Discount The Homebrewers' Recipe Guide: More than 175 original beer recipes including magnificent pale ales, ambers, stouts, lagers, and seasonal brews, plus tips from the master brewers

This book has some really good recipes in it. I've tried only a few, but plan on doing a lot more in the future. The problem with this book is that I got it when I first started brewing. I wasn't looking for a step by step (I've got another book for that), but I was wanting a little more guidance in the individual recipes. They rarely (if at all) give you the amounts of water to use in different stages of brewing. Another problem is that the gravity predictions are WAY off. For example, the Oak Leaf Brown Ale on p. 43. The recipe calls for almost 8 lbs malt extract and 1 lb brown sugar. They say the OG should be around 1.044. I haven't even tried this recipe, but I can tell you there's no way that in a 5 gallon batch of beer that with that much malt and sugar you're going to have an OG that low. This was confirmed by both the local brew shop (who after I brought this to his attention pulled this book from his shelves and is contacting the publisher) and the brewing group I belong to.

My other problem with the book is that it really should be titled "The Homebrewer's Extract Recipe Guide." Almost all of the recipes in here are extract so if you want to brew all-grain, you have to modify them. Not a huge problem (it's very easy to convert the recipe), but with how generic the instructions are, it's clearly not targeted for a beginning brewer. I don't know many experienced brewers that don't brew all grain.

Don't get me wrong, this book is a great place to start with recipes, but be ready to modify them to get something really good.Get more detail about The Homebrewers' Recipe Guide: More than 175 original beer recipes including magnificent pale ales, ambers, stouts, lagers, and seasonal brews, plus tips from the master brewers.