Somewhat surprised that the Brewer's Publications most recent book hasn't been mentioned around here (or much of anywhere by the AHA). I'm talking about Session Beers--https://www.brewerspublications.com/products/session-beers-brewing-for-flavor-and-balance
I found it pretty underwhelming. It's kind of like BP wanted to publish an updated edition of the beer styles books from the 1990s but instead of doing independent editions they just dumped it into one book. A lot of the text is regurgitating right out of the 1990s books with citations to them, rather than primary sources.
It's pretty light on brewing technique. It covers everything it should but in such light detail. It's basically everything you heard five years ago when session beer was trying to take off as the next big thing (but lost to haze, kettle sours and BA stouts). Nothing terribly advanced, unfortunately.
It reads like BP wanted to put out a session beer book, which was a good idea, but then the fad passed and they still wanted to push the book out so they rushed the author. It reminds me of Stan Hieronymous' last book (Brewing Local) which had the same too much breadth and not enough depth format and felt like it was pushed out to capitalize on the success of Scratch Brewing's similar book. It feels like the quality of BP books has gone way down over the past several years, minus a small number of exceptions.
The highlight of the book is the lengthy recipe section which includes a lot of contemporary pro recipes for popular session beers. It provides a meaningful update to the set of recipes from the 1990s books with some popular beers. The book might be worth purchasing for the recipes if you're the type of brewer that hunts recipes to clone.
Anybody else take a read yet?
Topic: Session Beers: book discussion (Read 3380 times)
