49 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Indispensable Guide for Homebrewers of All Levels of Experience, May 23, 2006
This review is from: The Homebrewer's Garden: How to Easily Grow, Prepare, and Use Your Own Hops, Malts, Brewing Herbs (Paperback)
The Homebrewer's Garden is an expertly written guide which will teach you how to take your homebrewing to a whole new level. Whether you are a newcomer to the hobby or a seasoned veteran brewer, Homebrewer's Garden will be a book that you'll go back to again and again. The book repeats little if any information found in a homebrewing primer, so advance knowledge of the brewing process and terminology will be helpful. However, little (if any) experience is needed in actual brewing to take advantage of this book.
The book is broken up into four main sections. The first teaches you everything you need to know about how to grow your own hops, the differences between the varieties, and how to use them. Included in this section are instructions that will take you from planting your first hops plants to drying and storing your hops with your home-built oast, or hops dryer.
The second section is a comprehensive list of herbs that can be used in brewing. This section includes information on which varieties to use, how to grow them, which parts of the plant to use, when to add them, how much to use, and expected resulting flavors and aromas. Also includes a section on herbs that are poisonous or should otherwise not be used.
The third section covers growing, harvesting, malting, and using your own grains. There's far more than just barley covered in this section! Also covered are amaranth, corn, oat, quinoa, rye, sorghum, spelt, and wheat. Each grain has a breakdown of different varieties and how to grow and use them.
The fourth section is the obligatory recipes section. Many traditional herbal beers are here, as well as some more innovative beverages that I'd never heard of--Gotlandsdrika, anyone? Where applicable, both extract and all-grain recipes are listed.
Even if you never expect to grow your own hops, grains, or herbs, The Homebrewer's Garden will make you a better brewer. Also recommended is the book Clone Brews, which feature recipes adapted from popular beers of different styles from around the world.
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44 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Opens new dimensions in brewing, November 7, 2001
This review is from: The Homebrewer's Garden: How to Easily Grow, Prepare, and Use Your Own Hops, Malts, Brewing Herbs (Paperback)
The Fisher brothers have done home brewer's a great service with this book. As a life long brewer and author of The Alaskan Bootlegger's Bible I give them my highest compliments and thanks for their research into ancient herbal brewing and their presentation of their material without a lot of technical jargon.
Wether you're a complete novice or a veteran brewer there's a lot to learn here from almost forgotten techniques and ingredients to growing and malting your own grains.
Well done
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25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
EXCELLENT!, April 16, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: The Homebrewer's Garden: How to Easily Grow, Prepare, and Use Your Own Hops, Malts, Brewing Herbs (Paperback)
Great book for the beginner. Even if you have never planted a simple garden, you cannot go wrong with this book. Very timely and explanatory - covers a range of subjects, including where to order hops, trelis construction, diseases, soil nutrients, and drying/using. Also includes techniques to grow herbs to use in brewing. A must read.
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