“What are the best beer books and homebrewing guides?” We looked at 18 sources and came away with 109 of the best books full of beer brewing recipes, history and information about the homebrewing process.
Part 1 in our 7 part series of Alcohol Articles.
Today we aggregated the best books about Beer and Brewing to find out what the top books on the subject are. The top 41 books that appeared on multiple lists are ranked below with pictures, links, and summaries. The remaining 68 books and the sources we used are also listed at the bottom of the article.
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Ambitious Brew, the first-ever history of American beer, tells an epic story of American ingenuity and the beverage that became a national standard. Not always America’s drink of choice, beer finally took its top spot in the nation’s glasses when a wave of German immigrants arrived in the mid-nineteenth century and settled in to re-create the beloved biergartens they had left behind. Fifty years later, the American-style lager beer they invented was the nation’s most popular beverage—and brewing was the nation’s fifth-largest industry, ruled over by titans Frederick Pabst and Adolphus Busch. Anti-German sentiments aroused by World War I fed the flames of the temperance movement and brought on Prohibition. After its repeal, brewers replaced flavor with innovations such as flashy marketing and lite beer, setting the stage for the generation of microbrewers whose ambitions would reshape the brew once again.
THERE IS a beer for every mood, food and occasion. And, with the growing number of beer festivals popping up worldwide, beer is finally getting the attention and appreciation it deserves. For the average beer lover, the overwhelming choices, brewing styles and traditions can be confusing to say the least. Enter beer specialist Mirella Amato – one of only seven Certified Master Cicerones (beer sommeliers) in the world. With an advanced brewing certificate behind her, readers will be in expert hands as they navigate the multifaceted world of beer, guided by Amato’s refreshingly accessible style.
Beyond the Pale chronicles Ken Grossman’s journey from hobbyist homebrewer to owner of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., one of the most successful craft breweries in the United States. From youthful adventures to pioneering craft brewer, Ken Grossman shares the trials and tribulations of building a brewery that produces more than 800,000 barrels of beer a year while maintaining its commitment to using the finest ingredients available. Since Grossman founded Sierra Nevada in 1980, part of a growing beer revolution in America, critics have proclaimed his beer to be “among the best brewed anywhere in the world.”
When most brewers think of an experimental beer, odd creations come to mind. And sure, in this book you can learn how to brew with ingredients like bacon, chanterelle mushrooms, defatted cacao nibs, and peanut butter powder. However, experimental homebrewing is more than that. It’s about making good beer–the best beer, in fact. It’s about tweaking process, designing solid recipes, and blind evaluations. So put on your goggles, step inside the lab, and learn from two of the craziest scientists around: Drew Beechum and Denny Conn. Get your hands dirty and tackle a money-saving project or try your hand at an off-the-wall technique. Freeze yourself an Eisbeer, make a batch of canned starter wort, fake a cask ale, extract flavors with distillation, or sit down at the microscope and do some yeast cell counting. More than 30 recipes and a full chapter of open-ended experiments will complete your transformation. Before you realize it, you’ll be donning a white lab coat and sharing your own delicious results!
Farmhouse Ales defines the results of years of evolution, refinement, of simple rustic ales in modern and historical terms, while guiding today’s brewers toward credible―and enjoyable―reproductions of these old world classics.
Stan Hieronymus expertly explains the nature of hops, their origins, hop quality and utilization–and even devotes an entire chapter to dry hopping. For the Love of Hops also includes a reference catalog of more than 100 varieties and their characteristics.
The original India Pale Ale was pure gold in a glass; a beer specially invented, in the 19th century, to travel halfway around the world and arrive in perfect condition for a cold drink on an Indian verandah. But although you can still buy beers with ‘IPA’ on the label they are a pale imitation of the original. For the first time in 140 years, a keg of Burton IPA has been brewed with the original recipe for a voyage to India by canal and tall ship, and the man carrying it is Pete Brown, Britain’s best beer writer.
