We’ve been using this book to guide our brewing for several years now, and we particularly enjoy the breadth of brewing that it includes. Whether you’re making mead, country wine, cider, or beer, you’ll find guidance here, and this breadth makes it a great book for setting off on your brewing adventure.

Many of these brews are unlike anything available commercially, so you may be unfamiliar with them, but we’d encourage you to experiment freely as you find your way as a brewer.

The only reason we wouldn’t recommend this book is if you have a particular drink you want to brew – for example, if you know you want to make only beer, then you’ll be better served by a book dedicated to that drink.

We’ve had great fun experimenting with the drinks in this book and, for the most part, they’ve worked well (the only one that didn’t work for us
is the nettle beer, but perhaps that shouldn’t be a surprise – nettles really don’t sound like they should be in beer).

Booze: River Cottage Handbook No.12, by John Wright, is a great source of inspiration and, after a quick browse, we’re always brimming with ideas for our next brew – some of them are recipes from this book, while others are adaptions that we want to try.

Verdict: 10 out of 10

The book we wish we had when we started brewing.

£11.49 rivercottage.net