wee stu
wee stu's brury - hand made beers, award winning l
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For those looking for an Aussie intro into beer and homebrewing, and lacking the time and dedication for extensive ebay searches or second hand bookshop trudgery, Laurie Strachan has brought out a new and updated book.
Laurie is the other expat Scottish homebrewer who writes about beer and brewing
His previous books are The Complete Guide to Home Brewing in Australia 1993, and Great Beers of the World and How to Brew Them At Home 2000
His new book is The Complete Guide to Beer and Brewing. The book doesn't really live up to its grandiose title, but it is a dinkum Aussie beer and brewing book. It certainly builds on and improves his previous efforts, and if you don't yet have a brewing book in your library, there are far worse places to start.
I've noticed it creeping into a few of the big boys (Dymock, A&R) Xmas catalogues, so it should be readily available.
Production values are high, and at 272 pages, there is a lot of information to be gleaned.
The bulk of the book (the first 150 or so pages) is largely devoted to a discussion of the various beer styles. If nothing else, this part of the book should further entrench the domination of the BJCP approach in Australia. Each style has a short intro from Laurie, which is followed by an often more extensive, if edited, cut and paste of the BJCP style guideline.
Part 2, some 40 pages, introduces us to basic home brewing - from kits to extract baed. There are only 8 kit based recipes, and they seem quite similar to the ones in Great Beers of the World...... The extract brews are a new addition, but as someone who never dipped his paddle into extract brewing, so to speak, I don't feel qualified to pass meaningful comment.
Part 3, advanced brewing, gives very much a crash course in all grain brewing in 12 pages, followed by 20 pages of workable recipes that, understandably, focus on the most readily available grains and hops. Basic but workable stuff.
Part 4 runs through aspects of handling, serving, tasting and eating with beer.
AHB gets a mention in his list of resources on the web, though a number of notable home brew suppliers don't. The list of microbreweries is not nearly as up to date as that provided a couple of months ago in Willie Simpson's The Beer Bible, including as it does, for example, Lawrence Victor which closed a couple of years back. Parochially perhaps, I noticed that newer SA entrants like Gulf and Steam Exchange are absent.
All in all this is a handsome, and welcome, update to the previous Strachan canon. The most noteworthy addition, however, is the large slab of BJCP derived information.
I bought the book, because I always buy any beer book I come across.
My advice to others is to check it out first in your local bookshop. Maybe even add it to your Xmas wish list, and let a loved one spend the $30 on you. You know you are worth it after all
This may be the most comprehensive book on beer and brewing yet produced in Australia. We still have a way to go to catch up with our American brewthren.
Laurie is the other expat Scottish homebrewer who writes about beer and brewing
His previous books are The Complete Guide to Home Brewing in Australia 1993, and Great Beers of the World and How to Brew Them At Home 2000
His new book is The Complete Guide to Beer and Brewing. The book doesn't really live up to its grandiose title, but it is a dinkum Aussie beer and brewing book. It certainly builds on and improves his previous efforts, and if you don't yet have a brewing book in your library, there are far worse places to start.
I've noticed it creeping into a few of the big boys (Dymock, A&R) Xmas catalogues, so it should be readily available.
Production values are high, and at 272 pages, there is a lot of information to be gleaned.
The bulk of the book (the first 150 or so pages) is largely devoted to a discussion of the various beer styles. If nothing else, this part of the book should further entrench the domination of the BJCP approach in Australia. Each style has a short intro from Laurie, which is followed by an often more extensive, if edited, cut and paste of the BJCP style guideline.
Part 2, some 40 pages, introduces us to basic home brewing - from kits to extract baed. There are only 8 kit based recipes, and they seem quite similar to the ones in Great Beers of the World...... The extract brews are a new addition, but as someone who never dipped his paddle into extract brewing, so to speak, I don't feel qualified to pass meaningful comment.
Part 3, advanced brewing, gives very much a crash course in all grain brewing in 12 pages, followed by 20 pages of workable recipes that, understandably, focus on the most readily available grains and hops. Basic but workable stuff.
Part 4 runs through aspects of handling, serving, tasting and eating with beer.
AHB gets a mention in his list of resources on the web, though a number of notable home brew suppliers don't. The list of microbreweries is not nearly as up to date as that provided a couple of months ago in Willie Simpson's The Beer Bible, including as it does, for example, Lawrence Victor which closed a couple of years back. Parochially perhaps, I noticed that newer SA entrants like Gulf and Steam Exchange are absent.
All in all this is a handsome, and welcome, update to the previous Strachan canon. The most noteworthy addition, however, is the large slab of BJCP derived information.
I bought the book, because I always buy any beer book I come across.
My advice to others is to check it out first in your local bookshop. Maybe even add it to your Xmas wish list, and let a loved one spend the $30 on you. You know you are worth it after all
This may be the most comprehensive book on beer and brewing yet produced in Australia. We still have a way to go to catch up with our American brewthren.
