Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(79)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

First, let me say what this book is not. It is not a recipe book, or a book which describes the techniques for brewing beer. In other words, it is not for beginners.
After following recipes for a number of batches of beer, it was time to learn how to create my own recipes. The purpose of this book is to do just that; come up with your own recipes. The first part of the book tells the reader how to compute the grain bill, the hop bill and how to hit original gravity. It also contains information on beer color, yeast and water. I used this section to make the computations for my first original recipe. This, in turn, gave me the incentive to buy a brewing software package which I now use in conjunction with the second part of the book.
The second part describes beer styles and what ingredients go into each style described. There is a chart for each style which gives information on ingredients used in beers which made it to the second round of the NHC. I found some of the charts in this part somewhat confusing and there are a few references in the text to wrong charts. However, as a result of this book, I have started to formulate my own recipes with a lot of success.

The first section of Ray's book covers the fundamentals of all grain brewing. I seldom refer to it.

However, the second section not only profiles many of the classic beer styles, it analyzes the recipes and techniques used in producing competition winning entries for the styles. While one can argue that strict style guidelines and competitions based on style guidelines are counterproductive in the craft beer industry, it is very interesting to see how accomplished brewers are formulating their recipes. Many of the formulation compilations are surprising. If anything, they show that you CAN deviate from strict recipe guidelines and produce a quality beer.

I have two shelves full of brewing books. This is the one I would hang onto if I was allowed only one brewing reference.

For anyone who has brewed at least one batch, this is a must-have book. You will learn more from reading this book, than from brewing a hundred more batches. Read Papazin, then graduate to this. You will learn to hit target gravities, target IBU's, and how to balance them against each other. Styles are broken down into easily (for the most part) reproducible processes and techniques, allowing you to formulate your own recipe within the style, not copy someone else's. I never brew a batch without reading up on the particular style in this book first. Best book out there on beer. Bar none.

The print version of the book is excellent. Unfortunately, when preparing the ebook, the publishers apparently used optical character recognition software, and didn't proofread the final copy.

Many of the equations needed to determine the amounts needed in the recipes make no sense. This makes the strongest points of the book worthless. Until the equation errors are corrected, I would recommend saving your money for the print copy

The title of this book is the truth. It IS a book about Designing Great Beer: The Ultimate Guide to Brewing Classic Beer Styles. If I were allowed only one book about brewing beer, this would be it.

With this book and a little work on my brewing system to figure out certain variables (efficiency, how much water is lost etc...), I was able to create an Excel Spreadsheet that walks me through the process of designing my own beer and it works. I plug in the size of the batch I want, original gravity, bittering, and a few other things and it tells me how much mash water and sparge water I need to start. Then when things don't come out perfect, an additional spread sheet helps me calculate how much malt extract, sugar, honey or even water to add to get the gravity to where I want it. This is all from what I learned from part one of this book. If you are an all grain brewer and you don't have this book, you are not brewing to the best of your ability.

If you like to enter contests, you know that the judges don't care if the beer is good. They want beer that is good and true to style. The second part of this book is such a comprehensive guide to style I can almost guarantee it will help you improve your scores.

When I first got this book I didn't like it much. Why would I need all of this "data" when my BeerSmith program does all of the calculations for me? But as you perfect your style and technique--you find that you want to know "why" as much as "how". This book is GREAT for that. It is almost compulsively detailed and falls somewhere between a casual brewers how-to book and a full blown textbook of beer. Especially cool are the comparisons of the evolution of different styles; the grain bill comparisons for contest winning examples of styles; and the various graphs and charts which illustrate many of the intricacies of bringing beer within your BJCP guidelines.

I would say that this book is nearly indispensible for the intermediate homebrewer. Once you have figured out how to keep your equipment clean and the basics of brewing, this book is the next logical step. It does not replace a good brewing software program (like ProMash or BeerSmith) but it does let you know what is going on "behind the scenes" in those programs (how is it calculating my lovibond? how is it getting an ABV? why is that a style paramater?).

Get. This. Book.

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.

I have a shelve full of brewing books, some in Russian, some in English, some in German. This book is absolutely excellent in concept, format and layout. Ray Daniels not only knows a great deal about beer, he knows how to compose and design a great book.

The first section of Ray's book covers the fundamentals of all grain brewing 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 books and texts, which adds some flavor to this great hobby.

Best book out there on beer, a true bible. Highly recommended.

I'm fairly new to home brewing having only finished 5 batches but I'm an avid reader and have read more books then I've done batches (about 8 books). I thought I'd be ready to start thinking about creating my own recipe so I got this book. I would consider this a college level text book when compared with Charlie Papazian's Companion or John Palmer's How to Brew and some of the other brewing books I have. While there is a lot of good information in this book its quite advanced and seems more aimed at the competitive All Grain brewer or someone who aims to take it to a professional level. It gets very detailed with serious chemistry, methods and math formulas. It is, imho, a study book, not something you can sit down and just read because the mid term test will be next thursday. I have other technical brewing books that are much more readable then this rather dry text. Maybe in time I will be ready for this book but if you buy this book be prepared with a highlighter, calculator, water quality reports and significant brewing experience. Oh, just as an fyi, I primarily do extract with grains mainly because of space limitations.

After NEW BREWING LAGER BEER, this has been the most helpful book to get my beer styles just right. It contains hordes of information usually available only in professional works, and doesn't over complicate it. I love this book and always refer to it before I start a new brew. It is the only accurate book that discusses the amount of water retained in your grain, and allows you to calculate the pre brew water quantity more accurately. A must for you home brew library.