TOPIC:

who doesn't ??!!

&amp;quot;a_friend_in_mead&amp;quot;:1oauy8jt wrote: Who combines gardening and sex? <!-- s:shock: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_eek.gif" alt=":shock:" title="Shocked" /><!-- s:shock: -->[/quote:1oauy8jt]Germans.

How the hell did I miss this thread?

I swear by How to Brew. It remains my main technical reference in an increasingly impressive library of Beer and Brewing books.

Full of really cool, in depth technical knowledge, Principles of Brewing Science by George fix is a must for the brewing ubergeek.

For recipes I actually quite like Brewing Classic Styles. Not that I actually follow any of the recipes, but it gives me something to look at and disagree with.

For someone looking to start out in brewing my advice would actually be, don't buy a book yet. Books have lots of information you don't need to worry about for your first brews. Instead I would point them at our Knowledge Base and articles like Barry's illustrated guide to extract brewing and my own getting started brewing beer with kits.

Once they have the basics down, the more technical aspects won't seem so daunting.

I have heaps of brewing books that I collected over the last few years. I have a couple of text books that I use for my brewing masters, but to be honest there is not much in the full on technical books for home brewers. I love the technical detail, but I wouldn't worry about it until the more straight forward info is dealt with. Palmer is great because he has a decent balance of technical yet practical information.

Palmer's [i:2h5p49n2]How to Brew[/i:2h5p49n2] is a great book to start with (apart from our Knowledge Base here at ICB <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->)

[i:2h5p49n2]Designing Great Beers[/i:2h5p49n2] by Ray Daniels is a good one for getting inspiration for creating your own recipes, even if the tilt is towards American competitions, there's a lot of background information in there.

Randy Mosher's [i:2h5p49n2]Radical Brewing[/i:2h5p49n2] is a bit of fun too for getting inspiration for crazy stuff.

I was put off from extract and all grain by Palmers How to Brew. I reckon its a bit too heavy for a beginner. Maybe its just me tho <!-- s:P --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_razz.gif" alt="" title="Razz" /><!-- s:P -->
I like Papazian's joy of homebrew (not that Ive read it all yet!) but it has a nice uncomplicated style, and like the 'Hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy' it has good advice on the front cover "Relax, dont worry, have a homebrew!" Thats pretty much my idea of a brew night <!-- s;-) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!-- s;-) -->