Grape Culture, Wines and Wine Making Book

The fact that it's such a short book is both its best quality and its main short-coming. This book gives just enough practical advice to help get someone oriented to the art of home-brewing so that they can confidently brew their first couple batches. But there isn't much in there about some of the finer, more technical points -- the particulars about different hop varieties or yeast strains, for example. As someone who has a bit of brewing under his belt now, this book felt like "not enough" -- but at the same time, I think if someone had handed me this book a year ago when I was just getting started[^1] I think it would have been just the right amount of detail for those first couple batches.

Recommendation? If you want to try homebrewing, and you're not the kind of person who goes "all in" all at once, then this is the perfect book to get you started. But it won't be long before you graduate to Papazian's or Palmer's book.[^2]

Nice set of recipes in the back, though.

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[^1]: And let's be frank here -- even after a year, I'd still say that I'm "just getting started".

[^2]: But if you are the kind to go all in, all at once, then just skip straight to Palmer's How to Brew or Papazian's The Joy of Homebrewing . Since that's where you're likely to end up anyway.