Secrets from the Master Brewers: America's Top Professional Brewers Share Recipes and Tips for Great Homebrewing

As a professional brewer I found this book interesting in that I was able to view thoughts on the subject by other professional brewers that I did not personally know. I frequently contact others in my area of the country and share thoughts and knowledge. The recipes seem to be good examples of the styles they mean to emulate. You must remember beers can be very different from region to region, (but sweet stout should fall into certain guidelines) and vary brewer to brewer. That's what makes brewing and tasting beer so great.I can appreciate the effort put forth by these authors, I also enjoyed thier first book. If a brewer felt missreresented in the book, well, I can't speak for the authors or that brewer, but in my mind the book was done well and is just what it claims to be.The appproach to the recipes is relaxed and that is wonderfull. It will call for and ounce of Chinook hops, and not call for alpha acid or IBU's. While this is important to exactly replicate a beer time after time, I find the spirit of brewing is more closly followed by the more relaxed approach. Anyway, good book.

This is a great book to progress to after you've read a couple of the starter homebrewing books. It's eye opening to hear the methods and techniques of the actual microbrewers. Their collection of recipes is the best I've seen in one book. The most important thing that I learned in this book is the importance of uncontaminated yeast strains. This one factor alone convinced me to use only liquid strains and therefore lesson the possibility of souring. My beers have been exceptional ever since reading this book.