I really like the way this book is laid out and the recipes look good. Its especially nice to have extract, PM, and all grain recipes in one book. The only big downside for me is that it does not have my favorite beers. Breweries like Rogue, Dogfish Head, Left Hand, etc.. are almost totally absent. I don't have the book in front of me but I can't remember any recipes from most of the wonderful craft breweries in this country. If you more into the larger 'premium' breweries, this book is for you.

The recipes are easy to follow, and tasty. Overall a great book. Try it yourself. A definite must for the zymurgist's library.

After you're done with your introductory beer book and you've made a few batches, you may find that you want to brew something that reminds you of your favorite commercial beer.
This is almost the book for you.

The selection of recipes is heavily slanted toward beer that many homebrewers may find unexciting. But the authors have a very good point: by brewing imitations (maybe we should say tributes) of commercial beers, you learn how beer tastes are built. You get to refine your own sensibilities and taste. And you can't help but end up a better brewer.

Lynn Hoffman, authorNew Short Course in Wine,The

Although this book is slightly dated now (some of the ingredient manufacturers needing an update), I found it very useful & informative for using tried and tested recipes & formulating recipes simular to the types of brews I like to drink. I would recommend it to any novice seeking to replicate their favourite beers at home.

I've only tried one recipe so far and was very happy with it. I partial mash and I modified their recipe to include more grain and less extract. So many brews . . . so little time!

I was expecting the clones to be more well known beers. They did a nice job with the ones they presented but a lot of the content in there are beers ive never heard of. Pick it up for a nice recipe book, but don't expect it to tell you how to make your favorite beer.

I bought this book expecting it to be much better. I now suspect that many of the 5-star reviews were written by clients of the authors' home brew shop!
I have yet to try any of the recipes, as I am an all-grain brewer and this book was definitely written for the malt extract brewer. I do have trouble imagining replicating beers with extract recipes, when all-grain beers are so unarguably superior in all regards! No discussion is allowed on this last point since I was a malt extract brewer for years and have accumulated quite a library of homebrew books! When I changed to all-grain brewing I truly saw the light.
I will, however, make some of these recipes using the all grain method, but it is a shame what a lack of detail there is. I also noticed some huge differences with ingredients, specific gravities, etc. when compared to other books. One excellent (all-grain) book I have in mind is by Protz and Wheeler of CAMRA. There is none of the "boil for 2 minutes then add blah blah. Boil for another 14 minutes and add..." All the recipes are simple and follow the same basic guidelines. Unfortunately many of the American books get hung up in unnecessary complexity.
I did give the benefit of the doubt by awarding 3 stars and will write another review once I've done a few recipes.

I wanted to give this a higher rating and it does have a lot of better ratings from many others, but I just couldn't do it. There are quite a few recipes and I have made a few. If I hadn't done so, my rating on this would be higher. The book is well written, instructions are clear, but it is not for a complete novice, as some of the recipes are in need of revision. The yeast parings are questionable on a few recipes, as are a few of the recipes themselves. There was a recipe for one beer I know how to make quite well, and it was quite off.



A few notable items that are due to the books age: their knowledge of yeasts is limited and the brand of extract has long since changed their name. Muntons & Fison is now just Muntons. These are small things, but they show this book would benefit from an update.



Don't get me wrong, this book is good, but I would suggest that it is better for those brewers that have enough experience to adjust the recipes as needed. I know it was written about a decade ago, but if you are buying this book, you should know what to expect. I'm hoping for better things in Beer Captured.

I wanted to give this a higher rating and it does have a lot of better ratings from many others, but I just couldn't do it. There are quite a few recipes and I have made a few. If I hadn't done so, my rating on this would be higher. The book is well written, instructions are clear, but it is not for a complete novice, as some of the recipes are in need of revision. The yeast parings are questionable on a few recipes, as are a few of the recipes themselves. There was a recipe for one beer I know how to make quite well, and it was quite off.

A few notable items that are due to the books age: their knowledge of yeasts is limited and the brand of extract has long since changed their name. Muntons & Fison is now just Muntons. These are small things, but they show this book would benefit from an update.

