Designing Great Beers: The Ultimate Guide to Brewing Classic Beer Styles

Product Description

Author Ray Daniels provides the brewing formulas, tables, and information to take your brewing to the next level in this detailed technical manual. [Read more]

Features

• Used Book in Good Condition

Top Reviews

It took me to the next level.
by Dark Wing Duck (5 out of 5 stars)
October 9, 2015

I started brewing a couple years ago and knock out a brew every few months. I did extract once and then immediately to all grain and learned that process and I was wondering what next...

I got this book and it sat around with a few glances for a bit and I finally got to reading it with a notepad. I appreciate it much more now. The chapters are short and too the point with about the first 3rd covering the technical basics of designing a beer. It doesn't give you all the science. You learn how to select your grain bill for a target gravity and calculate target IBUs based on the hopping schedule. I was able to set up an excel sheet to auto calculate these from my selections.

If you're home brewing with all grain, tinkering with the recipes of others, "The Complete Joy of Home Brewing" by Charlie Papazian is no longer satisfying your curiosity, want clearer definitions, want to be able to calculate your targets beforehand, and are wondering where to go next, this is probably for you.

The last 2/3 of the book cover beer styles with definitions of and typical ranges for OGs, IBUs, etc. There are specific definitions for each beer which need to be used if you were to enter a competition and this gives it to you. Of course as a brewer, you can do what you wish but the guide will help tell you what it is not. I'm a bigger beer snob now because of it.

Out of the gate, I designed a rye porter and it's the best beer I've made to date. My second incarnation was not as good but that will come with better knowledge of the ingredients. Perhaps, I can get a book on grains next.

The point is that I'd been starting with other peoples recipes and tinkering with those and this book let me design a beer based on my ideas and it worked well the first time out of the gate. It also allows me to look at other recipes and decide what's going to work for me.
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I finally understand what this book is saying!
by Elissa Flores (5 out of 5 stars)
December 1, 2015

I have been brewing for a couple years now, and I bought this book after my first two batches. At that time, I couldn't understand much of what this book was trying to teach me, I wasn't ready. Now, two years later and more batches of beer than I can count, I plucked this book from the shelf and everything has clicked. The language of Brewers is now something I understand, and I have a clear understanding of the brew process, so this book isn't like reading a foreign language now. This book has the technical explanations for designing your own beers, teaching you the equations you need to control your sugars in your mash, and the bitterness from your hops. Now that I am reading this book, I am finding answers to problems I had before and didn't know how to solve. I would strongly recommend this book for an intermediate Brewer. I think this book is too advanced for someone who is starting out. A new Brewer would be better off following recipes and learning how to use their system before turning to this book.
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If you want to learn how to design great beers - buy this book. If you want a list of recipes, look
by P. Mulloy (5 out of 5 stars)
December 16, 2014

Ray Daniels started home brewing in 1989, became a certified amateur beer judge in 1992, and won a beer writer of the year award in 1998. Daniels is the founder and director of the Cicerone Certification Program - a Sommelier program for beer servers. He is currently on the faculty of the Siebel Institute of Technology - a world class brewing school in Chicago founded in 1872. Daniels has authored over 2 dozen books. He wrote this book in 1996, published it in 1998 and copyrighted it again in 2000. The bulk of the book is over 20 years out of date. Some styles have emerged in the past 20 years such as Belgian Wits, Saisons, sours, Imperial IPAs and other big gravity beers that he does not cover. Even out of date, the book warrants 5 stars. Daniels has written this book for the advanced home brewer and small craft brewer. The book is not a compendium of beer recipes. It's what the title says: Designing Great Beers. Daniels guides the brewer through how to create beer recipes rather than giving the brewer a list. Part One, roughly a third of the book, covers how to develop a plan for creating a great beer: 1) what are the characteristics of the beer you want to make, 2) how to figure out how much malt or malt extract you will need, 3) how much and what kind of water will you need, 4) what kind of hops, how much and when to add them, 5) what kind of yeast do you want and what temperatures do you need for it, and 6) how to finish your beer. Sure he uses math. How else would a brewer figure out how much malt, hops or yeast to use and how else would brewer know how to correct his or her water? Part 2, comprising about two thirds of the book reviews the major styles of the mid to late 1990s. Daniels provides background information on the style, reviews the basic techniques of the style and then he reviews recipe examples for commercial beers and home brew recipes from the National Homebrew Competition for 1993 and 1994. Anyone mastering the techniques described in the first part of the book and observing how Daniels applies those techniques in the second half of the book should be able fill in the blanks for the news styles that have emerged in the past 20 years. If you want to improve your brewing techniques and learn how to design great beers, then buy this book. If you want a list of recipes, look elsewhere. Amazon review 12-16-14
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Designing Great Brewers
by R. Johnson (5 out of 5 stars)
March 7, 2018

Although packed with lots of technical information, this should be a must have tome for any brewers book shelf.

Technicals aside, there is a wealth of history and easy to comprehend design details I now know I was missing. The more technical portions are not outside of the laymans understanding. Getting some of them under your belt will push your abilities to a higher level.

At this point I have made it 3/4 of the way through and have already adjusted my recipes and techniques to a better end result. Yes, I am now making better beer. I use Beersmith software because it keeps you in line in terms of style but does not restrict the creativity. By adding this book, I feel that I have expanded on the resources available to me to create even better brews. I still have more to read and an entire book to help me be a much better brewer.
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itll change the way you brew
by Charles R Partak (4 out of 5 stars)
June 28, 2019

Ive been home brewing (All grain) for almost 3 yrs when I bought this last year. I have a copy of Charlie Papazians Complete Joy of Home brewing . I would recommend anyone starting home brewing to get that book and read it cover to cover first. This one by Ray Daniels is a great step up to improving on the home brewing basics giving a better understanding of history and why we use the ingredients we do to recreate the beers . If you're looking for a recipe book , this isnt it. But, what it does is give you the tools to help you design your own recipes based on styles and proportions of ingredients ,water profiles ,hops and yeasts by comparing brews from competitions. You will make better beer.
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This has some amazing things in it
by Ray McGrede (5 out of 5 stars)
February 19, 2018

This has some amazing things in it...if you like to get reaaaaaly sciency with your beer making you can. It contains a lot of formulas that I really wanted to know, until I had access to them...and then I decided that I didn't care as much as I thought about them. For instance. I used to take 3 runnings when I made a batch of beer. I would get gravity readings and volumes of all three of the runnings. There is a formula that will tell you what your SG should be if you have 1st running 2.5 gal at 1.080, 2nd runnings 3 gal at 1.060 and 3rd runnings 1 gal at 1.040, and then combine them before boil. Before I knew how to do this I just took a reading after I combined them...frankly this works great for me, but the idea was to be able to adjust your beer to a specific gravity. I never adjust...it is whatever it is...in the end it's beer.
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The first book I've ever read!
by Bryan (4 out of 5 stars)
February 26, 2016

I love this book and it's the first one that I've actually read cover to cover. It's well written and was easy to understand, even when I was new to brewing. The only reason I'm giving it 4 stars is because the ingredients have evolved so much since this book was published. It's still an excellent foundation for recipe formulation and the information is still applicable to classic styles. The major shortcoming is with the hop-driven American styles that have evolved so much over the past decade. I'm hopeful Ray will put out an update in the future.
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A Keeper
by Bruce E. Munck (5 out of 5 stars)
July 18, 2014

All you could ever hope to know about formulating your own custom beer recipes is found in this book. It will teach you about the ingredients and processes necessary to produce a beer with just the characteristics you want. Armed with all of this knowledge you will be totally prepared to design that incredible beer you've been dreaming about. Have you ever wondered how some people manage to create virtually flawless beers while others make beer that is unremarkable? Well, it's a two part process that starts with choosing the right ingredients in the right quantities and ends with brewing the beer. There are a myriad of books on the shelves that explain the finer points of brewing beer, a subject that has been covered from nearly every angle imaginable; however, there are precious few volumes devoted to choosing ingredients that will produce a particular taste, color, ABV, head, so that the beer you brew is the beer you want. This is one of those tomes. Not just one of them, but the pre-eminent one. Mastering the principles in this book will put you in position to be the brewer you never believed you could be. Brewing is an art and it takes time and practice to produce truly outstanding beers, but it can be done. By you! As a brewer, you would like to have a signature beer that comes out good and the same every time you brew it. This book will give you the tools needed to produce a repeatable recipe in whatever style you decide to use. If you ever decide to open a brewpub or micro-brewery you will have to produce repeatable beers or else you will go out of business. The material in this book will equip you to do just that. These are great times for people aspiring to brew great beer and there is an unlimited supply of information available to help you along in your quest. This book is one you don't want to miss, so what are you waiting for?
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A must have for serious homebrewers
by Jeremy Vohwinkle (5 out of 5 stars)
April 10, 2012

If you've already read the standard books on how to brew your own beer and have been successfully brewing for a while and want to begin creating your own recipes, this book needs to be in your library. In the first part of the book you'll receive a detailed overview of what goes into making great beer, which is very helpful if you're relatively new to all grain brewing. That alone is worth picking this book up for, but what I like is the coverage of the main beer styles found in part two. If you're thinking about brewing a pale ale you can simply flip through the book to the pale ale section and get some information about the style, its history, and what makes it unique. Then armed with that information you can begin to formulate a recipe that is appropriate for the style.

No, this isn't a beginner's book that just glosses over the basics. There is a lot of technical information here, which is perfect if you really want to dig into brewing the best beer possible. I still refer to it regularly when I'm creating or tweaking a past recipe.
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Taking it to the Next Level
by N. Malcolm Peterson (5 out of 5 stars)
March 11, 2011

I first got this book from the library. I can honestly say, it wasn't what I was looking for at the time. As a new home brewer, I wanted to brew and drink drinkable beers as soon as I could. I have yet to meet a home brewer who has the necessary patience to make truly great brews right out of the gate. Not to say they aren't completely drinkable, just really following someone else's lead.

Half a year later I gave this book a second shot after reading "Brew Like a Monk". Reading it a second time was like two different books! What had happened?!? Well, obviously the book hadn't changed. My outlook on brewing had. It had matured and I had moved to a level of wanting to produce not only original, but consistent and delicious brews.

My first go-around I was essentially looking for shortcuts and recipes, therefore I was disappointed.

My second go-around I was really looking to understand what I was doing and wanting to control the process instead of just following a bunch of steps.

If all you want from home brewing is to brew good drinkable beer, save your money and put it towards ingredients or supplies. If you want to move your brewing and understanding of brewing to the next level in a very readable form, this book will be a good investment.

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