The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing

Often touted as the home-brewer's bible, The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing charts a beginning brewer's course, keeping the focus on enjoying the process as well as the results of home-brewing. An easy-to-use table of ingredients helps the newly initiated design their own recipes, although many home-brewers happily spend years sampling those Papazian provides. Dozens of recipes for all levels of experience are here, christened with the most improbable (and irresistible?) names in home-brewing literature ("Toad Spit Stout," "Cheeks to the Wind Mild," and "Goat Scrotum Ale" among them).

While Papazian's classic does cover a broad sweep of home-brewing techniques (including more advanced procedures like grain mashing and yeast culturing), it's more than just a home-brewer's guidebook. Papazian's personal take on the history of American brewing is an entertaining read for any beer enthusiast, and his laid-back, humor-driven style engages readers whether or not they've ever boiled up a brew. This book makes home-brewers almost as often as it helps them. If enthusiastic friends haven't convinced you to start home-brewing, The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing undoubtedly will. --Todd Gehman

Papazian's motto is "Relax, don't worry--have a homebrew!" Rather than getting bogged down in the details of making perfect, contest-winning beers, Papazian focuses on the basic steps a homebrewer has to follow to make good beer. You can make something tasty and enjoyable with minimal equipment, malt extract and part of a weekend afternoon, and Papazian holds the brewer's hand through the entire process. Once you've nailed the basics--and it's not hard--the last part of the book teaches you how to advance to intermediate brewing without much additional hassle.

Experienced brewers may find this book too basic for their needs. Beginning and intermediate brewers will find it invaluable.

Relax... Don't Worry... Have a Homebrew!

I also felt as though Miller's books lacked detail in certain areas and could have benefited from more information and pictures as well. Papazian does sometimes recommend bad habit forming advise in the early chapters of this book in the sack of keeping it simple, but later corrects himself leaving the choice up to the reader. I think this book is a "must have" for a beginning home brewer. Advanced home brewers, whether all grain or partial mash, may also find Charlie's writing entertaining and informative (just skip the first few chapters, because some of his recommendations may make the advanced brewer cringe!).

The later chapters in this book have very good information on all aspects of brewing, from aeration to yeast propagation. I would recommend this book to anyone that doesn't have a copy of it in their home brewing library.

Then I stumbled across this book in a homebrew shop. It was EXACTLY what I needed as a first time homebrewer. I had no one to show me how to do it, but this book proved to be an excellent guide. It is a fun book to read, helps you to understand all the basics, and gives you more in-depth information later on if you want it.

This book provided me with everything I needed in a simple-to-understand format, and answered all my questions. I've been brewing for 10 years now, and never needed to buy another homebrew instruction book. It even contains a good number of recipes from many different styles, and I've never found one I didn't like.