Brewing Classic Styles: 80 Winning Recipes Anyone Can Brew

Comment: I bought the book because I am relatively new to home brewing and wanted a recipe book that allows one to make all of the classic beer styles within their guidelines. Jamil seems to be a hero in the home brewing community with his radio show and several books. This book has some great qualities such as the comments about the styles that beer judges are looking for in a classic example. What it really lacks is a solid procedure for producing half boil extract recipes. I have tried four different recipes with unreliable starting gravity resulting in having to pour out from the fermenter to dilute. My other qualm with this book is the starting amount for a 5 gallon batch. He starts with 7 gallons, 6 at the end of boil and 5.5 in the fermenter. When using extract on a high gravity beer, this ends up being several lbs of unnecessary waste. I would recommend this book for someone that has either an all grain system or the ability to do a full boil and is looking to produce the classic styles. If you are extract brewer with a 5 gallon pot I would wait until you get more equipment to buy this book.

Comment: This is the best beer recipe book out there. If you are like me, I formulated many of my early beers from recipies on the internet. And if you are like me, my early beers were far from award winners. This book is set apart from other recipe books because every recipe has been proven in competition. I am confident that everyone of my brews will be amazing if I follow this book. One thing to note, follow the ingredient list, brewing process, fermentation temperature, etc EXACTLY how it appears in the book before trying to tweak it. If you listen to Jamil's podcast, you know that he has painstakingly refined each recipe to perfection. My recommendation is to listen to his podcast on that particular style before brewing.

Friends don't let friends use random unproven internet recipes!

Comment: I listen to the Jamil Show with John Palmer all the time. The guys have made my brewing grow exponentially.
There are so many techniques out there, but not a lot of recipes that say: This is how to get what the judges are looking for.
Jamil's recipes are outstanding. John Palmer's insight into the various techniques, are the best I've seen.

Comment: If you've just started brewing and are trying to figure out the brewing process, buy "How to Brew" (Palmer). After you've brewed a while and get a handle on the process, you'll realize that there are a slew of recipes available (internet, magazines, blogs, etc.), but the quality of those recipes is unknown and ranges from horrible to great. This book solves that problem: 80 recipes that have actually won brewing awards; several of these recipes were "borrowed" and now mass produced by commercial craft breweries. I've personally brewed 17 different recipes from this book and can attest that each one has been fabulous.

Commercial beer clone recipes are also available for free on "The Brewing Network" in Jamil's (the author's) podcasts entitled "Can You Brew It?", where Jamil interviews the brewmasters of well-known craft breweries to get the actual recipe for their beers. He only considers the beer "cloned" if it passes blind taste tests among several of his peers. So far they are at an 80%-clone success rate. Check it out!

Comment: I bought this book upon the reccomendation of a friend. If you are just starting or have been brewing a while, this book is for you. Easy to read and understand. I have tried 2 of the 80 recipes so far and they are excellent. This book has given new direction to my brewing appreciation.