Best Books on Homebrewing
We’ve interviewed top homebrewers, professional brewers, and browsed the library of Congress to bring you this ultimate guide of the 50 Best Homebrewing Books. These are books on homebrewing for beginners all the way up to advanced homebrewers. The list contains many classic books on homebrewing. Dozens of brewers told us that these are the books that taught them how to homebrewer. If you’re a beginning brewer and want to learn how to make beer or a seasoned brewer who wants to make their beer taste better, these are the books for you. If you’re looking for the equipment to get you started, check out our comprehensive list.
Editor Picks for Homebrewing Books for Beginners
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- The Complete Joy of Homebrewing Fourth Edition: Fully Revised and Updated by Charlie Papazian
- Brewing Classic Styles: 80 Winning Recipes Anyone Can Brew by Jamil Zainasheff
- Designing Great Beer: The Ultimate Guide to Brewing Classic Beer Styles by Ray Daniels
- Homebrewing For Dummies by Marty Nachel
- How To Brew: Everything You Need To Know To Brew Beer Right The First Time by John J. Palmer
Editor Picks for Advanced Books on Homebrewing
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- The Homebrewer’s Companion by Charlie Papazian
- A Handbook of Basic Brewing Calculations by Stephen Holle and Ray Klimovitz
- Radical Brewing: Recipes, Tales and World-Altering Meditations in a Glass by Randy Mosher
- Homebrew Beyond the Basics: All-Grain Brewing and Other Next Steps by Mike Karnowski
- Mastering Homebrewing: The Complete Guide to Brewing Delicious Beer by Randy Mosher
- The Complete Homebrew Beer Book by George Hummel
- Brewing 2nd Edition by Michael J. Lewis and Tom W. Young
- Extreme Brewing: An Enthusiast’s Guide by Sam Calagione
- Home Brewing: A Complete Guide On How To Brew Beer by James Houston
- IPA: Brewing Techniques, Recipes and the Evolution of India Pale Ale by Mitch Steele
Brewing Elements Series
This series of homebrewing books dive into each of the main elements behind beer: Malt, Hops, Yeast, and Water. Top brewers know how to use each of these components to craft beer to their desired end state. For homebrewers looking for a deep dive into the key components that make up beer, these books are a must-have for your library
- Malt: A Practical Guide from Field to Brewhouse by John Mallett
- For the Love of Hops: The Practical Guide To Aroma, Bitterness And the Culture Of Hops by Stan Hieronymus
- Yeast: The Practical Guide To Beer Fermentation by Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff
- Water: A Comprehensive Guide for Brewers by John Palmer and Colin Kaminski
Best Homebrewing Book Reviews
1. The Complete Joy of Homebrewing Fourth Edition: Fully Revised and Updated by Charlie Papazian
You must buy this book. Charlie Papazian is considered the father of homebrewing. If you don’t want to read the book, now on its fourth edition, from the person most responsible for the craft beer movement in the United States, that’s completely your decision. But you’re also choosing not to read the book written by the founder of the Brewer’s Association and the Great American Beer Festival.
There’s a reason this book is continually updated and ranks as our top book for beginning homebrewers. Even if you’re a seasoned homebrewer, this book is worth the read. We’re confident you will learn how to make better beer and at the very least learn a bit about the guy who’s responsible for the incredible diversity in American craft beer. It’s under 20 bucks. Go for it.
2. Brewing Classic Styles: 80 Winning Recipes Anyone Can Brew by Jamil Zainasheff
Jamil is an award-winning homebrewer turned professional brewer as the owner of Heretic Brewing. He’s also a host with two shows on The Brewing Network: The Jamil Show and Brew Strong. While many homebrewers find a style they are particularly good at, Jamil brewed an award-winning beer in every single BJCP category. Guess what he did with those recipes? Yup, he turned it into one of the best books for homebrewers.
Whether you’re a beginner who needs some help brewing to style or a seasoned pro looking to go outside your comfort zone, this book helps with ideation and recipe formulation from proven award-winning recipes.
3. Designing Great Beer: The Ultimate Guide to Brewing Classic Beer Styles by Ray Daniels
Ray Daniels is the founder and director of the Cicerone Certification Program, the beer world’s equivalent to a sommelier in wine. Prior to starting that program, he wrote Designing Great Beer. This is another classic in the beer world and helps aspiring and professional brewers with new recipes and general recipe formulation. Parts of this book can get technical with some math, but the groundwork is laid in early chapters so a completely new brewer can follow along. This is one of the best books for homebrewers starting out.
