Radical Brewing: Recipes, Tales and World-Altering Meditations in a Glass

Rating:
Summary: Tour de Force
Review: 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!

Rating:
Summary: Tour de Force
Review: 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!

Rating:
Summary: Radical like Copernicus!
Review: I have a new favorite brewing book - Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher. I must admit that I was put off by the title at first. "Radical Brewing? I don't want to brew weird stuff, I want to brew good stuff..." But after I had a chance to browse thru a copy, I realized there was nothing weird about it. It is radical like Copernicus was radical. It is full of really interesting information that I had not known or barely heard of before. This is a spectrum of brewing, brews, and brewers.

How to describe it??
Broadly, it is like Designing Great Beers in that it presents the ingredients of brewing, the methods for using them and how various beer styles were developed by using those ingredients.
The difference could be described in this way though: If DGB were described as a university course in the main lecture hall on brewing, then Radical Brewing is sitting down with the Prof one-on-one, while he regales with his experiences and pours you samples as he talks. And, if you know Randy, then this description of his book is self-explanatory. It really is a book that you will pick up and read for the fun of it. There are lots of interesting recipes, and his discussion makes you want to try them.
A great book to further your homebrewing education.

John Palmer
author of "How To Brew"
www.howtobrew.com

Rating:
Summary: "Radical" Brewing mostly isn't...
Review: 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.