The Home Brewer's Guide to Vintage Beer

A fun book, easy to read and convenient to flip through. Cool info on British brewing history with some (small) black and white photos to add depth to the descriptions. The book falls down at the recipe section. Why? It's not because of process. Complex mashing protocols used by the original breweries are replaced with single infusion steps, easy to grasp - and the original steps are shown for reference in case you want to experiment. Pattinson has analyzed the color, ABV, and IBU, and gravity of the beers, so we're good there.The issue is malt, beer's most important ingredient next to water. These vintage British beers all used pale, amber, brown, and black malt in different quantity. Pattinson is forthcoming in the malt section when he explains that brown malt "is a tricky devil to pin down" and amber malt is "downright impossible." But he does not even attempt to give brewers a practical modern stand-in for these key malts. These elusive malts are required in nearly every recipe. So how do we proceed? I'd argue that it's not enough to shrug one's shoulders at this as an irreconcilable mystery. As an author purveying a book of recipes, it's incumbent on you to provide your readers with SOME clue of how to brew them using contemporary ingredients. Otherwise we might as well be dealing with unicorn horns and dodo bird eggs.On this same point, the book has no tasting notes or evidence that the author has actually brewed the recipes. They are simply listed in a standard format (easy to read, I'll give him that). I heard Pattinson say on a podcast that he does not really brew, at least he hasn't for a while; he has someone do it for him (which is fine). But where is the evidence that the cited recipes comprising the book have actually been successfully created by a contemporary brewer? I would like to have even a vague idea of how Stout recipes A, B, and C differ from one another. Does anyone actually know?Finally, the recipes. Let's pick on Stout for a moment. The history section that precedes them lists the sub-categories of Sweet, Oatmeal, Milk, and London, with Brown as a presumptive baseline. So I tried to locate a Sweet Stout among the recipes. Or Oatmeal, or Milk. Nope. At least none are pointed out. I couldn't find lactose or oats in any of the recipes. Perhaps Pattinson did not find any, or they were not included, but it's a bit misleading.In short it's a fun book, but the point of buying it for most is probably to actually brew beer. I'm going to try doing so regardless, but there are significant oversights towards the aim of using the book in that practical way. As another reviewer more succinctly states, the book "doesn't go far enough."

For those familiar with Pattinson's writing, this book will be what you expect. It is a concise collection and adaptation of his blog posts that are based on lots of research looking at old brewing records and newspaper articles. Pattinson clearly lays out his plan in the introduction. In this regard, the book fully accomplishes its goal.For those unfamiliar with Pattinson's writing, the review is not so simple. The book looks at a lot of topics that are rarely discussed in homebrewing literature. For most, the concept that beer styles have evolved over the years will be an eye opener. I don't believe there is a book that is as comprehensive on British styles. The German styles discussed in the final pages are not commonly seen in print either. The chapters are clear and concise charting the evolution of styles such as IPA, pale ale, mild, and others. There are at least a half dozen recipes for each style. Any experienced homebrewer should be able to recreate these beers with these recipes.This book is not for beginning homebrewers. There are no extract recipes in here. It is strictly for someone with a couple of all grain batches under their belt. At times, Pattinson is a too little concise. It would be nice for someone with so much knowledge of his subject to expand a bit on what is presented. Pattinson discuses the use of Brettanomyces in stock ale production. He stops short of mentioning which strains that a homebrewer may want to use. This information is readily available online, but should have been included in a book with this title.This is a fantastic book and I look forward to more like it. It's great that homebrew writing has gotten to the point where people will do hard research to present a book that dispels the myths that preceded it. My complaints are minor and not unexpected for someone who reads Pattinson's blog. On the balance, this book is an eye opening read about what beer styles are with a few slight technical oversights.

I own a lot of homebrewing brewing books. There are a ton of books on the history of craft beer, technical details of brewing, and various styles. Very few of these books blend historical information, useful recipes, and present it in such a clear manner. I'm really impressed with this book, I can't wait to brew the recipes, and my only disappointment is that a style much beloved by me, english mild historically is so much different from the low abv beer I brew today.If you are looking for brewable vintage English historic recipes, including those brewed by the likes of Pretty Things, this is the book for you.This was a very quick read, 150 pages, over 7 days, with multiple tags set to mark specific recipes as ones I'd like to brew.Edit - added _english_ description to the description.

