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Brew Like a Pro: Make Pub-Style Draft Beer at Home
Make your best beer ever! Legendary brewer Dave Miller brings a lifetime of professional experience into your home. With complete plans for a system that requires just 18 square feet and full of small-batch recipes, Brew Like a Pro reveals the secrets of truly great draft- and pub-style brewing. Learn to make classic all-grain beers that stay fresh in kegs for months, eliminating the need for bottling. This clear, concise guide is sure to take your homebrewing to the next level.
272 pages, Paperback
First published December 4, 2012
9 people are currently reading
35 people want to read
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Dave Miller
8 books2 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 28, 2013
I got this book from the publisher to review. My husband and I wanted to get into brewing beer for ourselves for a long time now. We have read on and off about it.
This book by Dave Miller is absolutely all-encompassing! It will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about home brewing and the history of brewing (being from Bavaria, I know the history well, we all grow up with it)
The book is well written and structured. It will not leave you looking online to fill gaps.
However: if you are looking just to brew a little bit for your own self and more for fun then starting your own micro brewery, this book might be a bit intimidating. The basic setup it tells you to get is quite extensive and might be a bit off putting for someone that really just wants to dabble a little.
If, on the other hand, you are looking into making this a little more then just a hobby -lets call it an obsession-, then this book HAS to be in your library!
Definitely something every serious brewer should have at least read, if not own.
Go check it out if you have given home-brewing a thought! The information is worth having, even if you should go with a different set-up then the book tells you!
I would definitely recommend it!
This book by Dave Miller is absolutely all-encompassing! It will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about home brewing and the history of brewing (being from Bavaria, I know the history well, we all grow up with it)
The book is well written and structured. It will not leave you looking online to fill gaps.
However: if you are looking just to brew a little bit for your own self and more for fun then starting your own micro brewery, this book might be a bit intimidating. The basic setup it tells you to get is quite extensive and might be a bit off putting for someone that really just wants to dabble a little.
If, on the other hand, you are looking into making this a little more then just a hobby -lets call it an obsession-, then this book HAS to be in your library!
Definitely something every serious brewer should have at least read, if not own.
Go check it out if you have given home-brewing a thought! The information is worth having, even if you should go with a different set-up then the book tells you!
I would definitely recommend it!
March 28, 2023
Dave Miller's Brewing the World's Great Beers was the first home brewing book I ever read. I bought a copy back in 1992, drawn by the promise that it could teach me how to brew not just my own beer but kölsch in particular. Kölsch was all but unknown in the US then, but a German-born friend had treated me to some bootlegged Dom Kölsch after visiting family in Cologne and I was hooked.
For decades, home- and craft-brewing have been shaped by Charlie Papazian's loosey-goosey mantra "Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Home Brew." Dave Miller's fussy, style-driven approach is the polar opposite of that, and, all these years later, I still respect it more. So, I ordered a copy of Brew Like a Pro as soon as it was published in 2012 but never made it all the way through. For whatever reason, I would read a couple chapters or pore through Miller's plans for building this piece of equipment or that, then put the book down and forget about it. Having a toddler around the house probably didn't help.
But then I stumbled across a Kindle version last month, picked it up for next to nothing, and read the whole thing in two sittings. Miller's advice is hyper-practical, oriented toward a particular kind of set-up (infusion mash in a dedicated mash/lauter tun, gas-fired brew kettle, magnetic-drive pump, counterflow wort chiller, and draft-only packaging). In short, the book is the distilled essence of Miller's quirks, stylistic preferences, domestic constraints, and professional experience at Nashville's Blackstone Brewing and the Schlafly Tap Room in St. Louis. Reading it all the way through was like catching up with a favorite, slightly obsessive uncle I hadn't seen for far too long.
Though somewhat dated in areas (cleaning/sanitation chemicals and all-in-one brewing systems come to mind), Brew Like a Pro remains a solid source of practical advice. If I were starting out now, I would depend on it and John Palmer's How to Brew.
For decades, home- and craft-brewing have been shaped by Charlie Papazian's loosey-goosey mantra "Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Home Brew." Dave Miller's fussy, style-driven approach is the polar opposite of that, and, all these years later, I still respect it more. So, I ordered a copy of Brew Like a Pro as soon as it was published in 2012 but never made it all the way through. For whatever reason, I would read a couple chapters or pore through Miller's plans for building this piece of equipment or that, then put the book down and forget about it. Having a toddler around the house probably didn't help.