From internationally recognized beer-brewing authority Randy Mosher comes the ultimate guide to the craft, for beginners and advanced brewers alike. Featuring plainspeaking, fun-to-read instructions, more than 150 colorful graphics and illustrations of process and technique, and 30 master recipes for classic and popular brews, this handbook covers everything from choosing ingredients and equipment to mashing, bottling, tasting, and serving. With much-lauded expertise, Mosher simplifies the complexities—at once inspiring and teaching today’s burgeoning new league of home brewers.
Belgium is to beer what Burgandy and Bordeaux are to wine. With an introduction about Belgium and its traditions, Michael Jackson takes us on a tour of its ancient regions, such as Flanders and Brabant, and places the various brewing traditions in their local contexts. He describes the time honoured traditional ingredients: water; the yeasts; the hops; the varieties of barley and the various brewing techniques. He then takes the reader round the famous breweries, frequently monasteries, and the styles – lambic, gueuze, kriek, framboise, brown beers, wheat beers, fruit beers, the famous trappoist and other abbey beers, and golden ales.
Featured are numerous ornate, turn of the century-which are dated along with the manufacture’s name and known locations. Also shown are classic bar fixtures of the long ago era. Emphasized are over 100 hundred coin-operated devices, mainly vintage slot machines.
There’s a revolution going on in the beer world. The food you eat should be just as delicious as the beer you drink and award-winning beer journalist John Holl captures the best of the brewery and brewpub menus in his latest book, The American Craft Beer Cookbook. The 155 recipes cover breakfast to dessert, with vegetarian and gluten free options along with soups, seafood and more.
Acitelli weaves the story of the rise of American craft beer into the tales of trends like Slow Food and the rebirth of America’s urban areas, and paints an unforgettable portrait of plucky entrepreneurial triumph. The backgrounds on all your favorite craft brewers are here, including often forgotten heroes from the movement’s earliest days as well as the history of homebrewing since Prohibition.
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For both amateur alchemists eager to tap into this burgeoning field and seasoned zymurgists looking to improve their brews, The Brewmaster’s Bible is the ultimate resource. Its features include: Updated data on liquid yeasts, which have become a hot topic for brewers; 30 recipes in each of the classic beer styles of Germany, Belgium, Britain and the U.S.; extensive profiles of grains, malts, adjuncts, additives and sanitizers; recipe formulation charts in an easy-to-read spreadsheet format; detailed water analyses for more than 25 cities and 6 bottled waters; directories to hundreds of shops; and much more.
Mead (honey wine) is the new buzz among beverage hobbyists as more and more consumers start to make their own. This up-to-date title tells the novice how to begin and the experienced brewer or winemaker how to succeed in this newest of the beverage arts.
Over the past 40 years, the craft beer segment has exploded. In 1980, a handful of “microbrewery” pioneers launched a revolution that would challenge the dominance of the national brands, Budweiser, Coors, and Miller, and change the way Americans think about, and drink, beer. Today, there are more than 2700 craft breweries in the United States, with another 1,500 in the works. Their influence is spreading to Europe’s great brewing nations, and to countries all over the globe. In The Craft Beer Revolution, Steve Hindy, co-founder of Brooklyn Brewery, tells the inside story of how a band of homebrewers and microbrewers came together in one of America’s great entrepreneurial triumphs. Citing hundreds of creative businesses like Samuel Adams, Deschutes Brewery, New Belgium, Dogfish Head, and Harpoon, he shows how their combined efforts have grabbed 10 percent of the US beer market―and how Budweiser, Miller, and Coors, all now owned by international conglomerates, are creating their own craft-style beers, the same way major food companies have acquired or created smaller organic labels to court credibility with a new generation of discerning eaters and drinkers. This is a timely and fascinating look at what America’s new generation of entrepreneurs can learn from the intrepid pioneering brewers who are transforming the way Americans enjoy this wonderful, inexpensive, storied beverage: beer.
