John Rolinson brought a copy of the Modern Homberewer to the Essex midweek at Radio City Social in October 2024. He out it on the table as a point of interest. My interest was piqued as I’d read there was a lot of famous recipes, which I immediately scanned for, found and spent 5 minutes flicking though.

impressed with the flow of the book and quality of writing, I immediately ordered a copy, which promptly arrived after the weekend.

First Impressions

On picking up the book it’s a good size, fonts are legible with 40+ (pushing 50) year old eyes. The contents layout an attractive smorgasbord of heading to start you off. The first chapters cover the elephant in the room: water. We all love a good chat about brewing liquor, don’t we. There’s some great information about calcium, alkalinity, and the buffering affect of it on the mash. All important stuff. But don’t let that put you off if you’re just starting out. The book says you can still make great beer without getting bogged down in the subject. This is all very true.

The recipes are all easy to follow and simple to understand. If you read the chapters before them, you’ll have a good understanding of the process and maybe use some ideas to change your own methods.

the authors are obviously passionate and it shows in their writing. There aren’t many stones left uncovered from what I’ve read. There may be areas that aren’t specialist e ough for some, but is this book aimed at spontaneous fermentation vegetable braggots?

Anyway. Go get yourself a copy and hit me up in the comments to thank me later. I’m pretty sure this book will help even the most experience home brewer.

Enjoy!