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I love Radical Brewing as well. It's got lots of history and funny asides about the beers as well as lots of odd recipes. I got the Complete Joy of Homebrewing recently and it looks pretty good. I like the relaxed approach to the whole thing.

The John Palmer one can be a bit technical and dry. When I started brewing I read it online and it almost scared me off. I thought I needed to be some kind of expert before I even attempted a brew. I discovered that you don't need to be.

Thanks for all the answers, makes it much easier to choose a book!Might go for Designing Great Beers first, it's just such a pain the only place to get these is online.

My sister-in-law, unprovoked, gave me this book for Christmas last week!

I´ve only leafed through it so far, but can't wait to get stuck into it <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->

&amp;quot;Morebeer&amp;quot;:2hsi9m5m wrote: I have two american books "clonebrews" and "Beer captured" both by Tess and Mark Szamatulski each has 150 recipies for cloning commercial beers. I think they are very good, espically the Beer Captured that has great information and even food guides to go with the beer. Each recipe is presented in Extract, mini mash and all grain versions.
The Dave Line books "The big book of brewing" and "Brewing beers like those you buy" are very dated.[/quote:2hsi9m5m]

Not to mention the Home Brewer's Recipe Database available as an e-book for $6 or less, eg. [url:2hsi9m5m]http://www.iuniverse.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-000020168[/url:2hsi9m5m]... Oops, I just mentioned it. <!-- s:oops: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_redface.gif" alt="" title="Embarassed" /><!-- s:oops: --> <!-- s:roll: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_rolleyes.gif" alt="" title="Rolling Eyes" /><!-- s:roll: -->

My favoutite of the 5 books I have is the Brewmasters Bible by Stephen Snyder

Clicky[/url:3jl7lekw]

350 odd pages and great detail on all aspects of brewing, heaps of recipes to get you going. I use this book more than the rest put together.

I also have,
The Big Book of brewing
The home brewers recipe guide
the complete joy of homebrewing
brew ware

Also collins gem beer guide
and beer and cider in ireland

I read most of "A History[/url:2r3ii6yl] Of The World In Six Glasses" at the weekend. It is great and on sale in chapters Dublin for six euro. Beer, wine and rum are examined but the chapter on the coffee internet is the best.

Any other good non brewing alcohol books?

Beer should be drank through a straw if you want to be traditional

[img:2r3ii6yl]http://www.worldclassbeverages.com/images/Tepe%20Gawra%20Stamp%20Seal.gif[/img:2r3ii6yl]