Pour a cold one and get ready for some serious drinking stories! Beer’s timeless allure has inspired, influenced, and excited human beings for thousands of years. This fun and intriguing collection includes little-known secrets of beer culture, exploring the mysterious history of this noble fermented beverage through poetry, song, and quirky quotes from famous beer drinkers. You’ll be ready for another round as you immerse yourself in the legends and lore surrounding your favorite frothy beverage.
Got beer? This comprehensive, fully illustrated volume on beer by two of the world’s leading authorities is more than just an in-depth history of this delightful beverage–its origins, brewing methods and technologies, trends, and more–from ancient times until the present day. It is also a detailed overview of more than 500 of the greatest beers from around the world, with sections devoted to major beer-producing countries and regions, including information on craft brewing, emerging markets, extreme beers, future-trend forecasts, and more.
If you have an affinity for beer in general and for Budweiser in particular, then rest assured, This Book’s for You! As beer-lovers well know, Budweiser is the world-renowned brand that has been brewed and distributed by Anheuser-Busch for more than a hundred years. Its popularity is no less strong today than when it was first introduced in the late nineteenth century. It’s no wonder that Budweiser memorabilia and collectibles are among those most favored and sought after by breweriana lovers today. Vintage Anheuser-Buschr celebrates the early years of this prolific and highly successful company, one which grew from a small St. Louis partnership into the prevailing leader of the brewing industry today. Over 400 beautiful color photos trace Anheuser-Busch’s colorful advertising from the late 1800s through the mid-twentieth century, as depicted on lithographed prints, signs, trays, calendars, mugs, coasters, corkscrews, matchsafes, jewelry, and more. In addition to Budweiser, you’ll find a host of items featuring other products from Anheuser-Busch, such as St. Louis Lager, Faust, Malt-Nutrine, Bevo, and Ginger Ale.Many of the items shown date from the company’s earliest beginnings and have rarely been seen. Current values for all are included in the captions. This book is a nostalgic treat for beer-lovers everywhere, so pour yourself a cold one, sit back, and drink-er, read up!
Like good wine, certain beers can be aged under the right conditions to enhance and change their flavors in interesting and delicious ways. Good candidates for cellaring are either strong, sour, or smoked beers, such as barleywines, rauchbiers, and lambics. Patrick Dawson gives a list of easy-to-follow rules that lay the groundwork for identifying these cellar-worthy beers and then delves into the mysteries behind how and why they age as they do. Beer styles known for aging well are discussed and detailed profiles of commonly available beers that fall into these categories are included. There is also a short travel guide for bars and restaurants that specialize in vintage beer gives readers a way to taste what this new craft beer frontier is all about.
Water is arguably the most critical and least understood of the foundation elements in brewing beer. Water: A Comprehensive Guide for Brewers, third in Brewers Publications’ Brewing Elements series, takes the mystery out of water’s role in the brewing process. The book leads brewers through the chemistry and treatment of brewing water, from an overview of water sources, to adjusting water for different beer styles, and different brewery processes, to wastewater treatment. The discussions include how to read water reports, understanding flavor contributions, residual alkalinity, malt acidity, and mash pH.
One of the most exciting and dynamic segments of today’s craft brewing scene , American-brewed sour beers are designed intentionally to be tart and may be inoculated with souring bacteria, fermented with wild yeast or fruit, aged in barrels or blended with younger beer. Craft brewers and homebrewers have adapted traditional European techniques to create some of the world’s most distinctive and experimental styles. This book details the wide array of processes and ingredients in American sour beer production, with actionable advice for each stage of the process. Inspiration, education and practical applications for brewers of all levels are provided by some of the country’s best known sour beer brewers.
For everything there is a season — and beer is no exception. Best-selling author Randy Mosher leads you on a delicious tour of beer-tasting opportunities throughout the year, guiding you through all the best seasonal beer releases and festivals. Discover which beers are best to drink on warm spring afternoons or icy winter nights, and learn to make the most out of Craft Beer Week and Oktoberfest. Fun, fresh, and full of insider information, Beer for All Seasons will have you enjoying the varied delights of your favorite beverage year-round.
