Tons of great history on beer/brewing. Crazy ingredient ideas & great discussion/explanations on how they affect your brews. I keep re-reading sections all the time. I like how Mosher gives a recipe, but doesn't lecture you on nailing a certain stlye and gives suggestions how to tweak it to your own desires. Screw styles, brew what tastes good to you. This book helps you do that.

This book saved me a lot of time and money by not brewing several batches I probably would not have liked by telling me what ingredients impart to beer. A must read for intermediate homebrewers.

Very interesting book for both the beginner and most advanced home brewer. Great techniques and odd ball recipes to try at least once in your home brew hobby.

This book is not for someone who's never brewed but if you've done it a few times, this book will get you hooked. The methods, ingredients, and everything else about this makes you want to try brewing in ways you probably wouldn't imagine otherwise.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a little adventure in their brewing.

I just started home brewing, and I want more--Randy Mosher's book gives me that. This book gives a full spectrum on brewing, from the history to the chemistry to tons of recipes for creating many different types of beer. This guy has a great sense of humor, and the book is also very visually engaging. This book answered many of my questions about how beer brewing works and what to do and what not to do. Most of the recipes he gives have instructions for beginners and advanced brewers, so this book can definitely "grow" with you. I would suggest brewing a few batches first, before trying the more advanced techniques, and/or purchasing the other books described in these reviews as companions. I was really happy to see that there are so many possibilities for home brew, and the author's enthusiasm motivates me to try them. A great book!

This as my first brewing book and still my favorite. If you get one brewing book, this is the one. While not encyclopedic in brewing details, it shines in inspirational historical insight into what beer IS.
A joy to behold, you will not be disappointed!

I'm enjoying this book immensely. This is my second home brewing book (Papazian was the first, about 15 years ago). Like Papazian, "Radical Brewing" includes plenty of lore in addition to hard core brewing info. And like Papazian this book has lots of humor in it. But Mosher's book is much more current, in terms of both information and viewpoint. And the humor is sardonic where Papazian's humor tends to be more goofy and quaint.
If anything "Radical Brewing" is slightly less practical than "The Joy of Homebrewing." It seems like Mosher focuses on giving the reader inspiration rather than step-by-step instructions, which is very wise considering how individualized each batch of homebrew is. Papazian has a certain recipe mentality, where Mosher is instead setting forth ideas and techniques. Good stuff, particularly for the intermediate or advanced brewer. Highly recommended.

This book is fantastic. It has more recipes for extract brewers and all grain brewers alike than you can poke a stick at and each cattegory of ingredient imaginable is placed into a table so you can compare and find out more about what interests you. I found the detailed chapter on hops to be most beneficial to me. There is a chart with all known hop types and how they may be used and what substitutes could be used instead. Well worth having this as a great reference.

Randy has certainly done a great job of pulling together info and techniques for a wide variety of brewing ingredients. If find myself looking through this book quite often when looking for a certain flavor or wanting to experiment with a different ingredient in my next brew. I wish there was more info on sources for some of the stuff (I'm about out of a few things I got from Randy couple years ago!)but most stuff is readily available.

I like this book so much I purchased a second one after the first got ruined by obuse.
Randy Mosher writes with humor and understanding of brewing.
More than one of the recipes has become a favorite and where else can you see recipes for Plug Nickel (Thomas Jeffersons Brew).
A great addition of information for any brewer beginner or advanced.

I read through other reviews before purchasing this book. This is for sure the book for my dad. He has had a home brew kit for probably 10 or more years. He is pretty savy with it and I needed a book for Christmas that is advanced but just as witty as he is. This book is full of pictures and great stories and old beer ads. Well written and sure to please that person who is intelligent and witty both.

excellent book lots of unique recipe it really bring you to re-think your current recipe. A must get for every brewer.

This book is well written with lots of humor, historical information, and new flavors with which to experiment. It teaches beyond the typical malt and hops recipes of 2 dimensional beers and introduces a broad range of new flavors and techniques to paint a more beautiful a complex beer. Even though there are probably hundreds of unorthodox ingredients discussed, there are still some left out... what about lemongrass, Mosher?

This book is awesome. If you are like me, and you don't listen to what the other brewing authors say about perfecting a few beers that you like, read this one. I hardly ever brew the same beer twice, and I like experimentation. This book will pave way for many new ideas and tasty new brews. There are a few inaccuracies and typos in the book. For example, altitude does change the boiling point of water. However, the few mistakes are far shadowed by the excellent writing and research that went into this book. If you brew with a lot of odd ingredients like I do, you will have to pick this one up.

I bought this as a gift for my husband who is getting increasingly involved in home brewing. He read it cover-to-cover and loved it. I flipped through it myself and really enjoyed the light-hearted humor and plain-language of the text. There is a lot of information in here about beer, but the book is easy to read and enjoyable. A definite must for those who want to learn more about making their own beer.