4. Homebrewing for Dummies by Marty Nachel
This book is from the ever-popular “Dummies” series that teaches you how to do just about everything, including how to make beer. The author, while not as well known as the first three, has 30 years of experience in the craft beer world. He’s written multiple books and consults and educates breweries, homebrew clubs, and other industry participants on the world of beer. If you’re a beginning homebrewer and want to learn to brew beer, this is a great starting point.
5. How To Brew: Everything You Need To Know To Brew Beer Right The First Time by John J. Palmer
Anyone who’s started a new hobby knows the frustration with starting out. You know what should happen, but your attempt is far from it. This book helps you learn to brew beer as a beginning homebrewer. Instead of a horrific first attempt, which sadly causes many people to abandon the hobby, this homebrewing book sets you up for success. We’re not saying it’ll be the best beer in the world, but we think you’ll be able to enjoy that first beer much better.
6. The Homebrewer’s Companion by Charlie Papazian
The father of homebrewing returns to our list with The Homebrewer’s Companion. This book is the more advanced version of the #1 book on our list, The Complete Joy of Homebrewing Fourth Edition. For homebrewers looking to make better beer or have already absorbed the lessons in Charlie’s first book, this is your guide. It comes with 55 beer recipes, 10 mead recipes, and even a recipe on how to make gluten-free beer.
7. A Handbook of Basic Brewing Calculations by Stephen Holle and Ray Klimovitz
Brewing is a combination of art and science. This book helps you to understand the science side of brewing and drives home the importance of having a repeatable brewing process. Many of the best brewers keep brew journals, usually through brewing software, but sometimes written down in a notepad. The software does most of the heavy lifting for you calculation wise but this book will help you understand the math behind those calculations. This book is a great addition to both beginning and advanced homebrewers library.
8. Radical Brewing: Recipes, Tales and World-Altering Meditations in a Glass by Randy Mosher
Today it’s hard to imagine a world where flavorful and interesting beer is hard to find. But not too long ago, macro lagers dominated the beer landscape. Randy Mosher, described as a “homebrewing genius” dives into the creative and unique aspect that homebrewers have brought to the beer world. They first made interesting craft beers as homebrewers and at a home scale. Then graduated into today’s wildly imaginative and creative professional craft brewers. Brewers are continuing to push the limit each day and Radical Brewing helps to shine a light on the creative pursuit in a fun and lighthearted read.
9. Mastering Homebrewing: The Complete Guide to Brewing Delicious Beer
Another book from homebrewing genius Randy Mosher, this is a complete guide to homebrewing. It has hundreds of illustrations, charts, and graphics to help teach you to make better beer. The book contains 30 homebrewing recipes from classics to modern styles. The book is designed for a new homebrewer who may not know anything about the brewing process and is a great starting book for the new homebrewer. It’s hard to go deep when covering the entire brewing process but we enjoy all the illustrations which are especially useful for new brewers.
10. The Complete Homebrew Beer Book
This homebrewing book has over 200 homebrew recipes and includes recipes for mead, ciders and even sodas. Whereas most books have some recipes to try out, this book is nearly all recipes. For the aspiring homebrewer, this book helps with recipe formulation for non-classic styles and using adjuncts like fruit, spices, and even smoke. We wouldn’t recommend this as your first homebrewing book. But if you’re looking for a lot of recipes to brew and want a guide to making it easier, The Complete Homebrew Beer Book is perfect for you.
11. Homebrew Beyond the Basics: All-Grain Brewing and Other Next Steps
This book on homebrewing is designed for those brewers making the transition to all-grain brewing. All-grain brewing is usually what homebrewers do after their first few batches when they get further into the hobby. At this point, most homebrewers know the basics of how to make beer and are looking for more control and the ability to create something they want. The title of this book “Homebrew Beyond the Basics” tells you exactly who this book is best suited for.
12. Brewing 2nd Edition
This is similar to a college-level book on homebrewing. Designed for those studying the brewing science, it can be a little more in-depth than most beginner homebrewing books but it helps prepare the reader for more advanced coursework in the brewing industry. It dives into some of the science behind beer and thus requires some basic biology but is structured to teach someone how to brew even as a complete beginner. We recommend this book for the serious student who’s preparing for a career in the industry as it will provide a deeper base of knowledge on which to build.
