[erockrph]

On on my favorites is The Home Brewer's Guide to Vintage Beer by Ron Pattinson.  Brewing guide and a history lesson wrapped into one.

Let's Brew by Ron Pattinson is the only book I still refer to from time to time. His 1957 Whitbread IPA recipe is a regular in my rotation.

[Bilsch]

The most comprehensive and accurate brewing book your are going to find is: Technology Brewing & Malting by Kunze.
Yes as mentioned it's expensive but why buy 20 books @$20 when you can get the only one you really need for half that. Think of all the wasted book shelf space you will save!

https://www.vlb-berlin.org/en/publications/specialist-publications/kunze
$197 and they ship to the US.

[chumley]

If you are into Belgians, I definitely recommend Brew Like A Monk.

[denny]

If you are into Belgians, I definitely recommend Brew Like A Monk.

Excellent book, and a lot of general brewing info, too.

[ajjensen147]

I will advise you that the Noonan book is pretty out of date, as is Designing Great Beers.  In their time, they were great books.  These days, not really since so much has changed.

This is actually really disheartening, since I just got around to picking up Designing Great Beers after getting it from a friend who was clearing out his homebrewing library and thought it was going to be good for my recipe design skills.  I guess I'll have to check out some of the other books mentioned here and see if I can get my hands on them.

[denny]

I will advise you that the Noonan book is pretty out of date, as is Designing Great Beers.  In their time, they were great books.  These days, not really since so much has changed.

This is actually really disheartening, since I just got around to picking up Designing Great Beers after getting it from a friend who was clearing out his homebrewing library and thought it was going to be good for my recipe design skills.  I guess I'll have to check out some of the other books mentioned here and see if I can get my hands on them.

DGB still has value if you know enough to know what to ignore.

[Steve Ruch]

I will advise you that the Noonan book is pretty out of date, as is Designing Great Beers.  In their time, they were great books.  These days, not really since so much has changed.

This is actually really disheartening, since I just got around to picking up Designing Great Beers after getting it from a friend who was clearing out his homebrewing library and thought it was going to be good for my recipe design skills.  I guess I'll have to check out some of the other books mentioned here and see if I can get my hands on them.

DGB still has value if you know enough to know what to ignore.

I've always gotten something worthwhile out of every brewing book I've ever read even if I didn't think a lot of the book overall.

[reverseapachemaster]

This is actually really disheartening, since I just got around to picking up Designing Great Beers after getting it from a friend who was clearing out his homebrewing library and thought it was going to be good for my recipe design skills.  I guess I'll have to check out some of the other books mentioned here and see if I can get my hands on them.

It's a good book to give you a way to think about reading lots of recipes to understand the basics of what makes a good beer in a particular style at a particular time. Unfortunately the actual data in the book applies to how styles were designed right around the time the book was written and most recipes have moved away from what is described. This is just the nature of the beast. Most books are written to tell readers how to make a great beer right now. A few years off and brewing trends have completely moved away from that. The recipes in the 90s were crystal malt laden and remained that way into the 2000s and DGB reflects that. Brewing Classic Styles was like the homebrewing book to read for recipes in the late 2000s/early 2010s but now most of those recipes would taste dated. The IPA book by Mitch Steele dropped right before haze wiped out most of the west coast IPAs. It's not bad info but quickly became less relevant for people who wanted to brew the IPAs they were buying at breweries.

[Bel Air Brewing]

even the New version of brewing lager beer?

A good book! I have it in my library. Highly recommended.

Yes things have changed. We get much better ingredients today than was available 20 or 30 years ago.

The basics are still the basics, however. Use good malt, yeast, hops, and water. Pay attention to sanitation. And temperature control is paramount in producing a great lager.

There is a huge amount of info online today that was unavailable in my earlier brewing career. Even outside of AHA.

[Saccharomyces]

I forgot to mention that if you are looking for an brewing book that is an actual textbook.  You should pick up a copy of "Brewing" by Michael Lewis and Tom Young. Reading that book was my organic chemistry light bulb moment.