The New Art of Making Beer

Rating:
Summary: All ingredients in beer & the process explained concisely.
Review: This book is easy to read, no long, in-depth chemistry lectures to plow through before getting started. No errors in recipes!! And a variety of flavors - these beers are the best brews I've tasted in a long time. If your tired of the same old brews, try Askim Pale Ale - great summer brew.

Rating:
Summary: Not a good reference on brewing
Review: This book smacks of a high school class project done on beer. It is full of inaccuracies, bad advice, and just plain misinformation.

Examples: 1) "Lager is a light beer, yellow in color, translucent, and low in alcohol.......Its name comes from the german word lager, meaning a store or warehouse, because it was originally made in the autumn, stored all winter, and consumed the following spring" (Aside from lumping all lager beer under the American version, this is totally wrong in that lagers were actually brewed in the Winter, and stored through the summer in underground caves, because refrigerators weren't invented yet. In fact, German law forbade brewing from March until September. The last beers were brewed in March, hence the term 'Marzen.')

2) "Bock is a heavy beer, darker in color than lager".... (Bock is a form of lager!)

3) "Ale is heavier and darker in color than lager" (Has this guy tasted Molson?)

4) "By syphoning the beer into the secondary fermentor, you get heavy sediment that lies at the bottom of the primary fermentor." (really?)

5) "If the primary fermentor is too warm, hang a well-tied plastic bag of cracked ice cubes in it." (Want to ruin your latest batch? Try this stupid trick! Aside from the liquid that would be displaced in the fermentor, this is unsanitary, and an accident waiting to happen. This is just plain bad advice.)

I would not recommend this book to anyone, not even a casual beginner, because it will get them off the wrong foot.

Rating:
Summary: Not a good reference on brewing
Review: This book smacks of a high school class project done on beer. It is full of inaccuracies, bad advice, and just plain misinformation.

Examples: 1) "Lager is a light beer, yellow in color, translucent, and low in alcohol.......Its name comes from the german word lager, meaning a store or warehouse, because it was originally made in the autumn, stored all winter, and consumed the following spring" (Aside from lumping all lager beer under the American version, this is totally wrong in that lagers were actually brewed in the Winter, and stored through the summer in underground caves, because refrigerators weren't invented yet. In fact, German law forbade brewing from March until September. The last beers were brewed in March, hence the term 'Marzen.')

2) "Bock is a heavy beer, darker in color than lager".... (Bock is a form of lager!)

3) "Ale is heavier and darker in color than lager" (Has this guy tasted Molson?)

4) "By syphoning the beer into the secondary fermentor, you get heavy sediment that lies at the bottom of the primary fermentor." (really?)

5) "If the primary fermentor is too warm, hang a well-tied plastic bag of cracked ice cubes in it." (Want to ruin your latest batch? Try this stupid trick! Aside from the liquid that would be displaced in the fermentor, this is unsanitary, and an accident waiting to happen. This is just plain bad advice.)

I would not recommend this book to anyone, not even a casual beginner, because it will get them off the wrong foot.