13. Yeast: The Practical Guide To Beer Fermentation (Brewing Elements)
A book from the Brewing Elements series, Yeast, explains one of the fundamental components of beer in depth. It’s written by Chris White, the founder of White Labs, whose company provides yeast to many of the nation’s craft breweries. The book goes into detail on yeast, how to cultivate it, collect it, store it, and how it affects your beer. This book is for advanced homebrewers who want to nerd out on yeast and the fermentation process.
14. Malt: A Practical Guide from Field to Brewhouse (Brewing Elements)
A book from the Brewing Elements series, Malt, explains one of the fundamental components of beer in depth. Malt is all about making wort, the sugar water that serves as the base to which hops are added and yeast feeds upon to make alcohol. This book starts at the origin of malt in the Middle Ages and proceeds to the modern homebrewer. Malt forms the backbone of beer influencing color, flavor, mouthfeel, and alcohol content. Often overlooked by hops, and the book below, we believe the best brewers are able to effectively use malt to balance their beer and let hops and other flavor components shine.
15. For the Love of Hops: The Practical Guide To Aroma, Bitterness And the Culture Of Hops (Brewing Elements)
Hops is another book in the Brewing elements series. Hops are the darling of the craft beer world so it’s no surprise most homebrewers want to learn more about them. While we think all books in the Brewing Elements series are important, we recognize this one is the most popular homebrewing book. This book deep dives into the origins of the wicked weed and help to teach homebrewers about hops, hop origins, and how to best utilize them in their beer. Hops are the dominate profile in American’s most popular craft beer, the India Pale Ale (IPA), so it’s no surprise many homebrewers seek this book to help them brew beer better.
16. Water: A Comprehensive Guide for Brewers (Brewing Elements)
The final book in the Brewing Elements series, Water, is among the least talked about and least appreciated components of beer. Yet, water and more specifically water chemistry is what led the creation of many different classic beer styles such as the Pilsner. We’ll let you read the book to find out why water was so important for that style. For the aspiring homebrewer, this book goes deep on muncipal water, what you can do to change or improve your water, and how water plays an important part in cleaning and sanitation as well. Get ready to break out your ph test strips as you dive into what’s probably the best book for homebrewers to learn about water.
17. Extreme Brewing: An Enthusiast’s Guide
This is what we call peeking behind the curtain. Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head Brewing, one of the most creative and unique breweries in the United States and an OG in the craft beer world, shares his guide to making beer at home. As one would expect from the founder of Dogfish Head, Sam shares his unique perspective on crafting beers that people will remember. We’re huge fans of his and like this homebrewing book as he shares beer recipes to brew, beer to use in food, and themed dinner parties. It doesn’t get much better than that.
18. Home Brewing: A Complete Guide On How To Brew Beer
A Complete Guide on How to Brew Beer shares a lot of similiaries with other “how to” books on this list. It includes recipes, info on the brewing process, and step by step guides. But what we really like about this best homebrewing book is that it offers other resources for new homebrewers such as brewing forums, calculators, equipment recommendations and even troubleshooting tips. At 374 pages, this book on homebrewing has some depth and directs homebrewers to other great resources so they can continue to learn how to make great beer.
19. IPA: Brewing Techniques, Recipes and the Evolution of India Pale Ale
A book on American’s most popular craft beer, the IPA, by one of the brewmaster’s behind the iconic Stone Brewing and their hop forward creations. While this book is a few years old, it provides recipes from some of the largest craft breweries in the country like Stone, Deschutes, Dogfish Head and others. It is missing some of the newer IPA sub-styles like the New England or Hazy IPA and milkshake or brut IPAs but for the homebrewer looking to craft the perfect West Coast IPA, Mitch Steele is one of the best in the country to teach you. A great book for homebrewers to learn to make an IPA.
20. Brew Your Own British Real Ale
While America’s beer scene went from watered-down macro beers to hyper creative and flavorful creations, our friends across the Atlantic have a long history of great British beers. In Graham Wheeler’s guide to homebrewing British beers, “Brew Your Own British Real Ale” he outlines over 100 classic British recipes to try. While most American versions are high alcohol, many British versions pack less of a punch which is useful when trying to drink all of your last homebrew. If you enjoy British Ales, are missing London, or want to try some classic British homebrews, this book is perfect for both advanced and beginning homebrewers wanting to learn how to make British beers.