Don't get me wrong, this book is good, but I would suggest that it is better for those brewers that have enough experience to adjust the recipes as needed. I know it was written about a decade ago, but if you are buying this book, you should know what to expect. I'm hoping for better things in Beer Captured.

Good book for the begining brewer. It will give you recipies for some of the best beers in the world. It is a true test of your brewing abilities, to try to replicate one of the beers in this book.

Good book for the begining brewer. It will give you recipies for some of the best beers in the world. It is a true test of your brewing abilities, to try to replicate one of the beers in this book.

This book is well written and the recipes are very easy to follow. The recipes created by Tess and Mark are so close to the store bought beers you would be hard pressed to tell the difference. I have been home brewing for many years and have won several competitions using the recipes from this book. The Pilsner Urquell and the Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout are exceptional (just to mention a couple)!! Follow the recipes, be patient while the beer carbonates, and enjoy.

My husband recently began brewing his own beer, so I thought this would make a nice birthday gift. It turns out that his brewing friends had already recommended this as a good book to add to his library, so he was thrilled to receive it!

The book begins with a very short section on calculations and basic identification. There is a good assortment of beers from around the world contained in this book. The authors concentrate on extracts, but the recipes offer choices for alternate methods and different yeast. Not a bad book, but I have not utilized it like I have other brewing books. It is unique in that it tries to duplicate popular beers, with alternate methods. You will find that it is quite difficult to copy a commercial beer perfectly. One should have a good understanding of brewing before attempting to use this book.

I do agree with some of the other reviews that Tess and Mark's second book, Beer Captured, is much better than this one, but this is still a great book. Especially if you are interested in brewing some lesser known beers of the world. This book is worth it for the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale recipe alone!

This book is primarily a recipe book, though it does contain some useful information (such as reculturing yeast from bottles) in the ten pages devoted to the brewing process. The recipes comprise the bulk of the book and are divided by region, then country of origin. All of the recipes are approximations of commercial beers (top-notch ones, though), so don't look for micro-brews or THE exact recipe here. That being said, each recipe includes a brief paragraph about the beer, step-by-step brewing instructions (using malt syrup), and a side-bar containing mini-mash and all-grain alternate brewing instructions. Finally, this book contains a useful appendix that includes a chart of beer characteristics, a hop chart describing various hops, charts describing various grains and sugars, and a beer style index. This appendix makes it relatively easy to figure what grains to buy for which beer style, and vice versa.

Overall, I highly recommend this book as a companion to one that covers more of the brewing process and equipment, such as William Moore's Home Beermaking.

This book has quite a wide range of recipes for you to use. I've made one of the batches, and it didn't turn out bad at all. In fact, I think it's pretty close to what it should be. If you want to try and clone a few beers, I would recommend this book. The only problem you might run into is your local homebrew store may not have all the ingredients you need.

When I got this book I was like a kid in candy store... so many recipes that I want to try, and so little time. I have come to understand that there is no shortage of beer recipes in the world of home brewing. Yet, I still feel this book is worth it. It shows you what you can do with extracts and it gives you the all grain recipes as well. I think there is much to be learned from this one, one cloning and on creating your own recipes.

While not quite as good as their later book "Beer Captured", I'd give this book about 31/2 stars for the amount of information it contains (the Szamatulski's 2nd book is even more detailed hence the lower rating). You get a variety of recipes from all over the world including countries you might not expect to even allow alcohol. I've never brewed beer but I'd say that this book would do pretty well for extract, mini mash or all grain method brewers who have a good idea of what they're doing. While there is some introductory information and some more in the appendices I really don't think the total novice(like me) should rely on this book alone. How close are the cloned recipes?, I don't know but expect that most of us couldn't tell the difference.

Here you have 150 recipes for beers from around the world, I didn't even know some of those places drank beer! Each recipe is presented with three brewing methods; extract, mini-mash and All-grain. Looks like a wide range of styles tastes and flavors to try but not really enough information for a complete novice to work with, if you're on a limited book budget I'd recommend getting the Szamatulski's second book "Beer Captured" instead.