This book is exactly what the homebrewing world needs today. Well, at the very least, this book is exactly what I need, but I know that I’m not the only homebrewer who can’t find the time to brew as often as I’d like to. I started homebrewing 25 years ago, a time when all but the geekiest of homebrewers were brewing with extracts and most of us relied on the mantra, “Relax, don’t worry, have a homebrew.” That mantra was taught to us in The Complete Joy of Home Brewing, written by the founder of the American Homebrewers Association (AHA) and godfather of homebrewing, Charlie Papazian. Back in the early days, my homebrewing was quite simple: extract batches, brewed on the stove top, fermented with direct-pitched dried yeast in a single plastic bucket fermentor. I made tasty beers with that simple set-up (at least that’s what my friends and family told me).
In 2000, I got hired as the AHA administrator. Suddenly, I was exposed to a deluge of information from Zymurgy magazine and Brewers Publications books, but the most direct exposure came from active discussions on the AHA TechTalk and Home Brew Digest email forums. All that information helped me make the leap to all-grain brewing and added new techniques to my repertoire. I built my own brewing equipment, which I felt the need to constantly tweak to gain a tiny bit of improvement in my brewing. In fact, I’m quite sure I spent more time in those days working on my equipment than I did on brewing beer.
When I became a father, I found it much harder to carve out enough hours on the weekends when I wasn’t traveling for work, and so my brewing became much less frequent. I’m also terrible at planning ahead in my personal life, so even when I do find time to brew I may not have the ingredients together so that I actually can brew.
I know I’m not alone in my struggles to find time to brew. Surveys of homebrewers conducted at the AHA show that many homebrewers are brewing less frequently or have given up entirely due to the increasingly busy pace of life. In addition, the internet has evolved from the email forums of my early AHA days to a vast proliferation of information (much of which is inaccurate) provided by websites, podcasts, YouTube, and social media. The inundation of information can make it easy to get into brewing, but it can also make homebrewing seem more complicated than it should be, and thus less approachable.
Now, thanks to my friends Drew Beechum and Denny Conn, we have a solution to this problem: the book you hold right now, Simple Homebrewing.
Denny and Drew are the perfect authors for this book. They are both extremely accomplished homebrewers. I’ve been a homebrewer longer than either of those two, and have actually made a career serving homebrewers, but Denny and Drew know more about brewing than I probably ever will. I’ve had the privilege of trying some of their wilder concoctions, such as the infamous Clam Chowder Saison for which Drew conceived the recipe, and Denny’s Wee Shroomy mushroom Scotch ale, of which I’ve had a couple of variations. While I might not order a pint of it, the Clam Chowder Saison was quite drinkable, actually reminiscent of clam chowder but without any of the gag reflex you might anticipate with such a concept. I don’t know any other brewer who could pull that off. When I sampled Denny’s Wee Shroomy during Club Night at the 2012 Homebrew Con™ in Seattle, I expected an urge to spit it out (or hurl). Instead, I found it utterly delicious; I wanted more. I don’t typically like Scotch ales, but I won’t turn down a chance to sip some more Wee Shroomy!
Before we go any further, I should tell you what this book is not. It is not a book that will teach you how to brew beer for the first time. If you’ve never brewed before, go get John Palmer’s How to Brew or Charlie Papazian’s Complete Joy of Home Brewing, read the first few chapters, brew a few batches of beer, then come back to this book.
For a seasoned homebrewer who might be thinking a title like Simple Homebrewing “couldn’t possibly be for me,” think again. This book isn’t about dumbing down the brewing process to the lowest common denominator.
Simple Homebrewing helps homebrewers cut through the overgrown jungle of brewing processes, equipment, jargon, and traditions and get down to the business of making really great beer without taking up an exorbitant amount of your free time while doing it. As Denny and Drew put it, the point is to “Brew the Best Beer Possible, With the Least Effort Possible, While Having the Most Fun Possible.” I need to frame that mantra and put it on my brew room wall.
In this hobby it is easy to get caught up with both traditional practices and the need to try out the most innovative techniques. Unfortunately, most of the time those practices and techniques tend to add up to make the brewing process longer than it should be. As far as I’m concerned, the only thing that truly matters is the end result. Why not brew a malt extract recipe using a 20-minute boil if the end result is a great tasting beer? Great tasting beer made with less effort sounds pretty awesome to me!
Simple Homebrewing isn’t a guide for a particular approach to brewing that will streamline your process. It’s not an Atkins™ diet for slimming down your brewing method. Simple Homebrewing gives the reader many examples of how various processes can be simplified to make it easier to brew without compromising the quality of your beer. I recently ditched my homebuilt brew system with the goal of simplifying my brewing and hopefully brewing more frequently, and bought an off-the-shelf electric system that now resides in a dedicated brew room in my basement. Yet, as I read through the manuscript of this book, I still found example after example of ways I can further simplify and probably make better beer, while spending less time doing it.
In Simple Homebrewing, Denny and Drew take on some complex issues and make them approachable. I was scarred for life by my experience with high school chemistry and have avoided the subject ever since, so water chemistry for brewers is a subject I’ve been avoiding in my hobby. But no more! The “Simple Water” chapter and had some easy-to-implement suggestions that I have already begun to follow, such as ditching my carbon filter for Campden tablets to remove chlorine from my brewing water.
I couldn’t agree more with Denny and Drew’s approach to recipe design, which focuses on how to get a particular flavor profile by thoughtful selection of ingredients. Far too many homebrewers take a “kitchen sink” approach to recipe design, thinking that the more different malts and hops used, the more complex and flavorful their beers will be. The end result of that approach is all too often a muddled mess of flavors. So, read “Simple Recipe Design” and follow the authors’ advice.
How to approach this book? Start by reading the first chapter, “What is Simplicity?,” which will help you understand the authors’ approach. From there, you can bounce around to the subjects you are most interested in. Apply the tips that are most relevant to your method of brewing. Eventually, you’ll want to read every bit of this book—there are so many unexpected takeaways offered by Denny and Drew that you’d miss out on them if you don’t read it all.
Now, start reading and get on with making great beer, with less work, while having more fun.
Gary Glass
Director, American Homebrewers Association