21. Lambic (Classic Beer Style)
Lambic’s are a specific style of beer falling in the sour or wild ale category. Originating in Belgium, this beer style is fermented with wild and natural bacteria to turn sugars into alcohol versus cultivated yeast strains. While homebrewers today can buy cultivated “wild” bacteria to make it easier to make lambics, the beer style is one that thrives on uniqueness. For the enterprising homebrewer who is confident in their brewing skills, lambics can open a world of uniqueness and flavor which unfortunately is hard to consistently recreate if using true wild yeasts. Nonetheless, adventurous homebrewers should check this book out to learn how to make lambics to delight your friends.
22. The Brew Your Own Big Book of Homebrewing
Once you know the basics of any skill and how it works, you’re always looking to find the next thing that will help you master it. The Big Book of Homebrewing shares tips and tricks from professional brewers on how they earn a living making beer.
The book’s creators are the magazine and website Brew Your Own, which has a magnitude of information on homebrewing and how to make your beer better. One of our favorite things about this book is the recipe clones. As opposed to most books which show how to make generic versions of beer styles, this one due to Brew Your Own’s relationships with professional brewers, has clone recipes of commercially produced beers. Pick up one at the store and compare it side by side with your creation. The only difference in the two beers is how you made yours. And as a bonus, it includes great step-by-step photography on homebrewing and how to set up your kegging system.
23. Experimental Homebrewing: Mad Science in the Pursuit of Great Beer
Sometimes making great beer can seem a little like alchemy especially when you’re brewing on a non-commercial system without all the measurements the professionals are able to take. Experimental Homebrewing helps dive into the process tweaks, recipe creation and unbiased sampling to help you make better beer. And in what’s probably the most fun, explores wild ingredients like mushrooms, cacao, and bacon as well as processes like distillation freezing or simulating a cask ale. For homebrewers looking to try something new, experimental homebrewing will keep you on your toes as you explore new ingredients and ways of homebrewing beer.
24. The New IPA: Scientific Guide to Hop Aroma and Flavor
In craft beer, hops are king. They are also queen, aces, jokers, jacks and probably even most 10’s. This book goes deep into the science behind hops and how their aroma and flavor are imparted into beer. While most of the books on the list are written by people with decades of homebrewing experience, Scott dives deep into the scientific and academic papers written about hops. To keep us from falling asleep reading hop research, he digests it down into easily understandable and actionable bites for us to use. If you want to push the limits in your hop-forward creations, this book is a must-read for homebrewers who want to make better hoppy beers.
25. The Homebrewer’s Answer Book: Solutions to Every Problem, Answers to Every Question
Sometimes it’s nice to have the answer key. In the Homebrewer’s Answer Book, that’s exactly what new homebrewers receive. If you’re looking for help troubleshooting problems in your brewing or want to know what problems may occur, this book not only helps you identify the root cause but solve it. The book goes into bottling issues, beer off-flavors, buying ingredients, sanitation issues and just about any potential gotcha spot in brewing. We hope you don’t need the book. But if you do, you’ll be glad you have it.
26. Brew Chem 101: The Basics of Homebrewing Chemistry
Nerd Alert: This book is for those who like to know how things work, specifically the chemistry behind making homebrew. While it’s helpful to remember all that high school chemistry, the PhD author breaks it down to make it accessible for most people. In the book, he goes through all the different chemical reactions that occur during brewing. How they happen. Why they happen. And most importantly, how that is happening will affect your end homebrew. And what to do to get the results you want. Many people are happy to know if they do X then Y happens. But this book is for those who want a deeper understanding behind WHY things happen when making beer.
27. New Brewing Lager Beer: The Most Comprehensive Book for Home and Microbrewers
Lagers and ales are different. Most craft brewers predominantly make ales due to a few different reasons but mainly because they can make them faster, and they can easily harvest the yeast which helps save money in a brewery. For the homebrewer, the biggest challenge with lagers is temperature control during fermentation and resting so as not to impart off-flavors to the more delicate lagers. The Brewing Lager Beer is a comprehensive guide for homebrewers who are looking to start lagering their beer. We’d recommend taking a read before you jump into lagers even if you’re comfortable with brewing ales.
