Ferguson - Craft Brew: 50 Homebrew Recipes from the Worlds Best Craft Breweries

Anyone can buy kits that contain everything to make beer. (Well, a sort-of beer.) Open a packet of mixed malt-and-hop extract, pour it in a bucket with some water, wait a while, drink: more or less, thats it. But you can also buy microwaveable meals and flatpack furniture it doesnt mean you should. You may get a passable approximation of a distant relative of beer from a kit, but it will lack life and will provide a mere droplet of the enjoyment that comes from brewing from scratch. The next progression from kit brewing is to use dried malt extract in place of fermentable grain: extract brewing uses a soluble powder or syrupy substance in the mashing stage. This can lead to decent beer, and many homebrew journeys begin this way. Its easier, certainly, but will probably leave you feeling like youre missing out on the mistakes, trials and triumphs of real brewing. This book recommends taking the plunge and going all-grain from the start. Youll learn heaps from your misses and miscalculations. So here, all recipes are all-grain using real malt and real hops. It involves a bit more work, but its worth it.

And is craft homebrewing any different from regular homebrewing? In theory, maybe not, but in principle, yes. Homebrewing as we know it today hasnt been a historically continuous practice (at least not a legal one). In Britain, for instance, homebrewing regulations insisted upon a licence until 1963; in the US, making beer at home with a higher ABV than 0.5% was illegal until 1978. Early exponents of late twentieth-century homebrewing were often attracted by financial benefits rather than creative ones, giving the practice an unenviable reputation for producing sinister buckets of undrinkable sludge (a reputation it struggled to shake off for a long time). The new generation of homebrewers find inspiration in the huge range of ingredients and beers they find within their reach.