A well-assembled collection of properly researched material which begins with a discussion of historic brewing ingredients and techniques, then delves into a collection of historical commercial recipes by style. The book heavily explores British Isles-produced beers such as Porter, Stout, IPA, Bitter, Mild, Stock, and Scottish ale, then offers a very brief look at Continental-produced Broyhan, Gratzer, and Kotbusser styles.Pattinson does a solid job of adapting historical brewing records to small home-sized batches in the recipes. He also debunks many historical brewing myths, like the pre-1930 use of roasted barley in Guinness (they didn't), and explains corrections to other items, such as style origin and terminology.

This is a really good book that unfortunately purports itself to being an amazing book. While the title suggests a much wider breadth it is strictly limited to english beers between 1800 to 1930 or so. Now if you are into making english styles of beers this book is essential. It is probably useful to any serious homebrewer wishing to understand recipe design. However, like many others I was left disappointed by what was not included.

Wonderful selection of historic recipes to try at home. Easy to interpret too. Provides guidance (or in some cases highlights a lack thereof eg. crystal malt choice – brewery records don't state type or colour) on ingredients and direction to make invert sugars.I'm particularly pleased to see the recipe for one of Fullers recently re-brewed Past Masters series, XX (XXK in book). I purchase it from Sainsbury's; shame 7.9% strong ales like this are difficult to find. Check out Ron's blog for more recipes: Shut up about Barclay Perkins.Interestingly, none of these recipes state hop additions post 30 min! Excluding dry hopping of course. Need to keep my facts right for Ron ;D

Home brewers tend towards new age/pale ales for their brews, however, brewing older style beers from the pages in this book would give a new string to their bows. Well recommend it, and can't wait to try them out.

Arrived a little squished, but fine.

Excellent book of potentially lost beer recipes. Some day Ron will get a knighthood for saving these beers.

Excellent book. I can't put it down.

Excellent

I bought this book with a view to making authentic 19C porters and stouts from original recipes. Having read and reread the book over a few days I realised that the recipes were only part of the purpose of the book.Although not covered in any great depth, the brewing history of each type of beer shows how recipes were altered more for tax and ingredient availability issues than anything else. The page on making various grades of invert sugar was helpful as they are used in a lot of the recipes. As a homebrewer this book will help me brew better beers, and I will understand why they are better. Just a note on the recipes: As the book is published in America, recipe weights and measures are US gallons (1 gall = 3.8 litres), and lbs/oz (also kilo's). The weights and measures chart on p154 is for reference to the historic text, not the recipes.Also the final wort volume for boiling seems to vary (most are 61/2 US galls - 24.7 litres before the boil), so do not expect an lmperial 5gall brew from these recipes (or if you do sparge to give a final 5UK galls then the SG is going to be different).

Good recipes. Not ther ones I was looking for though.

Auch wenn dieses Buch auf englisch ist, lassen sich die Rezepte gut nachvollziehen. Die Mengen sind in Gramm und Litern angegeben. Für den Hobbybrierbrauer, der auf Porter, Stout, IPA und Pale Ale steht ein muß.

This is a great book for anyone who's interested in what beer was really like in Britain from 1800 onward. I'll be brewing a lot of them.

Great little book, strangely it puts into perspective what all those people you see in films set in the 1800s+ were drinking. Easy to follow recipe instructions, so I will be making some of these beers.

my son brews his own beer this book looks good and has that something different from conventional brewing books one to try

Bought as a present - seems to be a very suitable gilt for a beer enthusiast, although not given it yet.

good

(Well, maybe not tasted all of them because of their vintage, but their reputations linger on. . . )Any work that Ron Pattinson is always researched into the ground and this is no exception. A wire bound text within a delightful hard backed cover, designed to stay open at the page being worked on.Well illustrated with vintage and contemporary photographs complemented by etchings and reproduced beer labels of the time.A concise history if the industry during the nineeenth century within its 160 pages, with recipes culled from many original sources, representing hours of work and labour.The resulting work then presents some hundred or so formulations in a standard format for ease of comparison.It's predominantly about long-gone British ales, with a final chapter on some renowned European beer types.So quoted volumetric gallons are UK! (I suppose the Liters could therefore have been Litres, but then I am known to be pedantic . .