28. Dave Miller’s Homebrewing Guide: Everything You Need to Know to Make Great-Tasting Beer
This book nearly made the cut for our top list for best books for beginning homebrewers. It’s the first book I read as I started homebrewing and I still have the paperback copy complete with some margin notes. What I liked about the book was the easy to follow, easy to digest format that helped walk a complete newbie homebrewer through how beer is made. The book is over 25 years old but is what helped many a now professional brewer start making their first homebrews. My first attempt after reading the book made me confident enough to try to create a homebrew and the end result was a drinkable beer. A win for many homebrewers that leads to lots more attempts and way better than just drinkable beer.
29. The Brewmaster’s Bible: The Gold Standard for Home Brewers
The Brewmaster’s Bible is another one-stop shop book for new and experienced homebrewers. While it has all the steps-to-brew and brewing process information for new homebrewers, what really sets this book apart is its advanced info. Detailed profiles of grains, malts, sanitizers, cleaning products, and even water chemistry reports for some of the largest cities in the country. One of our favorite inclusions is a list of homebrew shops around the country. For homebrewers, some of the best knowledge is found behind the counters at your local shops. You may be able to find better prices online for some items, but online sites aren’t going to help make you a better brewer. The Brewmaster’s Bible is worthy of a spot in your books on brewing library.
30. Brew Ware: How to Find, Adapt & Build Homebrewing Equipment
Homebrewers are some of the most ingenious and thrifty group of people around. When you’re brewing beer at home, it requires you to make some changes to how a professional may set up their brewery. Whether it’s a lack of space to store extra equipment, that one thing you need is lost or broken, or you want to save a few bucks by repurposing equipment, this book Brew Ware helps you achieve just that. This book will help you figure out what gadgets you can craft from home to help ensure you have the best equipment and tools to make homebrewing easy and the process of making beer more fun!
31. Brooklyn Brew Shop’s Beer Making Book: 52 Seasonal Recipes for Small Batches
Brooklyn Brew Shops makes some of our favorite kits for beginning homebrewers which also act as great gifts for that new homebrewer in your life. We’ve even dedicated an entire post to their awesome kits. For those looking to do-it-themselves or have transitioned to all-grain brewing, Brooklyn BrewShop’s Beer Making Book provides 52 recipes, 1 a week for a year, specifically designed for the small-batch homebrewer. We think the only challenge you’ll have from this book is where to store all the beer you’re making.
32. Beer Brewing 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Homebrewing for Craft Beer Lovers
It seems there is no shortage of intro to beer brewing books. It’s not too much of a surprise as it is estimated that there are over 1.2MM homebrewers in the US with more trying out the hobby each day. We included this book due to it’s stellar 4.6 rating on Amazon with over 100 reviews and it’s jump right in and start brewing philosophy. If you like the hobby, there are plenty of other books to let you deep-dive into the ingredients and brewing science behind how to make beer. This one gives you enough info to be dangerous and make your first tasty beer. After that, you’ll probably be hooked. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
33. The Everything Homebrewing Book: All you need to brew the best beer at home!
100 recipes. It’s hard to find a starter book with so many beer brewing recipes for beginning homebrewers. This book also features easy-to-follow steps on making your first homebrew and includes some details on how to enter homebrew competitions. Homebrew competitions are some of the best ways to get feedback on your homebrew so you can learn to make better homebrew. Judges will identify issues with your beer and often give you areas in your process that you should troubleshoot so you can make better beer. It’s because of these tips The Everything Homebrewing Book made the cut.
34,.Tasting Beer, 2nd Edition: An Insider’s Guide to the World’s Greatest Drink
This isn’t the first time Randy Mosher has appeared on our best homebrewing book list. Tasting Beer is included in our list for homebrewer books despite not specifically being about the homebrewing process. This book goes deep into the process of understanding beer styles, the vocabulary to talk about beer when tasting it, as well as sensory guidelines. One of the homebrewer’s best ways to learn to make better beer is to be able to properly diagnose and identify how their beer tastes. By using commonly understood beer vocabulary, homebrewers can get the help they need to go from making good beer to great beer. We recommend buying some classic beer styles and applying what you learn in this book. Now, that’s a homebrewing book we can all cheer about.
35. Brewing Better Beer: Master Lessons for Advanced Homebrewers
Gordon Strong is a homebrewing legend and one of the highest-ranking BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Program) judges. There are few homebrewers who we’d trust more than Mr. Strong in guiding us to make better beer. In his book, Brewing Better Beer, Gordon goes into his process for brewing and helps homebrewers understand what he looks for while brewing. We love this book due to the combination of theory, actionable insights, and methods to add creativity to your homebrewing process.