Explore the evolution of one of craft beer’s most popular styles, India pale ale. Equipped with brewing tips from some of the country’s best brewers, IPA covers techniques from water treatment to hopping procedures. Included are 48 recipes ranging from historical brews to recipes for the most popular contemporary IPAs made by craft brewers such as Pizza Port, Dogfish Head, Stone, Firestone Walker, Russian River, and Deschutes.
Which beers are the best? Get the inside stories on Czech pilseners, German lagers, Belgian wheat beers and Trappist brews, classic British ales, Irish stouts, and American microbrews. The shelves of the supermarkets are packed with an every-changing array of beers from around the world. Bars, pubs, restaurants, and clubs stock an ever-greater range. Which will suit your tastes? Which is the beer for the moment? Will this beer be light, crisp, and refreshing; this one sweet, that one dry and bitter? TV Beer Hunter Michael Jackson has tasted them all. He describes the flavor and body of each beer, explains why beers taste the way they do, notes their strength and ideal serving temperature. Spot the best beers with aid of superbly shot photographs, each showing the bottle, label, and the properly poured beer in its ideal glass. Never before has beer looked so beautiful.
Divided into four major families—ales, lagers, wheat beers, and sour and wild ales—The Beer Bible covers everything a beer drinker wants to know about the hundreds of types of beers made, from bitters, sessions, and IPAs to weisses, wits, lambics, and more. Each style is a chapter unto itself, delving into origins, ingredients, description and characteristics, sub-styles, and tasting notes, and ending with a recommended list of the beers to know in each category. Infographic charts throughout make understanding the connection between styles and families immediately understandable.
Explores the world of Lambics, Flanders red and Flanders brown beers as well as the many new American beers produced in the similar style.
Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation is a resource for brewers of all experience levels. The authors adeptly cover yeast selection, storage and handling of yeast cultures, how to culture yeast and the art of rinsing/washing yeast cultures. Sections on how to set up a yeast lab, the basics of fermentation science and how it affects your beer, plus step by step procedures, equipment lists and a guide to troubleshooting are included.
Brew Like a Monk delves into monastic brewing, detailing this rich-flavored region of the beer world. It also examines methods for brewing these unique ales suited to commercial and amateur brewers.
Author Ray Daniels provides the brewing formulas, tables, and information to take your brewing to the next level in this detailed technical manual.
In The Brewmaster’s Table, Garrett Oliver, America’s foremost authority on beer and brewmaster of the acclaimed Brooklyn Brewery, reveals why real beer is the perfect partner to any dining experience. He explains how beer is made, relays its fascinating history, and, accompanied by Denny Tillman’s exquisite photographs, conducts an insider’s tour through the amazing range of flavors displayed by distinct styles of beer from around the world. Most important, he shows how real beer, which is far more versatile than wine, intensifies flavors when it’s appropriately paired with foods, creating brilliant matches most people have never imagined: a brightly citric Belgian wheat beer with a goat cheese salad, a sharply aromatic pale ale to complement spicy tacos, an earthy German bock beer to match a porcini risotto, even a fruity framboise to accompany a slice of chocolate truffle cake. Whether you’re a beer aficionado, a passionate cook, or just someone who loves a great dinner, this book will indeed be a revelation.
Packed with information, this comprehensive resource also includes thorough appendices (covering beer festivals, beer magazines, and more), conversion tables, and an index. Featuring a foreword by Tom Colicchio, this book is the perfect shelf-mate to Oxford’s renowned Companion to Wine and an absolutely indispensable volume for everyone who loves beer as well as all beverage professionals, including home brewers, restaurateurs, journalists, cooking school instructors, beer importers, distributors, and retailers, and a host of others.
Brew your own clones of Magic Hat #9, Ithaca Brown, Moose Drool, Samuel Adams Boston Ale, and 196 more commercial beers! Revised, improved, and expanded, this second edition ofCloneBrews contains 50 brand-new recipes, updated mashing guidelines, and a food pairing feature that recommends the best fare to match every beer. With basic brewing equipment and a bit of know-how, you can duplicate all of your favorite lagers and ales from home.
