginning to learn to brew, you’ll definitely want to pick up one or two of the general “how to” books listed, as well as the BJCP guide. If you’re ready to advance a little further in your brewing career, get your hands on some of the books that focus on brewing specific beer styles.
John Palmer’s How to Brew (3rd edition) is an essential for everyone’s library. While its not as exciting and colorful as other books, it covers the fundamentals of brewing the way they should be covered… correctly. Its an excellent reference work for beginning, intermediate and advanced brewers. If you’re not quite ready to buy yet, you can check out the 1st edition of How to Brew for free online at http://www.howtobrew.com.
One of the most important resources you can have concerning beer styles is free. We highly recommend everyone print out the Beer Judge Certification (BJCP) guidelines and consult them often… or at minimum, every time you’re putting together a recipe for a particular style. There’s no better way to become familiar with the world beer styles. Print out the .pdf copy of the BJCP guidelines and keep them handy in a 3-ring binder.
Most homebrewers pick up Charlie Papazian’s Complete Joy of Homebrewing when they first get started. While the book is somewhat outdated, it is widely carried in most local homebrew stores, and Papazian is known as having led the homebrewing revolution in the 70s and 80s.
We also recommend Brewing Classic Styles, by Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer, which goes over each BJCP style, gives very practical advice on each style, and provides extract, partial and all-grain recipes for each. Jamil Zainasheff is the most awarded homebrewer in homebrewing history, and this book is a bestseller in the homebrewing world for 2007, 2008 and likely many years to come.
For all-grain brewers learning how to approach creating their own recipes, we recommend Designing Great Beers, by Ray Daniels. The book is slightly outdated with respect to more recent American styles, but is excellent for well established English, German and other European Styles, and certain established American styles. It is also an excellent book to learn how to “approach” creating your own recipes.
For those wishing to “think outside the style box” or to push the envelope a bit, we recommend Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher. This book has excellent discussion of grain and hop properties, spices, herbs, vegetables, fruits, and unusual brewing techniques. This book is very entertaining reading.
Dave Miller’s Homebrewing Guide is a simple yet complete overview for brewers of all levels. Miller offers up-to-date advice for cutting-edge techniques and successfully guides you through the entire brewing process. Dave Miller recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Homebrewers Association. He writes a regular column on troubleshooting for Brewing Techniques and has written several books on brewing.
The best book available for Belgian styles, excluding Sour Ales is Brew like a Monk, by Stan Hieronymous. This book will take you inside the Belgian Monasteries and Commercial Breweries, and give you good advice on brewing your own.
For French Saisons and Bier de Gardes, see Farmhouse Ales by Phil Markowski.
And for the courageous biohazard adventurer, who desires to craft the most complex and exquisite beer styles in the known universe, Flanders Red, Old Bruin, Lambic and Gueuze, read Wild Brews by Jeff Sparrow. This book is a page turner… very colorful.
New Brewing Lager Beer by Gregory Noonan is an advanced reference work, not an easy read, but covers very well the unique procedures necessary and concepts involved in brewing lager beers. Beware… this book is not for beginners (unless you’re a beginner who has a very sick mind). It is an advanced reference work.
From byo.com: Brew Your Own, launched in 1995, is the largest circulation magazine for people interested in making their own great beer at home. Every issue includes recipes, how-to projects and expert advice to help you brew world-class beer. Regular columns include troubleshooting common problems with Mr. Wizard, brewing two great types of beer each issue in Style Calendar, homebrew recipes for your favorite commercial beers in The Replicator, refining your brewing with Techniques, building brewing gadgets in Projects and hearing tips, stories and recipes from fellow homebrewers in Homebrew Nation. Brew Your Own gives you practical, well-researched information in a fun format for all homebrewers, whether you brew your beer from extract kits or all-grain. Brew Your Own publishes eight issues annually from offices in Manchester Center, VT. The magazine’s online home, byo.com, offers a selection of the magazine’s stories, projects and recipes as well as web-only features.
From beertown.org: For 30 years, this magazine has been the leading light for amateur brewers in North America and around the world. It features innovative and award-winning recipes, discussions of equipment building, explanations of brewing science and presentations of brewing techniques in addition to a healthy dose of beer culture. Zymurgy represents the best of homebrewing with articles that appeal to every interest in the homebrewing hobby. Published six times each year, Zymurgy includes an annual “Special Issue” (September-October), that includes recipes for all of the AHA National Homebrew Competition Gold Medal winners.