I am an enthusiastic home brewer, and I've accumulated a large number of books on the subject, so when I saw this "Brew it Yourself" book, I wondered whether they could come up with anything new.
Yes, they did. This book goes over the fundamentals of making alcoholic beverages of many kinds (wine, beer, cider, sparkling drinks, liqueurs) from just about ANYTHING edible: dried figs to coconut to dandelions to lavender. They also have several recipes where they start with a purchased drink (whisky, for example) and add things like fruit or vegetables to it. The authors, both Brits, are avid gardeners, so this makes more sense than you might think. They note, for example, that one might get really tired of rhubarb crumble (a dessert) after harvesting a bumper crop, but leftover rhubarb makes excellent wine. Need to make sloe gin? Orange bitters? Marrow (squash) rum? Ginger beer? Boozy Dandelion Soda? Stinging Nettle Beer? This is the book for you.
Although I don't generally associate the word "brew" with all this (do you "brew" wine?), that's just semantics. It all uses yeast and it results in alcohol, so yes, it's all brewing. The explanations are clear, but if you're a first time brewer you might want to pick up a copy of John Palmer's "How to Brew," which goes over the actual process steps for the beer recipes in very fine detail.
Highly recommended.
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review. The image above links to the book's Amazon page.
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