Designing great beers by Ray Daniels

[Joos]

THE best book you will ever read. It's more like a text book, but it's great.

[Redweasel]

Just picked another copy of this up myself as I loaned out my original copy and never got it back. Pretty daunting at first glance, but as you get into it there is a ton of great info. The charts and descriptions are extremely helpful. A must read when first starting out formulating recipes.

[Joos]

Thank you for saying it better than me:D

[shrekfx]

cool. might have to see if my barnes and noble have it here.. I do need to get there soon and pick up the new byo.. I need to get a supscription going for that

[Joos]

Shrek I got mine on amazon new for $9.50

[shrekfx]

I'll have to see if its at barnes first. by pass the shipping.

[flyangler18]

It's an important text for anyone's brewing library, but it's not without its flaws.

Personally, I would love to see Ray come up with a new edition that (a) uses commercial examples for the style analysis rather than homebrewed examples and (b) covers Belgian styles.

[Redweasel]

It's an important text for anyone's brewing library, but it's not without its flaws.

Personally, I would love to see Ray come up with a new edition that (a) uses commercial examples for the style analysis rather than homebrewed examples and (b) covers Belgian styles.

I agree totally. It is becoming a bit outdated. There are several styles missing. Still, a great resource.

[salad 419]

I borrowed OB's copy and never read it. I was expecting it to be a quick 2 day read, but it's more of a study, read, study, re-read type book. I'm NOT complaining. I really need to find the time to delve into it. I enjoy texts like that, but was not expecting the book to be so in depth.

[Lerxst]

It's an important text for anyone's brewing library, but it's not without its flaws.

Personally, I would love to see Ray come up with a new edition that (a) uses commercial examples for the style analysis rather than homebrewed examples and (b) covers Belgian styles.

QFT

It's a great book and I would have been willing to pay a higher cover price if he included more styles. I enjoyed the background information and discussion on the evolution of the styles. There's a great amount of valuable information that I consult often, especially the summary/keys part of each style. Hell, the style data and history in the book alone is worth the read.

OTOH, I could have done with out some of the really basic brewing section. The analysis of ingredients in winning homebrewed examples is an interesting idea but as presented, flawed from my POV. Presenting the halmarks of the style then giving the reader a slew of data that falls well outside of what you just discussed doesn't really add much value. The "Keys" section at the end of each style kinda makes amends for it but why go there in the first place? So what if some guy back in 2000 brewed a winning kolsch that used 20% crystal 80? He doesn't always have the space to go into the complexities of how that brewer compensated for that ingredient and it basically white noise for the reader to ignore.

[flyangler18]

OTOH, he wasn't nearly as connected into the world of professional breweries in 2000 as he is now, so I suspect he was working with the best data available to him at the time.

To give this some personal perspective, I've emailed Moorhouse several times to get insights into the source of the yeast used in Black Cat and Witch's Brew and I've been ignored. A homebrewer friend of mine (who now works at Clipper City) related an experience in dealing with the brewmaster of Moorhouse - he asked him for a HB version of Black Cat. The brewmaster wrote down a grainbill and hop schedule and handed it over. Upon inspection, it was clear that the recipe as written couldn't possibly be anywhere close to Black Cat. When the brewmaster was called out on it, he replied that he wouldn't ever distribute the recipe because it was his livelihood. Could Daniels have gotten that information had he asked? I dunno - but it's certainly possible.

Breweries, in general, are much more open to sharing grain bills and hop schedules now. I suspect this wasn't the case in 2000.

[Lerxst]

It would have been just as easy to filter out the fringe examples & if you want to include them for completeness/full disclosure, toss the full analysis graphs together in an appendix. I just think a simple move like that would have made for a more cohesive read....not that it's all that hard as the reader to filter that data out yourself.

[JXLT]

The homebrew analysis were kinda pointless to me too but it is a good resource for info like what makes an IPA an IPA and what different percentages of the grist can be made of.