It’s a great time to be a beer drinker, but also the most confusing, thanks to the dizzying array of available draft beers. Expert Joshua M. Bernstein comes to the rescue with The Complete Beer Course, demystifying brews and breaking down the elements that make beer’s flavor spin into distinctively different and delicious directions. Structured around a series of easy-to-follow classes, his course hops from lagers and pilsners to hazy wheat beers, Belgian-style abbey and Trappist ales, aromatic pale ales and bitter IPAs, roasty stouts, barrel-aged brews, belly-warming barley wines, and mouth-puckering sour ales. There is even a class on international beer styles and another on pairing beer with food and starting your own beer cellar. Through suggested, targeted tastings, you’ll learn when to drink down-and when to dump those beers down a drain.
Radical Brewing takes a hip and creative look at beer brewing, presented with a graphically appealing two-color layout.
The Complete Joy of Homebrewing is the essential guide to understanding and making beer, from stouts, ales, lagers, and bitters, to specialty beers and meads. Everything to get started is here: the basics of building a home brewery, world-class proven recipes, easy-to-follow instructions, and the latest advancements in brewing. Master brewer Charlie Papazian also includes the history and lore of beer, the science behind brewing, and tips on how to create your own original ale.
Everyone knows how to drink beer, but few know how to really taste it with an understanding of the finer points of brewing, serving, and food pairing. Discover the ingredients and brewing methods that make each variety unique and learn to identify the scents, colors, flavors, and mouthfeel of all the major beer styles. Recommendations for more than 50 types of beer from around the world encourage you to expand your horizons. Uncap the secrets in every bottle of the world’s greatest drink!
Everything needed to brew beer right the first time. Presented in a light-hearted style without frivolous interruptions, this authoritative text introduces brewing in a easy step-by-step review.
1001 Beers You Must Taste Before You Die | Paste | |
A Year of Good Beer: | Page A Day | |
Amber, Gold & Black: The History of Britain’s Great Beers | Martyn Cornell | Craft Beer |
Beer & Philosophy | Fermentarium | |
Beer Awesomeness | Paste | |
Beer Bites | Christian DeBenedetti | Cleveland |
Beer Captured | Fermentarium | |
Beer O’Clock | Jane Peyton | Cleveland |
Beer Pairing | Julia Herz and Gwen Conley | Cleveland |
Beer School | Fermentarium | |
Beer Trials: The essential guide to the most popular beers | Seamus Campbell and Robin Goldstien | Craft Beer |
Bitter Brew: The Rise and Fall of Anheuser-Busch and America’s Kings of Beer | William Knoedelseder | Serious Eats |
Book of Beer | Mikkel Borg | Paste |
Boutique Beer | Ben MacFarland | The Drinks Business |
Brew Brittania | Jessica Boak and Ray Bailey | The Drinks Business |
Brew Chem 101 | Fermentarium | |
Brew It Yourself | Nick Moyle and Richard Hood | Cleveland |
Brewed Awakening: Behind the Beers and Brewers Leading the World’s Craft Brewing Revolution | Joshua M. Bernstein | Serious Eats |
Brewing | Michael Lewis and Tom Young | The Drinks Business |
Brewing Better Beer | Homebrew Manual | |
Brewing Up Business | Paste | |
Brewing with Wheat | Stan Hieronymus | Doomlab |
Brewology | Mark Brewer | Cleveland |
California Breweries North | Jay Brooks | The Drinks Business |
Cheese & Beer | Janet Fletcher | Serious Eats |
Cleveland Brew | Leslie Basalla | Cleveland |
