Author: Dr. John Harrison
Published: 2003
ISBN: 0 9517752 1 9
Buy from Durden Park Beer Circle
This little pamphlet of a book is possibly my favourite brewing book. This is partly due to my liking the style of beers but more due to the minimalism of the recipes (plus of course they use fresh hops). The recipes are all historical and researched by the Durden Park Beer Circle. who have done an absolutely awesome job. In its slender 70 pages it gives you 131 recipes, plus a lot of very informative notes on brewing methods and historic malts. Even if you’re fairly new to brewing this is a great book, some of the recipes can be easily made with extract rather than whole grain methods. Each recipe is presented in 5 or so lines, giving you just:
the name, OG, short description, ingredients list, maturation time and any special notes (e.g long boil)
This gives a lot of freedom to making the brews and also allows the recipes to be easily used as great stepping off points for making your own variants.
So far we’ve brewed:
X ale (1867), KKKK (October Ale)(1870), Farmers Beer(1743), March Strong Ale(1798), High Gravity Mild Ale(1844), Best Ale(1835), Windsor Ale(1796), India Export Pale Ale(1864), East India Pale Ale(1868), Imperial Ale(1849), October Pale Ale(1743), Brown Stout(London)(1786), Christmas Porter(1872), Tally-Ho Barley Wine(1878)