North American Clone Brews: Homebrew Recipes for Your Favorite American and Canadian Beers [Paperback]

Scott R. Russell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2000

Clone the best 150 beers in North America without leaving your kitchen! Each recipe comes complete with partial-mash, all-extract, and all-grain instructions.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

You Can Brew the Best 150 Beers in North America!

Clone these brews and more without leaving your kitchen.

Each recipe comes complete with partial mash, all-extract, and all-grain instructions, making this book a must-have for brewers of all abilities.

About the Author

Scott Russell is an award-winning homebrewer and certified beer judge. He has written the Storey title, North American Clonebrews. He also writes a monthly column for Brew Your Own magazine. When he isn't homebrewing, Russell teaches French at the Thetford Academy in Thetford, Vermont.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC (July 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580172466
• ISBN-13: 978-1580172462
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 9.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #552,632 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am currently the manager of the Home Brew Department at the South Royalton Market, South Royalton, Vermont. I was manager of the Home Brew Shop at the Seven Barrel Brewery, West Lebanon, New Hampshire, for about 8 years in the late 90's and early '00's. I co-wrote the Seven Barrel Brewery Brewers' Handbook with the late Greg Noonan, and I am the author of North American Clonebrews.

I was a feature writer and regular columnist for Brew Your Own Magazine for a number of years. I have been brewing my own beer and making mead, wine and cyder since 1990. I am also a National Beer Judge, certified by the BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Program). In addition to all that (!) I hold a PhD in French and spent about 20 years of my life as a high school French teacher...

I brew about once a week, pretty much year-round. Generally I brew all-grain, but will occasionally brew with extracts when experimenting with yeasts or exotic ingredients. When I am not brewing, racking or bottling, I am writing a series of historical novels. I am a life-long New Englander, so naturally I am a huge Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics and Bruins fan.

Please visit my website, vthomebrewguru.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Decent book, unfairly reviewed March 23, 2003

By michaelg

Format:Paperback

While there are mistakes in this book (as there are in Clone Brews and Beer Captured), overall this is a worthwhile book-all the recipes I have made from this book have turned out well.

Much of the criticism of this book seems overdone. Beerman11, for instance, says that the extract version of the Immortales recipe asks you to continue the recipe with mini-mash recipe, and that this would require boiling 7.5 gallons. In my copy, the extract recipe asks you to use the mini-mash recipe after the boil--which would result in a boil of 3 gallons.

Admittedly, some of the criticism is fair. The book does not suggest lowering the amount of hops for the all-grain recipes, which is odd. I could not find the barleywine error mentioned elsewhere (although I'm not a big barleywine fan); it is possible mistakes in the first edition were corrected. On the other hand, Russell did actually include lagering in his recipes, which the Szamatulski's did not in Clone Brews (and included only in the Helpful Hints section in Beer Captured, their latest book).

Frankly, I suspect many of the problems with this book are a result of the publishing format, which applies to both of the Szamatulski's books as well. The short, one-page recipe format doesn't leave enough room to discuss technique and other issues involved with making the beer, and I think a lot of useful information is left out. However, I can get this information elsewhere.

Overall, I liked this book better than the original Clone Brews and almost as much as Beer Captured.

28 of 34 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Not Related!! November 2, 2000

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

For all you people out there that are reading this review, and think this is the sequel to Clonebrews that was written by Tess and Mark Szamatulski, it is Not. After reading this book and some of the recipes you are able to easily pinpoint many errors in the recipes. ... There is no way to mash 18 pounds of grain in 2.5 gallons of water. Other mistakes include not decreasing your bittering hops when brewing all grain recipes. The list of errors/lack of knowledge of brewing goes on....

18 of 26 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Give the brewer a break December 1, 2000

By "beerman11"

Format:Paperback

I bought this book and I am having a hard time with it. I have been an extract brewer for 15 years. I'm responding to "sioux181" when he says "Give a guy a break!", give the brewer a break. I bought the ingredients for two of the recipes in this book and when I started making them, I realized that the conversions he made from mini-mash to extract were incorrect and I had to guess at what to do. How can I give the author a break? I will admit that mistakes happen, but you sound like you must be the author because any homebrewer would be very upset with incorrect information on brewing a beer. Both the errors that were pointed out previously are pretty obvious. However, I don't think the author spent the time to correctly convert to extract. For the Immortale recipe I start with 3 gallons of water for the specialty grains, he tells us to omit some ingredients, then follow the mini-mash recipe. It wasn't until I started that I looked at the mini-mash recipe and it said to sparge with 4 1/2 gallons of water. I have never brewed an extract beer using a 7 1/2 gallon boil (for a 5 gallon batch). The other recipe I made was Whale Tale Brown Ale, with his recipe I would end up with a 5 gallon boil. If I wanted to do a 5 gallon boil, I would switch to all-grain. It is obvious that the conversions are incorrect. Every recipe is like this. I have to guess at how much water to use for the specialty grains and sparging. Also, among various other small but important pieces that are essential to brewing, he has completely forgotten about adding Irish Moss.