36. Principles of Brewing Science: A Study of Serious Brewing Issues
Principles of Brewing Science is exactly what it sounds like. A theory and science-heavy dive into how to make beer. The author George Fix was an award-winning homebrewer with multiple books published by the American Homebrewers Association. He also won the coveted Ninkasi award for the country’s top homebrewer. This book gives homebrewers the framework and tools to understand what will happen before they start brewing. This insight into the science and process helps them predict the final result. After all, the process of making beer is a science. The creativity in using the ingredients and brewing process is the art.
37. Modern Homebrew Recipes: Exploring Styles and Contemporary Techniques
Another book from Gordon Strong. This book focused on more up-to-date brewing recipes compared to many of the other homebrewing books. Those books lean towards stylistically accurate recipes vs modern commercial versions. The world of craft beer changes very quickly with new styles becoming popular and old ones fading away. Some of the most popular styles in the beer world were hardly being made even 5 years ago. What we like best about this book is that these are 100 recipes that are tried and tested by Gordon Strong. They are the complete recipes from a 3 time Ninkasi award-winning homebrewer and he goes into his process for creating recipes. This type of insight makes it a welcome addition to homebrewer’s library.
38. Brew Like a Monk: Trappist, Abbey, and Strong Belgian Ales and How to Brew Them
As homebrewers learn more about brewing, they typically start to venture into other styles that are usually a little more challenging to brew. We include Belgians as being a little more difficult as the yeast strains are a little more temperamental than some of the strains used for beginning homebrewers. This book goes deep into Belgian and Trappist style ales. If you’ve wanted to learn how to brew Belgians from the classic triple to the Belgian Strong Dark ale, this book will help you learn what to do to craft those styles like a monk. We like that it includes some commercially based advice which is always useful for homebrewers who dream of opening a brewery someday.
39. Gose: Brewing a Classic German Beer for the Modern Era
The Gose. A classic German wheat beer brewed with sea salt. A great summer beer but versatile enough to be enjoyed year-round. Often, goses are used as a base for adding fruit, spices, and other additions for flavoring. It’s one of my favorite sour styles as it’s lower on acid while still providing tartness and great flavor. In this book, Fal Allen goes over the history of the Gose from the Middle Ages to become a darling of the American craft beer world. It goes over special techniques, salinity, and an appropriate level of understanding lactic acid’s role to help any aspiring homebrewer (or professional) create a Gose.
40. Simple Homebrewing: Great Beer, Less Work, More Fun
Simple Homebrewing is all about how to take a pretty difficult process, making beer, and making it easier and more enjoyable. Their mantra is “Brew the best beer possible. With the least effort possible. While having the most fun possible.” Most of our books on the list discuss traditional homebrewing set-ups. But these guys offer up technological solutions from automated brewery equipment to robot brewing systems to make it easier for you to make beer. If you enjoy working less and making better beer as a result, this book is the one for you.
41. CloneBrews, 2nd Edition: Recipes for 200 Commercial Beers
200 successful commercial beer recipes. Commercial recipes are great for 2 reasons.
- They help you test your brewing process to see how close you can come to brewing the beer the professionals do.
- The recipes are scaled-down versions of successful commercial beers people pay money to drink. The beers all have market validation meaning if you can make a beer like this (or better), you have a product people will buy. Now, of course, selling it may not be easy. But the product and your brewing is professional grade.
42. The Beer Bible
We like this book for new homebrewers because it gives you an easy way to learn beer styles. This helps people learning beer styles for the Cicerone exam or the BJCP exam or anyone who just wants to know more about beer. For homebrewers, it is important to know what you are brewing and styles give us a way to classify differences between beers. For example, what is the difference between a stout and a porter? Or a pale ale and an India pale ale? The Beer Bible helps teach you about the different beer syles.
43. Homebrewing (Idiot’s Guides)
Another all-in-one introductory guide to homebrewing. We chose to include this one on the list because it’s an all-in-one homebrewing book for under $5. It has 60 recipes for the new homebrewer to try out. As well as a focus on how to not make common homebrewing mistakes. This book will get your first attempt to at least be a drinkable beer instead of a drain pour.
