Beer Captured

I like the book, and have used it as a starting point for several brews. As mentioned in other reviews, some of the clones aren't really like the originals. Each of the individual beers within a style are minor variations of ingredients, then it looks like the authors found a branded beer to label it with. Once you figure that out, you can take the book much less literally and combine recipes to craft a truly unique brew. Each beer is described with two paragraphs; the first is some basically useless trivia about the history of the brewery, the second is the description of the appearance and taste of the branded beer. That second paragraph is the most important to refer to when browsing the recipes, but remember that the description is of the branded beer, NOT necessarily the recipe given on that page. Each recipe is laid out one per page, in a template style (most of the steps and hints are cut and pasted in each recipe). It does do a great job of suggesting various water chemistries for each recipe and I haven't come across any recipes that were truly bad (except one where I made dramatic ingredient substitutions that flopped miserably, but that doesn't reflect poorly on the book).I haven't done anything with the recipe pairings; at a glance, they seem to be more a collection of random recipes thrown into the book in no order and with no specific style in mind. It's easy to ignore, so it doesn't detract from the book, but don't buy the book because of the food pairing feature.One more note is that each recipe gives estimated gravity, color, and bitterness values. When I enter the recipes into Beersmith, I usually get dramatically different values, especially for gravity and IBU.Despite the nitpicks, I find this book to be very useful.

Husband loved this. He frequented the authors store before they closed, so he knows she knows what she's talking about. It was a great gift

I found this to be slightly better than North American Clone Brews. It's aimed at extract brewers, although it's still useful for all-grain brewers. They chose a nice variety of beers for this book, and I don't see too many clunkers. The disadvantage of this is that many of the beers are difficult to find. I've had good luck with all the recipes I've tried.While the first section of the book contains a brief description of the process, I strongly reading a beginner's brewing book (such as Papazian's Joy of Homebrewing, Dave Miller's Homebrewing Guide, or Marty Nachel's Homebrewing for Dummies) if you haven't brewed before.As with all brewing recipe books, you should take it with a grain of salt. I strongly recommend double-checking recipe ingredients with ProMash or the equivalent prior to beginning to make sure you'll hit the target gravity and bitterness. This is especially true if you're making the all grain or partial mash versions of the recipes.One of the major problems I have with this book is that for a lot of beers vital information is included in the Helpful Hints section, where you might miss it. For instance, lagering is only mentioned in the Helpful Hints section. This should be part of the main recipe. This seems to be a flaw in the format.I found the serving suggestions included with each recipe somewhat silly. There are a number of recipes at the end of the book which I haven't tried, although a number look decent.

Some really good recipes, many of which I have been looking for and I am looking forward to brewing. One mistake though, the Hofbrauhaus Berchtesgadener Hell on pg 136. Most of the write up on the Hofbrauhaus is correct, and I can only assume the recipe is for the Hofbrau Original (5.1%ABV) and not the Hofbrau Oktoberfest (6.3% ABV). Only the six breweries in Munich are served at Oktoberfest; Augustiner, Hacker Pschorr, Hofbrau, Lowenbrau, Paulaner and Spaten. Berchtesgaden is in the South Eastern corner of Germany (think Eagles Nest) and would never be allowed to serve their beer at Oktoberfest. More importantly, the taste profiles between Hofbrau Original and Berchtesgadener Hell are very different. Probably not a big deal to most, I just wanted to clarify, especially since the Berchtesgadener Hell is one of the beers I really wanted to make.Prost!

The layout of the book by style is nice, and for a novice extract brewer looking for recipes it's probably fine. Not enough effort was made to make this easy for all grain brewers. It would be nice to have the hops listed and the boil times. Instead, you have to read through the text and add up the times between steps manually. I don't know any home brewer who writes their recipes this way. Also, as some of the other reviewers have stated, many of the recipes are not actual clones. They may be great beers, but these are the author's own interpretations and do not necessarily mirror the brewery's recipe. Overall, if I had it to do over, I wouldn't have purchased this book.

By the authors of "Clone Brews" Beer Captured is also a book of copies of 150 commercially produced beers from around the world. I found this book to be an improvment over the Szmatulski's first effort in that with the book's new look you get a helpful hints section on each recipe along with serving suggestions. Divided into four sections pages 1-14 tell a lot about brewing (probably not quite enough for a complete novice), followed by pages 15-164, beer recipes, section three (165-174)has recipes for foods involving beer in them someplace (some sound very tasty. Part 4, pages 175-195,contains lists of mash guidelines, water mineral and modification charts, several other charts not given in most books that should really help in brewing something drinkable.

Whilst I highly recommend Beer Captured as a beer recipe book I was very disappointed when I received my copy. My team of highly trained thieves and mercenaries and myself were ready to use the book to put together a plan to capture large amounts of beer from our local brewery. Now we need to formulate a plan to steal some ingredients. Anyone got a copy of Barley Captured?

Perfect step by step recipes for beginner brewers with delicious results