How to brew, ferment and enjoy world-class beers at home.

Making beer at home is as easy as making soup George Hummel smoothly guides the reader through the process of creating a base to which the homebrewer can apply a myriad of intriguing flavorings, such as fruits, spices and even smoke. There are also outstanding and easy recipes for delicious meads, tasty ciders and great sodas -- all of which can be made in a home kitchen and with minimal equipment.

Using Hummel's easy-to-follow instructions and thorough analysis of the flavor components of beer, a novice homebrewer can design recipes and make beers to suit any taste or craving. Knowing exactly what's in a beer has additional benefits -- homebrewers can easily avoid the chemical additives traditionally found in mass-produced commercial beers. As an added bonus, the recipes are categorized according to their degree of difficulty, so new brewers can find the recipes that match their comfort level and then easily progress onto new skills.

These 200 tantalizing beer recipes draw their inspiration from the Americas and around the world. They include:

• Irish amber
• American/Texas brown
• California blonde
• Bavarian hefeweizen
• Multi-grain stout
• Imperial pilsner
• Pre-Prohibition lager
• Golden ale
• Scottish 60 shilling
• Belgium dubble
• German bock
• Raspberry weizen
• Vanilla cream stout
• Flemish red & brown
• Standard dry sparkling mead

There is also a comprehensive glossary that virtually guarantees readers will find answers to every question about ingredients and equipment. Packed with practical advice and effectively designed, The Complete Homebrew Beer Book is like having a personal brewmaster overseeing and guiding each creation.

Pinot Noir is a uniquely challenging grape with an unrivalled ability to reflect the character of the site where it grows. In Search of Pinot Noir is a world wide survey of everywhere Pinot Noir is grown, extending from Burgundy to the New World .

Anthony Bourdain's wickedly funny-yet inspiring-memoir/expos , Kitchen Confidential, provides a gritty and behind-the-scenes look into life behind the kitchen doors. Bourdain's skillful storytelling captivates and shocks readers, stealing their appetite while leaving them begging for more. His passion for his trade shines through as he takes readers on the wild journey that is his culinary career as he goes from dishwasher to executive chef; from the East Village, to Tokyo, Paris, and back to New York again.

From Belgian fruit beers to hoppy cask ales, small-production microbrews to Czech Republic lagers, this is a personal and comprehensive portfolio of international beers compiled by one of the world's leading beer writers. In this unique and beautifully illustrated collection, he has distilled decades of beer knowledge into an entertaining and indispensable guide to the ales that no beer lover should miss. The book divides beers by type, including bitters, best bitters, pilsners, brown and mild ales, pale ales, extra strong beers and bitters, old ales and barley wines, golden ales, porters and stouts, alt and amber ales, fruit beers, and beires de garde, each comprising an alphabetical listing of the beers. Many of the entries are fully illustrated, and each beer comes complete with a box panel for adding your own tasting notes. Information on the country of origin, beer strength, brewery, and a detailed description of the beer and its history are also given.

An updated edition of the guide to home brewing.

Pierre Rajotte travelled the world in search of the ultimate brew and found that Belgian ale is, in his opinion, the pinnacle of brewing. This book demonstrates the importance of sugar, top-fermenting yeasts, and Belgian hops, to this intrinsic, traditional ale.

The only reporter present at the mythic Paris Tasting of 1976--a blind tasting where a panel of esteemed French judges chose upstart California wines over France's best--for the first time introduces the eccentric American winemakers and records the tremendous aftershocks of this historic event that changed forever the world of wine.

At last, a wine book that makes selecting and enjoying wine truly simple. With renowned wine expert Andrea Immer as your guide, never again will you have to fear pricey bottles that don't deliver, snobby wine waiters, foreign terminology, or encyclopedic restaurant wine lists. You'll be able to buy or order wine with confidence-and get just the wine you want-by learning how the " Big Six" basic styles taste and how to read any wine label.
Andrea Immer genuinely knows more about wine than most wine lovers could ever hope (or want) to learn. But she doesn't believe that you have to join a stuffy, exclusive wine-tasting set to become a savvy wine buyer. Unlike other guides on the market, Great Wine Made Simple makes it easy to master the ins and outs of choosing a wine that you and your guests will love-on any budget.
Shunning yesterday's 100-point scales and lectures on " bouquet, " Great Wine Made Simple explains wine in commonsense terms. Featuring a core curriculum of the six grapes that comprise 80 percent of today's top-selling wines, along with a complete flavor map that explains what tastes you can expect from climates around the globe, Great Wine Made Simple uses easy and fun tasting lessons to help you identify what you like and learn how to spot it on a menu or shelf.
Immer reveals the secret weapons of wine experts and explains how to decipher those enigmatic labels. In her fresh, encouraging tones, she provides enlightening exercises (such as " milk tasting" for understanding variations in wine texture) and vocabulary sessions. On a mission to empower the everyday wine buyer, with Great Wine Made Simple Immer creates a refreshing newway to choose the perfect wine for every palate and occasion.

Written by the greatest wine authority of his day, and first published in 1964, The Frank Schoonmaker Encyclopedia has long been acclaimed as one of the very best wine books available. The New York Times immediately called it "the finest quick reference book in the literature of wine."

Because no other wine book provides the reader with as much information in so concise a form, a revised version has been long awaited. Despite all the wine books that have appeared in the past decade, The New Frank Schoonmaker Encyclopedia of Wine is still unique in that its self-contained alphabetical entries make it easier to use than any other encyclopedia on the market. This book has no indexyou simply turn to the entry you want and find exactly the information you need.

Completely revised by one of today's top wine experts, the Bespaloff edition takes into consideration the increased interest in the wines of California, Italy, and Australia. The material on such traditional topics as port and champagne has also been expanded considerably. Beautifully designed in two colors, it features twenty-three maps drawn especially for this edition, and contains more than five hundred new entries including such varied topics as Amador, calories, cra classe, FrenchAmerican hybrids, late harvest, Martha's Vineyard, vintage port, and "Zip Code wines."

The New Frank Schoonmaker Encyclopedia of Wine is the foundation of any wine library. It is the one book any wine lover will ever need. Even if you own and use other wine encyclopedias, the elegant accessibility of this book will induce you to eventually rely on it and no other.