44. The Brewers Association’s Guide to Starting Your Own Brewery
This book is for the more serious homebrewers and is written by the industry trade group, The Brewers Association. Instead of basic homebrewing skills, it focuses on how to plan and execute a commercial brewery. It discusses site selection, size, staffing levels, your brewery concept, and dealing with delays, to business planning and raising capital. This is one of the few books out there that shares valuable insights into becoming a professional brewer from the business side. It’s a little more expensive than most of the books on this list but it could also save you from making a mistake worth tens of thousands of dollars. If that’s not a good reason for an aspiring homebrewer to buy it, I don’t know what is.
45. The Brew Your Own Big Book of Clone Recipes: Featuring 300 Homebrew Recipes from Your Favorite Breweries
Brew Your Own’s Big Book of Clone recipes shares 300 recipes from breweries around the country. We’ve repeatedly shared why we think clone recipes are worth brewing so we won’t repeat ourselves. Instead, we’ll provide another tip on what to do after you brew your clone recipes. We recommend doing a blind tasting with friends. Pour your homebrew, side by side with the professional version and let your friend’s try to pick the homebrew. To make it a little more challenging, we recommend adding a third beer of the same style with similarities and see if they can pick the clones out from the lineup.
46. American Sour Beers
Sours are one of the most popular styles of craft beer in the United States. For people who do not like IPAs, sours can provide a different entry point into craft beers with their funk, acid, and often fruity flavors. American Sour Beers discusses the specifically American way of brewing sours which differs from the traditional lambics and sours of Europe. After all, perfecting a wild Belgian fermentation often requires you to live in Belgium. Perfecting an American wild fermentation can be done in with your homebrew setups. Even barrel-aging sours at the homebrew scale is now possible making this style a ton of fun for experienced homebrewers.
47. Beer Craft: A Simple Guide to Making Great Beer
KISS. Keep it Simple Stupid. Words to live by. Beer Craft lives up to this mantra and teaches you the simple way to make great beer. Our two favorite parts of this book (outside the obvious benefit of teaching you to make beer) is:
- The interviews with the brewers behind some of the most successful craft breweries.
- Beer history and beer facts. If you’re a history fan, beer provides a great backdrop for the historical and geographic changes that occurred through human history.
48. Brew Better Beer: Learn (and Break) the Rules for Making IPAs, Sours, Pilsners, Stouts, and More
Brew Better Beer is one of the few books on homebrewing written by a woman. Emma Christensen’s guide provides new homebrewers rules to follow when brewing. And she helps provide those rules you should break when brewing. And let’s be honest, breaking the rules is way more fun. Though it’s important to know which rules you should break or you may end up with some undrinkable beer. This book also features full-color photos of each brewing step to help you understand what you should (and shouldn’t) be doing.
49. Craft Beer for the Homebrewer: Recipes from America’s Top Brewmasters
Michael Agnew is a certified cicerone and homebrewer. In his book, he helps craft beer fans who are also homebrewers learn how the professional brewers would make homebrew versions of their most popular recipes. As any professional brewer will tell you, there are challenges when scaling recipes up or down. This book excels because the pro brewers helped decide how to scale down those recipes perfect for the homebrewer brewing extracts in their apartment or full-grain in their garage.
50. Microbrewed Adventures: A Lupulin Filled Journey to the Heart and Flavor of the World’s Great Craft Beers
We finish our list of the top 50 books for homebrewers with the author behind our top choice, Charlie Papazian. This book differs from his how-to-guides in that it’s narrated a bit like a travel show. Charlie crisscrossing the country looking for great beers and chatting with some of the country’s top brewers. This book is equal parts entertainment as well as education. Learn tasting tips, special homebrew tips, and the secrets behind some of the world’s most flavor packed beers. Mr. Papazian once again delivers his unique take on the craft beer industry he had such a large part in creating.
Methodology
In order to find the best homebrewing books, we researched best-of lists on homebrewing from reputable websites and authors on craft beer, books sold on industry websites, and the author’s own personal experience. For each time a book on homebrewing appeared on a list, we gave it a point. Then we added up all the points to come up with the top 50 best books on homebrewing. Finally, we divided the list into the best books for beginning homebrewers, the best books for advanced homebrewers, industry, and other homebrewing related books.
We hope you find this list on books for homebrewers to be useful. Our goal is to help you make better beer (or to help your friend make better beer) so you can drink better beer.