Editor Reviews:

Product Description:
Re-creations of brands such as Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada, Guinness, Foster's, and more.

Rating : - Good book, could be better, all grain brewer here.
Ok, I bought this book first, then moved to North American Clone Brews. The reason I start with this, is in case you don't read my whole review. I found I made good beers with this but couldn't compare them to the actual. But more importantly the part that bothered me was I was likely making the beer exactly as intended only to find out I didn't really appreciate that style of beer (ie: Belgium). I'm sure one day I'll love Belgium beers, but not now... So I opted for the North American because the beers were easier to find locally and try before I brew. This has made a world of difference in my brewing. Not only can I make beers I like but I can have a test to see how spot on the recipes are. And I will admit, they are pretty darn close. There has been more than once I would dare to give a blind taste test to anyone. Mine might taste slightly different, but I've usually been told better. (that might be biased, but my ego didn't mind).

As for the traditional Clone Brew (and North American CB) I found the recipes easy to follow for Allgrain (flysparging here). However, I did find the recipes to be a tad low on the grainbill. But if I build in 1-2lbs of extra base malt I usually hit my goal. And I found my efficiency to be at 70 percent pretty often. Maybe the program I use to figure that out is set up a little different. I'm willing to accept that I might be not getting as good efficiency as I should... but alas, I stray.

I would pretty highly recommend this book. I lowered it a star because it is a little hard to find the beers listed. I also feel the grain bill is a pound or two low on average. readers must already have a basic understanding of how to brew as this book does not explain the exact how in this. But it does make good recipes and I've probably made about 20 different styles out of the two books. Hope that helps.