Wow. Radical, indeed. The etymology is apropos; radical comes from the Latin radix, meaning root. Mosher gets to the root of all sorts of subjects with his witty style and erudition. This guy knows his stuff. If there is any grain or sugar or spice or herb in this world that has ended up in a brewpot, Mosher has probably written about it.

At the risk of turning this review section into a lovefest, I agree with the other reviewers. If you've never brewed before, get a good basic text; you can't do better than Palmer's How to Brew, and he's generous enough to put the entire text on line for free perusal--although you'll probably want to go ahead and get a hard copy just for convenience. Others will have their own preferences for a basic brewing book. I started out a couple of decades ago with Papazian's book, and it's fine--but I think Palmer's is a tad better.

One theme Mosher stresses is how the homebrewer can afford to use the best ingredients for his brew, something a corporate brewer can't. So what if using Maris Otter malt and lots of noble hops might make that batch cost a few cents more? You can afford it, and can make a brew that no big corporation would ever make.

If I were just starting out today, I'd probably spring for Palmer's book and this one by Mosher. Between those two you'd be able to brew virtually any style you want to. Plus, after reading Radical Brewing you'd have more esoteric beer knowledge than any sane person needs. But who ever said that homebrewers were sane?

Funny thing is, I have read How to Brew and Designing Great Beers, written by two of the other "raters" of Radical Brewing.

If your a beginner looking to get into this hobby, BUY HOW TO BREW TODAY! It is amazing.

If you are a hardcore masher that has been doing everything "right" but still aren't winning those medals that you want, BUY DESIGNING GREAT BEERS TODAY!

Somewhere in no way inbetween these books is Radical Brewing. An informative text about beers of old as well as beers that have yet to even find a style guideline. I'm a BJCP judge and trust me, they ain't there. He completely shakes the platform that much of the American craft brewing scene has stood on, calling for the judicious use of adjuncts in many instances, including many exotic sugars that I had never even heard of.
The book also delves into the history of each style and how they have been produced throughout the years. Early on, he moves through the Belgian abbey ales. Later he tackles the challenges of Belgium with sections on sour browns, Flemish Reds, Lambics, Wit beers, and Saisons (though he doesn't do the best job of explaining proper fermentation of the saisons). He even does a synopsis of the Gose beer of Germany. I've only seen these beers once!

Randy is obviously someone who has taken homebrewing as seriously as anyone could, for about as long as anyone could. His book is entertaining and is a wealth of knowledge (even if I don't agree with EVERYTHING he says) for brewers at all levels. It is not a book that the novice should shy away from, yet it is also one that every advanced homebrewer should already own. And the historical quotes and poems on beer are just awesome. I used a good many of them on the beer menu for my wedding reception. HEHE!
Cheers!

The strange title fits. It is written with wit, humor, passion and loads of knowledge. I've got a couple dozen brewing books, but I keep coming back to this one.

Like others, it covers the basics of techniques. Each chapter examines a different genera of beer, origins of similar beers, how they were brewed, how they evolved, how to brew similar beers (both all-grain and extract) and how you might personalize them. While Ray Daniels does a great job of nailing a style, Randy Mosher pushes well beyond the boundaries of defined styles and inspires you to be creative.

Do you want to know how to use an unusual adjunct? How about the qualities of various spices? Fruits? Stranger ingredients? Randy provides example of historical brews using stuff I never would have dreamed of putting into my beer, and leaves you eager to try something new.

The strange title fits. It is written with wit, humor, passion and loads of knowledge. I've got a couple dozen brewing books, but I keep coming back to this one.

Like others, it covers the basics of techniques. Each chapter examines a different genera of beer, origins of similar beers, how they were brewed, how they evolved, how to brew similar beers (both all-grain and extract) and how you might personalize them. While Ray Daniels does a great job of nailing a style, Randy Mosher pushes well beyond the boundaries of defined styles and inspires you to be creative.

Do you want to know how to use an unusual adjunct? How about the qualities of various spices? Fruits? Stranger ingredients? Randy provides example of historical brews using stuff I never would have dreamed of putting into my beer, and leaves you eager to try something new.

I agree with Michael Jackson's assessment that Randy Mosher is a homebrewing genius. I've known Randy for 15 years and learned more from him than any other brewer I know. Now he has put a big chunk of that knowledge into a book that wanders through the history of beer challenging our assumptions about what beer is and how we should go about brewing it. What a fun book! How it makes me want to run into the brewery and start creating new beers. What a genius!

Randy Mosher writes engagingly; but frankly,if you've read books by Korzonas, Palmer, and yeah, Papazian- you have the brewing techniques discussed in Radical Brewing. Where Mr. Mosher excels is his descriptions of ingredients, and quantities. I am delighted by the recipes and can't wait 'til the weekend to brew up one or two (black pepper in beer! Yes!). Overall, I'd say this is a great book for any brewer's library; not a "My First Brew Book", but certainly should be on your shelf with Mosher's other book. And Palmer, and Korzonas...okay, okay, and Papazian.