But then I stumbled across a Kindle version last month, picked it up for next to nothing, and read the whole thing in two sittings. Miller's advice is hyper-practical, oriented toward a particular kind of set-up (infusion mash in a dedicated mash/lauter tun, gas-fired brew kettle, magnetic-drive pump, counterflow wort chiller, and draft-only packaging). In short, the book is the distilled essence of Miller's quirks, stylistic preferences, domestic constraints, and professional experience at Nashville's Blackstone Brewing and the Schlafly Tap Room in St. Louis. Reading it all the way through was like catching up with a favorite, slightly obsessive uncle I hadn't seen for far too long.
Though somewhat dated in areas (cleaning/sanitation chemicals and all-in-one brewing systems come to mind), Brew Like a Pro remains a solid source of practical advice. If I were starting out now, I would depend on it and John Palmer's How to Brew.
March 25, 2018
skimmed mostly, but great content. time for new equipment!
October 12, 2022
Very good for begginners.
February 28, 2013
I can't say I wasn't warned. The introductory blurb says "Are you ready to take your homebrewing to the next level?"
I am a newbie at this, but this was in the library, so I thought I'd take a look.
The ante in Mr. Miller's game is pretty steep. He starts by saying if you are not going to put your beer in kegs, you can't really consider yourself a brewer. He doesn't even discuss extract brewing. I can understand the dismissal of extract brewing, but as far as sharing goes, it is the essence of home brewing. Without putting it in bottles, it's pretty much stuck in your kitchen or basement or with growlers. I've never been all that enthusiastic about growlers. It is always too flat for me.
A modest keg system is going to be at least $300 bucks, more if you don't have an extra refrigerator. It goes up from there.
That said, I think it is an excellent book, describing how to scale a home-brew operation to get the quality and consistency of a professional operation.
The book is at its best when it is describing how to build stuff at fairly slight expense that will greatly increase control of the process. He has just the right amount of step-by-step process combined with theory that enable the reader to figure out things by him/her self.
It is also very good at describing how beer is created and what must be done/can be done/would be good to do/doesn't need to be done at all.
My biggest complaint is that half-way through the book, he introduces the concept of "knockout" without defining it. From then on, he uses the word frequently. It apparently very important, given the amount of ink the word receives.
I would have preferred a little more discussion of what it is and why it is important. He explains at great length how to promote it, usually at a fairly high expense.
The book has increased my knowledge of brewing and I am inspired to try some of his ideas if I ever get to the point where I'm brewing on a scale that would justify so many up-front costs.
I am a newbie at this, but this was in the library, so I thought I'd take a look.
The ante in Mr. Miller's game is pretty steep. He starts by saying if you are not going to put your beer in kegs, you can't really consider yourself a brewer. He doesn't even discuss extract brewing. I can understand the dismissal of extract brewing, but as far as sharing goes, it is the essence of home brewing. Without putting it in bottles, it's pretty much stuck in your kitchen or basement or with growlers. I've never been all that enthusiastic about growlers. It is always too flat for me.
A modest keg system is going to be at least $300 bucks, more if you don't have an extra refrigerator. It goes up from there.
That said, I think it is an excellent book, describing how to scale a home-brew operation to get the quality and consistency of a professional operation.
The book is at its best when it is describing how to build stuff at fairly slight expense that will greatly increase control of the process. He has just the right amount of step-by-step process combined with theory that enable the reader to figure out things by him/her self.
It is also very good at describing how beer is created and what must be done/can be done/would be good to do/doesn't need to be done at all.
My biggest complaint is that half-way through the book, he introduces the concept of "knockout" without defining it. From then on, he uses the word frequently. It apparently very important, given the amount of ink the word receives.
I would have preferred a little more discussion of what it is and why it is important. He explains at great length how to promote it, usually at a fairly high expense.
The book has increased my knowledge of brewing and I am inspired to try some of his ideas if I ever get to the point where I'm brewing on a scale that would justify so many up-front costs.
May 8, 2020
A decent read on brewing, but he has a clear position on draft beer vs bottle conditioning. Also found he made the process more daunting than necessary. I have Brewed numerous batches and he still made me a bit anxious of the process. But I find each book on brewing reinforces certain principles and this one was no different in that regard. Just don't be put off by his biases and learn what you need to know. As far as brewing process books, I would rather recommended John Palmer 's How to Brew.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews