Clone Recipe Books

[bcp]

Looking at a couple of clone recipe books, and after people's experiences with either book.

CloneBrews, 2nd Edition: Recipes for 200 Brand-Name Beers. (Szamatulski)
BYO 250 Classic Clone Recipes. (BYO).
Or something else?

The first one has some very decent beers, but it all comes down to how well they interpret the recipes.

 

[brettprevans]

Whoever replies can they also put the review of the books into the brewbook wiki here http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum//ind...showtopic=31417

 

[fraser_john]

I have the clonebrews book and it is a "reasonable" resource. 3 out of 5 is how I would review it.

To be honest, I get more info on cloning beers from web surfing.

 

[michaelcocks]

Looking at a couple of clone recipe books, and after people's experiences with either book.

CloneBrews, 2nd Edition: Recipes for 200 Brand-Name Beers. (Szamatulski)
BYO 250 Classic Clone Recipes. (BYO).
Or something else?

The first one has some very decent beers, but it all comes down to how well they interpret the recipes.

if you like English beers particularly I have found the homebrew recipe databse by Les howarth tone vry useful
available for about 6$ as an ebook online just serach author and title
has over 2000 recipes
needs to be used with a bit of experience as it does not go into exact detail on each recipe

 

[benno1973]

I have both clonebrews and the BYO clones, and the BYO wins in my opinion. Clonebrews has some good recipes, but seems very formulaic in how they approach things. There's not a huge diversity of ingredients used (as you would expect when cloning beers from all parts of the world) and not much variation or discussion about yeast or mash procedure, etc etc.

Clonebrews seems a bit more in depth and almost like they've tried to clone the beer, rather than get 'somewhere in the ballpark'.

If you want a real shocker of a book, buy 'Great Beers of the World and How to Brew Them at Home' by Laurie Strachan. Not worth the money.

To be honest, the best clone recipes come from forums like this one. Do a google search for what you're looking for and you'll generally find that someone has tried to replicate the beer *exactly*, with in-depth discussions of ingredients, mash regimes, fermentation regimes, etc.

 

[michaelcocks]

Not really a clone brew book so a but off topic
but brewing classic styles I have found to be a great start for lots of recipes

happy brewing

 

[Pennywise]

Not really a clone brew book so a but off topic
but brewing classic styles I have found to be a great start for lots of recipes

happy brewing

This. This is a good book, not only does it give you recipes that are easy to follow, but it gives you a hell of alot of info on how to make a ceratin style without the need for a recipe. A must have IMO for anyone trying to get their head around styles and ingredients used in certain styles. Big +1, although it doesn't have "clones" as such, but great beers and they are sort of clones, just not of beers we can all buy from the bottlo

 

[yardy]

Not really a clone brew book so a but off topic
but brewing classic styles I have found to be a great start for lots of recipes

happy brewing

This. This is a good book, not only does it give you recipes that are easy to follow, but it gives you a hell of alot of info on how to make a ceratin style without the need for a recipe. A must have IMO for anyone trying to get their head around styles and ingredients used in certain styles. Big +1, although it doesn't have "clones" as such, but great beers and they are sort of clones, just not of beers we can all buy from the bottlo

apologies for off topic but Brewing Classic Styles is a good book B)

 

[matho]

i have one clone recipe book called 'brewing beers like those you can buy' by david line.
first published in the mid 70's its more usefull as an insight into english beers at the time and how they homebrewed them and for all those people that think BIAB is a new thing the book pretty much describes the process to a tee. Its a good read but the recipes are a bit crude but back then they didn't have the choice of ingredients that we have.

cheer's matho :icon_cheers:

 

[HoppingMad]

Have both Clone Brews and the BYO one.
Also have Beer Captured which is by the same authors as Clone Brews.

My take:
- Clone Brews has plenty of lager style recipes which tend to have one or two small variations on grain bill or hops.
So a fair bit of repetition, plus there's a big focus on stuff in or close to the US, and the odd mainstream beer like Heineken.
- BYO has a more global focus and has some good stout recipes for those fans (Beamish, Guinness & Youngs Double Choc Stout) this book is also cheaper.
There's even a clone here for an AHB fave - Coopers Sparkling Ale. That said there are recipes for beers that us Aussies would have never heard of, as
many are made by small US brewers.
- Beer Captured has quite a few European beers of the higher alcohol variety I've found like dopplebocks. Some more adventurous stuff that I'm not quite up to in terms of skill. Personally I was found wanting in terms of finding good 'session beers'. Most looked pretty rich in terms of ingredients and the sort of beers you'd need to drink with a smoking jacket on. That said, if you're looking for some unusual recipes to knock a brewing judge's socks off in terms of 'bigness', there might be something in this book for you.

All books are great references to have in the brew library, but for bang for your buck and sheer range of recipes I'd be going BYO.

:icon_cheers: Hopper.

 

[neonmeate]

i have beer captured and clonebrews. I used to use them a lot back in 2003 or so, and if I actually followed the recipes completely, they made really good beers. but were they clones?!!? no way. the more I found out about the beers they were trying to make the more it became apparent that they had MADE IT ALL UP.... without bothering to check obvious data like 1762=Rochefort yeast for example. there are some real shockers in there such as "pear essence" in Duvel... (perhaps to compensate for advising the wrong yeast!). Some of the recipes in there are very nice such as the Victory Hop Devil. The problem (and also with the Wheeler and Protz clone book) is that it's never revealed what in the recipes is gospel from the brewery, what is an educated guess, and what is plain random guessing.

These books are really outdated now, just in the space of 10 years the availability of ingredients and information out there through sites like this has totally made them obsolete.

 

[bconnery]

i have beer captured and clonebrews. I used to use them a lot back in 2003 or so, and if I actually followed the recipes completely, they made really good beers. but were they clones?!!? no way. the more I found out about the beers they were trying to make the more it became apparent that they had MADE IT ALL UP.... without bothering to check obvious data like 1762=Rochefort yeast for example. there are some real shockers in there such as "pear essence" in Duvel... (perhaps to compensate for advising the wrong yeast!). Some of the recipes in there are very nice such as the Victory Hop Devil. The problem (and also with the Wheeler and Protz clone book) is that it's never revealed what in the recipes is gospel from the brewery, what is an educated guess, and what is plain random guessing.

These books are really outdated now, just in the space of 10 years the availability of ingredients and information out there through sites like this has totally made them obsolete.

I will second this. I've seen a few of these posted around the way and many of them ignored known information about the beers. Far better to search the web from what I've found...