My sister and her husband are pretty flash with a home brew kit. They gave me a kit once. Didnt work. There were a myriad of things that I didnt do right. I will blame my flatmate at the time. The thing is, we still drunk the beer it produced, despite how awful it turned out to be. It was cloudy, had a tonne of dregs and tasted dreadful. But it was beer so we drank it all. Makes complete sense.
It was my first and as at this point in time, my last batch of beer. Why bother waiting a week or some foul tasting beer when you can just pop down to the supermarket at any time of the day and pick up a box a export gold for $18? Sure it tastes like crap, but at least you know it’s going to taste like crap and you don’t have to wait a week to find out.
It turns out that Michael Donaldson went through a similar dilemma when he starting making beer. The Big Book of Home Brew, note to Mr Donaldson, I would have expected the book to be at least 40% larger, the contents are definitely ‘big’ but I would have preferred the book itself to be A4, has a lot of stuff in it. Stuff that will work in your favour and make it so you don’t stuff the whole thing up.
The big book will help with the big stuff ups. The author has come a long way in his brewing career, as expected from anyone writing a book about the art form. The book gives the usual back story of brewing but then goes much further and produces a quality guide…no, manual, for brewing. After delving into it I started to gain a little confidence. It’s the operating manual I wish I had been given along with the brew kit. Seems to me, there’s a marketing partnership right there just begging to be taking advantage of.
The Big Book of Home Brew will help you understand how to make your own amber gold and it will also give you insights into what when wrong. The author notes that it’s not always easy to pin point the exact cause of the problem, but he does give you many options to consider.
Along with the store bought brew kits, Donaldson sheds some light on how the professionals do it. Of course, given how hard that is, why would you when you can just buy the malt from a huge range of retailers these days? Something to do with ‘pride in your work’ I guess?
Recipes are also provided from some of New Zealand’s best brewers so you can create your own. The way I see it, you can get busy brewing or get busy buying. This book will definitely help you with the former.
