Your Favorite Brewing Literature

1. Radical Brewing
2. Brew Like a Monk
3. Water

 

Lately: Water, Farmhouse Ales, Radical Brewing.

 

1. Brewing Better Beer
2. Brew Like a Monk

 

I love Radical Brewing.
Designing Great Beers is another fave.
And while it might not win big accolades anymore since it was written like 30+ years ago, Papazian's Complete Joy of Homebrewing is a pretty dang good read.

 

FYI, the fourth edition was revised/published in 2014 IIRC. Still, I recommend How to Brew over CJoH, if someone is only going to get one of them.

 

Some of this is just personality, but I learned from the Papazian books and vastly prefer Palmer's approach. Charlie did instill a much needed dose of not worrying too much into my brewing however.

 

Designing Great Beers
Brewing Better Beer
American Sour

These are (3) books I always seem to get a new nugget from no matter how often I go back to them. American Sour I've only read once but it's just full of info I didn't know. The other two covered a lot of things I'd read before but also offer lots of little tidbits or ideas to try. Seems everytime I read it I find something either I'd forgotten about or never knew.

ETA: Honorable Mention: Brewing Classic Styles is another book I reference often; each time I'm beginning to think about a style I've never brewed before.

 

Just finished American Sour Beers and it was pretty damn great. Brewing my first sour this weekend and feeling a hell of a lot more confident that I can get it right because of that book. Highly recommended.

 

I'm going to cheat. I'd put Designing Great Beers and Brewing Classic Styles together. One to help design recipes from scratch, another to see how that actually looks and give newbies a place to start. I'd also put the ingredients series together, being Water, Yeast, etc. So somewhere in there is three books. You pick and choose.

 

I'm going to cheat too

The Everything Homebrewing Book
The Everything Hard Cider Book
Experimental Homebrewing

 

Pimping your own work I see...........

Anyways, the 2 books that really had an impact on how I approach/look at homebrewing(besides the aforementioned "How to Brew") are;

Radical Brewing-Randy Mosher
and
American Sour Beers-Michael Tonsmeire

 

It's hard out here for a pimp.. but in all seriousness I learned an incredible amount in planning and writing the books, so yeah.
Now if we're looking at other works that banged my mental gong - Radical is easily the big gimmie, Jean De Clerk's Textbook on Brewing, Designing Great Beers, the Compleat Meadmaker and a non brewing book - The Flavor Bible for teaching me a lot about flavor combinations.

 

Just poking fun at you.
I've read Experimental Brewing twice so far and enjoy it. The historical information is what sets Radical Brewing apart. Still not sure about that pork beer, although I imagine a great looking label could be made in homage to Primus'- Pork Soda. And I'll have to excuse you for your faux pas in bringing up Mead making in this here forum.

However, here is my own faux pas addition to this thread(since OP asked for 3 books and I only posted 2 before),
The Art of Fermentation-Sandor Ellix Katz
If I had to choose one book from my entire collection it would be this one. Not just encyclopedic literature about (damn near) every type of fermented product in the world(including BEER), but also the cultures, history, and health aspects behind them.

Don't believe me?
High praise from Mr.Homebrew himself;
"The Art of Fermentation appeals to our personal and fundamental well being, with a thoroughly engaging account of wild, tamed, and unaccounted-for microorganisms. Based on theory, science, and practical observations, Sandor Katz casts thousands of dots onto the pages for us to connect with our own experiences and interests. There are things he writes in this book that are relevant to everyone. Whether we are at war or peace with the tiny creatures we call microorganisms, we can't help but conclude that they are the building blocks of the communities we observe as organisms. His obsession with ferment is contagious. With the flip of a page it's easy to find oneself discovering our own personal journey embedded in this thoroughly engaging book."--Charlie Papazian, author of The Complete Joy of Homebrewing and many other books on beer

 

When I started out The Complete Joy of Homebrewing and Designing Great Beers were instrumental. These days I most often check out what Jamil has to say about a particular style in Brewing Classic Styles when thinking about the next beer I will be putting together. When I was into brewing Belgian styles (>10 years ago), I really enjoyed reading Michael Jackson's Great Beers of Belgium; it's a terrific book. I guess that's four.