beer making/recipe references

[George Jung]

A friend of my daughter brought home some of her 'home brew'; about half of them were 'good'; the other half, excellent. One was a Chimay 'knock-off' - blue.

What I'm looking for is recommendations for beer recipes/ beer making 'technique', a reference text of sorts. Lots out there - I'm trying for a shortcut to the 'good stuff', bypassing the rest. BTW, haven't seen a kit for Chimay; any links?

[CK 17]

I'm on the Gulf Shore on vacation so I can't help you with the name of the kit we use. That said we go to a local brew supply store and buy kits. The porter and Russian Stout have been consistantly excellent. I would go with a kit the first time. We thought we'd be working out of a book and more from scratch by now, but the kits have been so good we figured why bother with the extra work. . . .

[BrianY]

If you're looking for an excellent book that takes you from very basic to advanced home brewing, there are two 'gold standards" to which all other such books are compared:

The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing by Charlie Papazian, and

How to Brew by John Palmer

The Papazian book (abbreviated "NCJHB") is older and written in a rather unique but very reassuring style. It sounds like it was written by that friendly but a kinda odd but really smart guy down the street. It will convince you that you can make GREAT beer with very basic equipment and skill. Charlie Papazian cam up with the homebrewer's motto "Relax. Don't worry. Have a home brew" and that's refected in his writing. It's the book I started with and I still refer to it every once in a while.

The Palmer book is more up to date and less "folksy" but it's really quite good and it gives you everything you need to know (and more!) to make great beer. Plamer's style is more " nice and friendly computer tech/engineer guy" than NCJHB

Both books contain very good recipes.

If I was forced to recommend one over the other, I'd say go with Palmer...although it hurts me to say so because I and thousands of others have a sentimental attachment to NCJHB

Pretty much all of Palmer's book is available on line at http://www.howtobrew.com/ - an excellent resource.

As far as books of recipes go, there are many out there, but I think the best references are online. Here's a good one:

http://www.byo.com/stories/recipeindex

The various Hom Brewiing Fourms also have recipe databases:

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/ (halfway down the page)

There are also the "Clone Brew' books:

CloneBrews, 2nd Edition: Recipes for 200 Brand-Name Beers by Tess and Mark Szamatulski, and

North American Clone Brews: HomebrewRecipes for Your Favorite American & Canadian Beers by Scott R. Russell


As far as kits for Chimay goes, this one might get you close to Chimay Bleu:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/b...tract-kit.html

[jsjpd1]

The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing by Charlie Papazian, I have this book too and love it. It definitely opened up homebrewing for me.

Jim

[CalebD]

I've got to try this. Thanks for the links!

[Bruce Taylor]

Cock Ale

(From The Compleat Housewife, 1739)

Take ten gallons of ale, and a large cock, the older the better; parboil the cock, flay him, and stamp him in a stone mortar till his bones are broken (you must craw and gut him when you flay him); then put the cock into two quarts of sack, and put it to three pounds of raisins of the sun stoned, some blades of mace, and a few cloves; put all these into a canvas bag, and a little before you find the ale has done working, put the ale and bag together into a vessel; in a week or nine days time bottle it up; fill the bottle but just above the neck, and give the same time to ripen as other ale

[Nicholas Carey]

+1 for Charlie Papazian's books.

Also, look at David Miller's books:

• The Complete Handbook of Home Brewing
• Dave Miller's Homebrewing Guide: Everything You Need to Know to Make Great-Tasting Beer

The latter book is really an update of the first (which was written c. late 80s, IIRC).

Miller goes more into the biochemistry of it all than does Papazian. And even though he's targeting beginners, he heads more towards all-grain brewing rather than using malt extracts. Lots of useful information and recipes.

[cathouse willy]

The Big Book of Brewing by Dave Line. It's an excellent home brewing reference manual
As Dave would say "Relax, have a home brew"
Cheers

[George Jung]

Thanks all for the recommendations. 'Someone' is having a birthday, and I need to get the right present (otherwise I won't get good beer).

[George Jung]

Just an update on an excellent topic. Future SIL gave me a few bottles of 'aged' Belgian Trippel (it's about four months old, is all), and I'm pleased to say it's remarkably better, and a very good brew! Don't know if enough will survive, but I've suggested letting 'er sit for another 6 - 18 months. Developing some very nice subtle overtones.