Gabel Road Home Brewery

Help Me Find A Recipe!

If there is one question more common than "Does this look infected?" it would be "Does anyone have a recipe for (fill in the blank)?" 

Fortunately recipes are a dime a dozen online. The trick is finding reliable recipes!

You have no doubt run across a meal recipe on social media and the tagline is usually, "Follow me for more recipe ideas". But when you try to make that dish there is a good chance that it will turn out to be a major disappointment... or it may be very tasty. You just never know. 

And therein lies the problem I have with beer recipes found online. I follow several homebrewing forums and in all of them you will find good folks sharing their recipes. They are probably very good people, very entertaining in their posts and helpful with their replies but I don't know these people or their ability to create a worthwhile recipe. 

Creating a beer recipe requires knowledge of ingredients and how they work (or clash) with each other. If you have a desire to conjure up the next great beer style sure to end up in every brewpub in sight or just want to create something to call your own... a great resource is the book, Mastering Homebrew: The Complete Guide To Brewing by Randy Mosher. While brew guru's like John Palmer approach brewing from a scientific background, Randy is a graphic artist by trade and takes us on more of a right-brain journey. The graphics in his book are attractive and intuitive and help someone like me make sense of the concepts he is teaching.

Books:
There are three conditions that I look for in a beer recipe. A trusted source. Tried and true recipes, not just someone's wishful thinking. And perhaps recipes that have done well in competition. Very often you will find all of these in printed sources. I know, I know, who reads books or magazines anymore. But here are some resources for those who still read physical print media.

Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer should be at the top of your reading list. It offers clear and easy to follow recipes and brewing instructions. These two guys are brew-guru's worthy of the title and have recipe design chops you can trust.

Modern Homebrew Recipes by Gordon Strong is another publication that everyone should read. Strong is a Grand Master Beer Judge and President Emeritus of the BJCP. Yet this book is easy to understand and is full of recipes for all skill levels.

There are many, many homebrewing books by luminaries in the homebrewing world. A few honorable mentions worth looking at are: Clone Brews will give you a leg up when you want to create something close to your favorite beer. The Homebrewers Guide To Vintage Beer by Ron Pattinson is essential for any brewer interested in historic English styles. And Brew Like A Monk by Stan Hieronymus is a must for those who like and want to make Trappist style ales.

Magazines:
Compared to books, your choice of magazines is somewhat more limited. I currently have two delivered; Zymurgy Magazine from the American Homebrewers Association and Brew Your Own (BYO). Each comes in both print and digital form. Both are chock full of recipes which are all archived on there respective websites. I can only recommend one in good faith however. BYO has become the better of the two hands down. Zymurgy in recent years is seemingly less concerned about actual homebrewing information in favor of travel pieces, food fermentation (let's save the pickle recipes for Better Homes & Gardens), non alcoholic beer and some just plain silly shit. There have been some issues that upon flipping through them after they arrived in my mailbox, I simply threw away and never read. My membership is paid up for a few more months but I will not renew. In the meantime I have so many copies of BYO they are sliding off my desk as I type this.

Social Media:
This is my least trusted source but there are a few worthy websites and blogs worth keeping an eye on. First is a personal favorite. I discovered Shut Up About Barclay Perkins over ten years ago. It is written by beer historian Ron Pattinson. Ron is an avid researcher who will spend hours searching through archives of actual brewery logbooks, brewing trade publications, newspaper articles and even the odd courtroom legal transcript. He breaks down and analyzes these brewery logs and scales them down to the 5 gallon homebrew size and publishes two recipes every week. Early on I found his writings appealing and especially like how he uses his research for busting myths. 

My second suggested site is Homebrewtalk.com. Especially the forums titled Homebrew Lager Recipes, Homebrew Ale Recipes, Homebrew Sours and Wilds Recipes, and Specialty, Fruit, Historical, Other Recipes. There are one or two other forum topics concerning beer recipes but those are often populated by folks asking others to review what they are putting together and looking for improvements. The specific forums linked however are part of the their recipe database. Only recipes that have been tried and tested are allowed here.

Beyond those two online sources however I have no others that I can recommend. I am sure there must be others so if you have any suggestions feel free to share them in the comments.

<< Oh, this? Just a pic that one of the brewers at Fullers posted from their brewery logbook.