Currently I am reading over Jamil Zainasheff's Brewing Classic Styles, looking for my next beer. I also have Ray Daniel's Designing Great Beers in the rotation to help me understand English beers for the winter.

Besides that I am re-reading Antony Beevor's Stalingrad for about the hundredth time, and considering getting his book on the Battle of Berlin for a different perspective. I am a WW2 history nut, especially the German-Russian conflict.

Love my books.

Matt

[center]Tasting Beer
Randy Mosher[/center]


This is a book that can be enjoyed by rabid 'beer-nerds' and normal people alike. Randy's style is one of excitement and passion as he explains the technical aspects of taste whats and whys. Any brewer who feels that his or her palette needs some work would do well to have this on their shelf. It also has plenty of information on the history of beers and the beer industry and tips for beer and food matching.

[center]My score. 7[/center]




.

I love reading beer books, but often the old ones are a source of sadness as they describe beers that have since become extinct. A good example is Roger Protz Ultimate Encyclopedia of Beer. Published in the late 90s He waxes lyrical about good old favourites that have become the victims of takeovers and brewery closures, or often just the dumbing down of commercial beers.
For example here in Queensland we had a brewery "Powers" who actually made a couple of sensible beers such as a Vienna Lager and a "Red" draught. They became too successful and Fosters bought them out and terminated all the Powers brands except for a disgusting Powers Gold that they bring out once a year to enable them to hang onto the trademark.

I was struck by Dave Line's "The Big Book of Brewing" 1974 edition, 3rd impression, has anyone else got this book? There's a modern edition available, but in mine Dave seems to describe one of the earliest grain bags I've seen, although it doesn't appear to have occurred to him that he can indeed successfully mash in and lauter with it, in fact he says that won't work, but also that "mashing must be done loose in the boiler" and uses the bag more for lautering and sparging. As well all know, that's bollocks, but he seemed to be so close!

The ol' Bruheat Bucket o' Death gets a good run (it is a British book), but he actually also has some clever and sensible ideas for the 1970s. I haven't read it in depth, only skimmed it, so I'm just putting this out there if anyone else has read it- I thought I'd found a pre- historic BIAB!

My spousie picked it up at the local Op Shop for a dollar, it was £1.10 originally.

Makes sense, thanks Pat.

Some very interesting posts there BB and Ralph - we might have to do a book swap instead of a beer swap one day . Great posts!

I see jb has mentioned, "The Joy of Homebrewing," by Charles Papazzian. A great book, probably the first I bought. If his next edition doesn't finish every paragraph with, "Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Home Brew," then I'd class this as an excellent book . I should pull it down off my shelf and have a glance through... Might report back .

"Brewing Classic Styles," by Jamiil Zainasheff and John Palmer is an excellent recipe book. The recipes are based around a post-boil volume of 22.7 L which will suit many BIABer's who use 19 L kegs. Hard to go wrong with this book.

I haven't read, "Tasting Beer," Lloydie but form the recipes you give me, it mist be good .

PP

Brew Like a Monk, is my favourite brewing book. It doesn't go into the nuts and bolts of brewing, but gives a really good over-view of how the Abbey's make beer and which ones are still run by monks. Also has some very good recipes

Makes me want to save for a beer trip to Belgium, maybe when the kids are all grown up.

Yeah, BLaM is a decent read for sure hashie.

Say, what do make of the Chimay recipe on p10- 11, that's describing a BIAB, isn't it?
2. Contain the mashed grain in a large grain bag to retrieve the sweet wort...

It may only be the Dave Line bag I described above, but it does sound like a 1970's BIAB to me. I need to get the Kent book where the recipe comes from and check for sure, they're both about the same vintage though.

Ralph wrote:Yeah, BLaM is a decent read for sure hashie.

Say, what do make of the Chimay recipe on p10- 11, that's describing a BIAB, isn't it?
2. Contain the mashed grain in a large grain bag to retrieve the sweet wort...

It may only be the Dave Line bag I described above, but it does sound like a 1970's BIAB to me. I need to get the Kent book where the recipe comes from and check for sure, they're both about the same vintage though.

Yeah, I pondered on that myself Ralph. I think what he was suggesting was to use the grain bag only for sparging not for the mash, I could be completely wrong.

hashie wrote: Yeah, I pondered on that myself Ralph. I think what he was suggesting was to use the grain bag only for sparging not for the mash, I could be completely wrong.

Yep, that's a la Dave Line and would make sense considering the age of both references. Really need to get a hold of Kent and have a close look, but that's where my money is would be if there was a bet on.