Comments on: Designing Great Beers: The Ultimate Guide to Brewing Classic Beer Styles

By: E. Marsh

E. Marsh — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:52:47 +0000

Admittedly, I’ve not finished reading this yet. The book is broken out into two sections: The first gives a rather thorough and dense description of each ingredient and its effect on the final product: beer. The second is a recipe section of sorts, that outlines many popular beer styles and how to make a representative of the style.

I got into homebrewing to be creative, and make some “great beers”. Then I found out about all of these… numbers. If you’re looking for a book to read in bed, the first half will certainly assist in slumber. All of these… formulas, numbers, and science. It’s dizzying, and I want to skip it altogether, but I’m sure there’s great information in here.

I bought this book to find out what hops go well together, what hops to use in each style, and other fill-in-the-blanks kind of information that new homebrewers don’t quite have their head around. I’ve skimmed the second section, which looks more to what I’m looking for.
Rating: 3 / 5

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 02:34:15 +0000

I was disappointed with this book. The “statistics” on second round NHC recipes – which take up much of this book – are of dubious relevance. Knowing that 51% of recipes used Hallertau hops, 40% used Saaz 5% used some Cascade, and 10% used a bit of Munich Malt and the odd one used some wheat, or 30% used Bohemian lager yeast but one used some obscure lager yeast at ale temperatures with no lagering but still fluked a great pils doesn’t help me to “design a great beer”! There was some useful stuff in amongst the distracting numbers, so drop the pages and pages of meaningless tables in the next edition please.
Rating: 2 / 5

By: R. Arey

R. Arey — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:43:31 +0000

It is a very technical book with lots of graphs and charts. If I ever have any technical homebrew questions, I will pull out this book. I might need to go back to college and get a masters degree to understand it, but I do now own it. Until I need it, it will just collect dust as part of my homebrew book collection.
Rating: 2 / 5

By: Joseph S. Maresca

Joseph S. Maresca — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:13:47 +0000

The volume answers the questions- where do you buy great beer and

what are the best beers? It is formulated for beer tasters and

enthusiasts everywhere. Restaurant owners, bar owners,

professional cooks and fine chefs will appreciate the presentation. It is easy to read and reasonably priced.

The information content is not easy to obtain so that the book

has a considerable value for the general public.

The authors describe the important characteristics of beer;

namely, appearance, aroma, taste and overall holistic impression.

Beer is best stored from 45 degrees to 60 degrees. There are

a variety of brews; such as calcium sulfate , magnesium

sulfate and calcium carbonate . Popular contents are yeast, gelatin,Irish Moss and the beer head. The book lists some popular acquisition shops and styles.
Rating: 5 / 5

By: Max

Max — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 20:48:07 +0000

The typical analysis of each style is presented in a three entry table which makes impossible to formulate a basic style recipe from the table (grain type, proportion and incidence over a number of recipes).

Is hard to figure out a basic recipe from the style discussion and tables. Therefore,the author added half page at the end of each chapter telling you how to brew each particular style.
Rating: 1 / 5