Rating: 
Summary: THE BOOK for intermediate and advanced (home)brewers!
Review: The two part sturcture of the book is perfect. Your brewing knowlege will increase exponentially when you read this book. The history of each style is detailed enough to give you a flavor of how a particular style orgininated and how it is brewed today. The information provided in section 1 is invaluable. If you enjoy brewing you will definately enjoy this book. A MUST HAVE for all craft and especially homebrewers library!!!
Rating:
Summary: A must have for the daring hombrewer.
Review: This book does not contain recipes. It explains the guidelines for brewing different styles of beer. For every style it surveys the ingredients used in brews that passed to the second round of the AHA competition. This book is not an easy reading, yet it's not for-geeks-only. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to get away from the beaten path. Even those who want to stick to published recipes will learn a lot in terms of what is worth pursuing and what is not.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent resource for intermediate brewer
Review: This book is a fantastic help for a homebrewer who wants to create his own recipes. It isn't going to tell you how to clone Newcastle or Sam Adams, but it helps you create your own unique recipe within the framework of a classic beer style, whether a Northern English Brown Ale, an Oktoberfestbier or Sweet Stout. The detail is astounding, ranging from historical references, commercial and homebrewed examples. With a wealth of well-presented information, the two chapters on hops I've reread several times, along with many of my favorite style chapters. Practical advise is given for creating a successful recipe, drawing on the author's own experiences in National Homebrew Competition. One example I think of is from the Brown Ale chapter: he gives the suggestion of choosing just a couple specialty malts to compliment your chosen yeast, rather than the often-employed little-bit-of-everything approach to the malt bill. This book could be valuable to someone who's made a handful of extract brews and wants to create something within a style framework; likewise, it would be of value to someone who's been brewing several years. I'm still doing extract brewing, so I know I'll be going back over a lot of the material pertaining to mashing someday. Not to mention some of the style chapters that I don't have the ability to do yet, like Pilsner or Kolsch. By the way, the author himself recommends Noonan's Scotch Ale (Classic Beer Style Series: 8), and I would too.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent resource for intermediate brewer
Review: This book is a fantastic help for a homebrewer who wants to create his own recipes. It isn't going to tell you how to clone Newcastle or Sam Adams, but it helps you create your own unique recipe within the framework of a classic beer style, whether a Northern English Brown Ale, an Oktoberfestbier or Sweet Stout. The detail is astounding, ranging from historical references, commercial and homebrewed examples. With a wealth of well-presented information, the two chapters on hops I've reread several times, along with many of my favorite style chapters. Practical advise is given for creating a successful recipe, drawing on the author's own experiences in National Homebrew Competition. One example I think of is from the Brown Ale chapter: he gives the suggestion of choosing just a couple specialty malts to compliment your chosen yeast, rather than the often-employed little-bit-of-everything approach to the malt bill. This book could be valuable to someone who's made a handful of extract brews and wants to create something within a style framework; likewise, it would be of value to someone who's been brewing several years. I'm still doing extract brewing, so I know I'll be going back over a lot of the material pertaining to mashing someday. Not to mention some of the style chapters that I don't have the ability to do yet, like Pilsner or Kolsch. By the way, the author himself recommends Noonan's Scotch Ale (Classic Beer Style Series: 8), and I would too.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book for those who have brewed at least one beer.
Review: This book is excellent in concept, format and layout. This is a great book for anyone who has brewed a beer or two and wants to venture out. It has been extremely valuable in my efforts to clone commercial beers. This is because it clearly explains the differences in the different beer styles and brewing techniques including great chapters on grain, water, color and fermentation. The book is complete and easy to understand. I would say this is THE book to get after you've finished any basic book such as "The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing". The author gives all the formulas (and tables for those who don't like math) that assist the brewer in designing his/her next best beer ever. This book is a must. The only thing I would like to have seen would have been an accompanying disk with an MS Excel workbook with all the formulas laid on it. That way I wouldn't have had to do it myself.
Rating:
Summary: A must-have book for every intermediate homebrewer
Review: This book starts out with directions on how to pick a grain bill (or extract) to match different tastes and gravities, how to pick your hop varieties and quantities and the right yeasts to use. Then moves on to step-by-step directions for making beers in most standard categories. There are no recipes in this book, but it does give examples of what most commercial brewers use in their recipes. It also lists the ingredients that winners of homebrew contests have put in their beers. With the information in this book you should be able match any style of beer or make variations on common styles.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book for Advanced Brewers
Review: This is an excellent book for advanced brewers to learn recipe formulation and as a reference. The first half of the book has step-by-step instructions on how to create beer formulations. The instructions are concise, clear and written in a way that any experienced brewer should be able to understand. The book was written with the assumption that the reader has a comprehension of and experience in standard brewing methods.
The second half of the book gives an overview of the major beer styles, the common ingredients used in those styles. The chapters also provide information on how frequently those ingredients are used by second round National Homebrew Competition qualifiers and commercial brewers. This section is of most use as a quick reference to those brewers attempting to create their own interpretation of a particular style.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Reference Book
Review: This is the one type of comprehensive book that the homebrewing community needs. It is fairly comprehensive and gives the reader information on many styles of beers that is needed to reproduce classic brews. It only represents classics styles, such as pilsener, stout, and neglects newer styles such as Cream Ale, American Lager, and Belgian and Abbey Style ales. It is a valuable reference none the less and should be a part of every homebrewers library.
Rating:
Summary: Highly valuable book for all-grain brewers
Review: What the book lacks in polish and editing, it makes up for in indispensible information for the all-grain, recipie formulator. It does not attempt to cover all beer styles, and therfore leaves the reader a little short. Belgain styles in particular were notably missed. Nonetheless highly valuable, easy to use, and recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Pivotal
Review: When my wife purchased this book for my birthday, it was a pivotal moment in my brewing career. It helped jump start my all-grain brewing into producing what many people have told me are some excellent brews. The first part helps immensely (for me the beginner anyway) in recipe design and formulation. The second part reviews the most popular beer styles, and throws in a good chunk of history and excerpts from old texts, which adds some flavor to this great hobby. It gets scientific with basic water chemistry and hop organics, and reviews formulations for top round picks of recent homebrew competitions. Highly recommended.
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