GreatBeerNow.com

Do you like to make beer but wish you had a general brewing book to guide you along the way? If so, then you might enjoy Designing Great Beers: The Ultimate Guide to Brewing Classic Beer Styles, a book by Ray Daniels. This reference and reading book contains plenty of useful information to help you brew the perfect batch of beer.

Designing Great Beers is a lengthy book, with more than 400 total pages and divided into two main sections. The first part of the book concentrates on homebrewing ingredients and techniques. The second part of the book breaks down the major styles of beer, complete with facts and figures that detail the history, composition, and other important information on the different styles of beer common today. Charts accompany much of the data, helping to visually explain the numeric data for better understanding.
The main idea behind Designing Great Beers is to help the reader/homebrewer with recipe formulation. But unlike other books about homebrewing, this book doesn’t just hand you the recipes. Rather, it wants to help you create your own recipe. This creative angle is different from other brewing guides and it makes Designing Great Beers stands out in the growing pack of homebrewing volumes. The book explains the different styles and what makes each unique, then leaves the rest to you, the curious homebrewer. With such great explanations and charts, the imagination starts to flow faster than a freshly tapped keg. Homebrewers will quickly feel a sense of inspiration and rush to their homebrewing journal to take notes and prepare their next recipe.
Homebrewers need advice and suggestions, and that includes even the most seasoned among us. Designing Great Beers aims to acquaint readers with the different styles available with solid advice on achieving target levels of gravity, IBU, and more. It is a very useful guide for homebrewers who have graduated from beginner’s brewing school and want to learn more ways to hone their craft.
Rating: 9 Cheers out of 10

Author Charlie Papazian is a well- known name in beer circles, and it was only a matter of time before he wrote, “The Homebrewer’s Companion,” a book about brewing beer with information on styles, techniques, specifications, and more.

(more…)

Ever wondered exactly what your college aged “child” was talking about when describing the game beer pong? Want to know the real rules behind the drinking game “quarters?” Or maybe you are getting ready to have your own Mardi Gras, New Years or Oktoberfest party and would like to have a game or two to play. Consider using this complete guide to beer drinking games.

(more…)

I am a lover of big, strong, tasty brews so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that I rank Dogfish Head Brewing Company among my favorites. I like most every product produced by this company and when I found out that brewer and entrepreneur Sam Calagione wrote a book about his brewing operation and path to success, I was anxious to read it to see if Calagione had any interesting tips on the business of brewing. What I discovered with this book is that Sam Calagione has some good advice to offer brewing/restaurant entrepreneurs and others who have a pressing urge to start their own company. He has tried many different things at his Dogfish Head Brewing Company, and his penchant for the unusual has proven to be a great success and serving as the backbone of his business.

Calagione spends the majority of this book discussing Dogfish Head Brewing from the early days of formation all the way to the point of maturity. He talks at length about his own business model and how his method of management has helped transform his company. He talks about everything from innovation to employee morale to profit sharing to community involvement. He shows how his model of success has worked for his type of business and how the same model can be applied to other types of businesses as well.
This book see- saws back and forth between business guide and autobiography but it leans more toward the business side of the equation. Calagione frequently offers up his own company as an example of which business tactics work and which do not. Calagione has achieved a great deal of success but he has the humility to admit that he has also made his share of mistakes. He points these out in the book where appropriate, showing how a misstep here and a miscalculation there added up to exponential problems down the road and what you, the fledgling business owner, can do to avoid making the same mistakes.
One small disappointment with this book is that it’s a business guide more than anything else. I have nothing against business guides and I certainly applaud anyone who wants to startup a new brewery. However, I was hoping to find out more about the man behind Dogfish Head Shelter Pale Ale and Chicory Stout and not just a book about starting and running a company. Calagione does share a few personal moments from his past, like his expulsion from private school; his passion for beer; the role his wife has played in his success; etc. But other than this, the book is more about business than anything else.
Brewing up a Business, in spite of its less than perfect writing and content is, overall, a good book for the budding entrepreneur and for beer geeks of all stripes and colors. Sam Calagione writes fairly well and he offers up a good deal of humor to keep the book from getting too serious. He has achieved a great deal of success with his Dogfish Head Brewing Company and he wants to share this success with small business owners everywhere. With the right passion, innovation, and drive, a small company can achieve greatness and Sam Calagione is a tribute to this fact.
Rating: 7 Cheers out of 10