What would be in your essential homebrewer's library?

How to Brew
Designing Great Beers
Yeast

Sorry, but I haven't been blown away by any of the style specific books. IPA maybe.

Edit: I'd add Brewing Better Beer

 

Some of the books I've enjoyed recently:

Brew Like a Monk (just finished it last night)
Farmhouse Ales
Brewing Better Beer
Brewing with Wheat
Yeast (probably the book that's helped my brewing the most)

 

The book "For the Love of Hops" by Stan Heironymus was ordered in the pre-sale. Hope it is in the mail today.

The IPA book was good.
How to Brew
Brewing Better Beer
The 3 books on Belgian beer from Brewer's Publications.

Designing Great Beer is now a little dated.

There are a few in the styles series that are pretty good. Smoked Beer, Barleywine, and Bock come to mind.

Edit style series book on Lambic is out of print and is $$$.

 

The new Hops book, For the Love of Hops, is a pretty good read. Found it more informative than IPA, granted I don't have much of an interest in the historical part of IPA, FWIW.

 

How could I forget Yeast? I learned a fair amount from that one.

 

Theses have been my go to's and consistently referenced over time

How to Brew
The Complete Joy of Homebrewing
Farmhouse Ales
Wild Brews

I need to get a few more, I want Brew Like a Monk, Brewing With Wheat, and Yeast

 

For basic reference on methodology, I own Palmer but use the website more than the book for ease of access there's a whole flight of stairs between my bookshelf and my computer).

For recipes, I refer to Brewing Classic Styles all the time to see if my recipes are in the ballpark. The page edges are actually yellowed from the oils on my fingers.

For styles, I love IPA, BLAM, Farmhouse Ales, Wild Brews, and Brewing with Wheat. The truth is, I love the history presented even more than the recipe info.

In the ingredients series White and Zainsheff's Yeast and Hieronymous' Hops book leave me with the same impression: "fascinating info, but will I use it?"

For goofy temptations, I turn to Radical Brewing.

A couple other books on my shelf don't see much use anymore:
Designing Great Beers - loved for the history and the recipe info, but BCS has supplanted it for recipe info and the histories are mostly not as interesting as those presented in the Style books above.
New Brewing Lager Beer.
Joy of Homebrewing and the one CP did about brewing travel adventures. Both are fun reads, but not really great re-reads.

 

A lot of good books mentioned.

One book not mentioned that is my personal favorite homebrewing book is Homebrewing Vol. 1 by Al Korzonas. I thought this book was an enjoyable read and it is full of very good information (technical information). I find myself regularly going back to it as a good reference book.

Cheers!

 

How to brew
Radical Brewing
But most important is my trusty composition notebook!!!

 

I really enjoyed Wild Brews

 

+1 to Brewing classic styles, Yeast, and Radical brewing.

 

BrewingTV, I don't like to read much. But Lambic/Sour Brewing Blogs are great.

 

An oral history by Bert Grant..if it existed

http://www.beerhunter.com/documents/19133-001575.html

 

Sitting down in my basement looking at the brewing bookshelf, I'd go with:

Designing Great Beers (probably my favorite)
How to Brew
Brewing Classic Styles
Radical Brewing

 

huhhha huhhha... you said oral.

 

Brewing Classic Styles - as pweis909 said above checking to see if recipes are in the ballpark
How to Brew
Brew Your Own magazine
Mosher's Tasting Beer - esp. the sensory vocabulary items
just ordered the Hops and Water books

 

There a bit dated now, but I love re-reading any of the books by Michael Jackson. For style info, they are still relevant.

 

How to Brew
Extreme Brewing
The Complete Joy of Brewing
The Brew Masters Bible
Brewing Better Beer

 

Brewing New Lager Beer
Brewing, Science and Practice
Brewing Classic Styles
Yeast
For the Love of Hops
Brewing with Wheat
Wild Brews