This review is from: Mastering Homebrew: The Complete Guide to Brewing Delicious Beer (Paperback)
Depending upon how you view home brewing (or life), this may or may not be the book you have been looking for. Randy Mosher believes one should brew (and live) in a way that builds community and allows for individual expression. In contrast, Papazian’s “Joy” focuses on having fun. Palmer’s “How to Brew” focused on measuring everything, from water chemistry to fluid dynamics. But I read Mosher’s books primarily for his exhortations to honor the history and culture of brewing, to be in touch with the community and culture in which you live, and to use brewing as a mode of personal, artistic expression. You will find all that here.
Mosher’s book is beautiful to look at. And it covers the landscape quite well, from ingredients, to recipe formulation to yeast management to considerations in building your brewery.
If you don’t intend to measure your beer, you might go with Papazian instead. If you think you will find Mosher’s exhortations a distraction, stick with Palmer for his practical advice. But even if Mosher hadn’t given me anything practical to think about (and he did), I would buy this for the attractiveness of the book and for his reminders that caring about beer gives us another way to care about one another.
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This review is from: Mastering Homebrew: The Complete Guide to Brewing Delicious Beer (Paperback)
This is a book the homebrew craft has needed for a while – a worthy update to the canon (“How to Brew” and “Complete Joy of Homebrewing”). It is a true beginner-to-master sort of book, going the distance from the first brew walkthrough to subtleties of pH and yeast biology and flavor creation. We’ve needed something like this for a while, too, since there has been so much development in technique and equipment over the past few years that there’s been no “one volume” way to get all the latest in stuff like recirculating mashing but also look up hop acid percentages. “Mastering Homebrew” strives to educate rather than to dictate…it isn’t all about step-by-step walkthroughs and clone-brew recipes. If you want those, there are other books for that. But as someone who enjoys invention and experimentation, I much prefer this approach, and like it as an antidote to the rash of “Recipes for 100 of your favorite beers” books that have appeared lately. The whole thing is also an illustration masterpice, with infographics and charts and tables galore. Some are daunting, but studying them helps reveal the chemistry and the relationships that are key to understanding brewing. Again, it is a book that aims to truly educate. This is now the top book in my homebrew library. No questions asked.
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I’m an avid homebrewer producing good beer already and with a bunch of medals won in different competitions. The book has been kind of a disappointment. It’s not well structured and, although easy to navigate and read, it’s not “readable” in the sense of “from beginning to end” readable. Looks more like a bunch of articles written separately that are simply copied and pasted into a book, and although some of the information is good, I do not see it as a good book.
For the novice brewer I would rather recommend Palmer’s How to Brew and Papazian’s The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, this one a distant third. For the advanced brewer it has some good information, but nothing you cannot find on the web if you know where to get your information and how to filter the “noise”.
I’m giving it 3 stars, but I was hoping for a solid 5!
Cheers!
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This Artistic/Community Approach May Be What You Are Looking For,
Mosher’s book is beautiful to look at. And it covers the landscape quite well, from ingredients, to recipe formulation to yeast management to considerations in building your brewery.
If you don’t intend to measure your beer, you might go with Papazian instead. If you think you will find Mosher’s exhortations a distraction, stick with Palmer for his practical advice. But even if Mosher hadn’t given me anything practical to think about (and he did), I would buy this for the attractiveness of the book and for his reminders that caring about beer gives us another way to care about one another.
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|A worthy addition to the homebrew canon,
“Mastering Homebrew” strives to educate rather than to dictate…it isn’t all about step-by-step walkthroughs and clone-brew recipes. If you want those, there are other books for that. But as someone who enjoys invention and experimentation, I much prefer this approach, and like it as an antidote to the rash of “Recipes for 100 of your favorite beers” books that have appeared lately. The whole thing is also an illustration masterpice, with infographics and charts and tables galore. Some are daunting, but studying them helps reveal the chemistry and the relationships that are key to understanding brewing. Again, it is a book that aims to truly educate.
This is now the top book in my homebrew library. No questions asked.
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|Somehow dissapointing,
For the novice brewer I would rather recommend Palmer’s How to Brew and Papazian’s The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, this one a distant third. For the advanced brewer it has some good information, but nothing you cannot find on the web if you know where to get your information and how to filter the “noise”.
I’m giving it 3 stars, but I was hoping for a solid 5!
Cheers!
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