Cocktails on Tap | Jacob Grier | Cleveland |
Color Me Drunk | Paste | |
Craft Beer Cocktails At Home | Paste | |
Craft Brew | Euan Ferguson | Brew Drink Run |
Craft Cider | Jeff Smith | Cleveland |
Dinner in the Beer Garden | Lucy Saunders | Serious Eats |
Extreme Brewing | Sam Calagione | Homebrew Academy |
Food & Beer | Daniel Burns and Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø | Brew Drink Run |
Gardening for the Homebrewer | Wendy Tweeten and Debbie Teashon | Cleveland |
Goodnight Brew | Paste | |
Great American Craft Beer: A Guide to the Nation’s Finest Beers and Breweries | Andy Crouch | Craft Beer |
Great Beers of Belgium | Michael Jackson | LA Times |
Last Call: The Rise & Fall of Prohibition | Daniel Okrent | Craft Beer |
Making Mead (Honey Wine) | Roger A. Morse | Meadist |
Making Wild Wines & Meads | Pattie Vargas & Rich Gulling | Meadist |
Malt | John Mallett | Serious Eats |
Man Walks Into a Pub: A Sociable History of Beer | Pete Brown | Serious Eats |
Michael Jackson’s Beer Companion | Michael Jackson, | Serious Eats |
Millers Book of Beer | Mikkel Borg Bjergso | Cleveland |
New Brewing Lager Beer | Fermentarium | |
New World Guide to Beer | Michael Jackson | Berghoff Beer |
Off-centered Leadership | Sam Calagione | Brew Drink Run |
So You Want to Start a Brewery? | Paste | |
Standards of Brewing | Fermentarium | |
Sustainable Homebrewing: | Page A Day | |
The Beer & Food Companion | Stephen Beaumont | Cleveland |
The Beer Book | DK Publishing | Berghoff Beer |
The Beer Scholar Study Guide for the Certified Cicerone Exam | Chris Cohen | The Beer Scholar |
The Brewer’s Companion | Fermentarium | |
The comic Book Story of Beer | Jonathan Hennessey | Cleveland |
The Craft Beer Bites Cookbook | Jacquelyn Dodd | Cleveland |
The Craft Beer Cook Book | Richard Porter | Paste |
The Draught Beer Quality Manual | The Brewers Association | The Beer Scholar |
The Drunk Asshole Cookbook | Paste | |
The Home Brewer’s Guide to Vintage Beer: Rediscovered Recipes for Classic Brews Dating from 1800 to 1965 | Ron Pattinson | Serious Eats |
The Homebrewer’s Answer Book | Aston Lewis | Fermentarium |
The Homebrewer’s Garden | Paste | |
The Honey Connoisseur | Kim Flottum & C. Marina Marchese | Meadist |
The Joy of HomeBrewing | Charlie Papazian | The Drinks Business |
The Pocket Homebrew Handbook | Dave Law and Beshlie Grimes | Cleveland |
The United States of Craft Beer | Jess Lebow | Cleveland |
The World Guide to Beer | Michael Jackson | LA Times |
Three Sheets to the Wind | Pete Brown | The Drinks Business |
Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages | Patrick E. McGovern | Craft Beer |
Source | Article |
Beer Books | Beer & Brewing Favorites |
Berghoff Beer | 6 BEST CRAFT BEER BOOKS FOR BREW-LOVING READERS |
Brew Drink Run | The Best New Books About Beer |
Brewing and Beer | The 10 Best Books on Brewing and Beer |
Business Insider | These 4 books will teach you everything you need to know about beer |
Cleveland | 18 books for beer lovers |
Craft Beer | Six Must-Reads for a Great Year of Beer |
Doomlab | The Best Brewing Books |
Fermentarium | Beer Recipe Books |
Homebrew Academy | 5 Best Homebrewing Books |
Homebrew Manual | 3 Good Beer and Brewing Books |
LA Times | Four essential books about beer |
Meadist | 6 books every mead maker should read |
Page A Day | Beer Book Round-Up |
Paste | 20 Books For Beer Lovers |
Serious Eats | How to Build a Beer Book Library |
The Beer Scholar | These are the books you need to read to become a beer expert |
The Drinks Business | TOP 10 BOOKS ON BEER |
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