Aardvark

Welcome to the homebrewing "club." The best site to learn is a free online book; John Palmer's http://www.howtobrew.com [ http://www.howtobrew.com] . In addition, specific questions or planning recipes, come to the Rate Beer homebrew forums (which is the one I frequent) though there are others out there. http://ratebeer.com/Forums/Forum-3.htm [ http://ratebeer.com/Forums/Forum-3.htm ]

Thank you for those sites! much appreciated

It now becomes a challenge to brew in Alaska - I don't have many in town resources for brewing but ill take a look

I've been lucky to have stores nearby, but you can order all your supplies online these days. Shipping may hurt you a bit, but I'm sure you're used to that if you live in Alaska

Must have: http://vark.com/z/540ce (Amazon)

Thanks! Well put!

A great starter book is The Complete Joy of Homebrewing by Charles Papazian. For recipes check out The Homebrewers recipe guide, or if you want to design your own beers, Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels. For an awesome book about beer in general, I highly recommend Fermenting Revolution by Christopher Mark O'Brien. Let me know if you want more recs...I've read dozens of books about beer and love talking about it!

my kind of gal! Yes, I would love some more recommendations - also, if you have recommendations on where to buy the supplies online that would be helpful. I live in AK and it becomes a bit of a chore to get anything up here

I've always enjoyed reading books written by microbrewers...the founder of Dogfish Head wrote a very interesting book called Brewing up a Business. The founders of Brooklyn Brewery wrote Beer School which is also an interesting read. Anything by Michael Jackson (not the singer) is good - he's considered the godfather of beer connoisseurs.

This is getting a little further off-track, but there's a book called Beer Blast which gives you an inside look at the American brewing industry that's really fascinating.

To get great tips while actually brewing, I recommend checking out the site http://beeradvocate.com - there are a lot of passionate people there who are eager to share their knowledge.

I don't know much about ordering brewing supplies online (I've always bought locally), but someone else could probably answer that on Aardvark, and I'd think you could get some recs on BeerAdvocate as well.

Sorry if that was a recommendation overload!

just what I needed. I tend to like reading books (and that is an understatement!) so this is great! Plus, I used to live in Salt Lake during my undergrad years and before I left there was a great book about microbrews in Utah called "Beer in the Beehive" - worth checking out. If you are ever in SLC it would behoove you to stop in at a little place called Junior's just to see the nice selection of vintage beer cans on display. Thanks again!

No problem! I'll definitely keep that in mind if I'm ever in Salt Lake City. Feel free to follow up with me in the future if you ever want more recommendations!

the quintessential start is the book 'complete joy of homebrewing' by http://vark.com/z/6a508 (Amazon)\

I got started with a kit from Home Brewers Outpost. It comes with everything you need, including a book with instructions. By far the most helpful though were their videos, which are completely free. Their website is here < http://www.homebrewers.com/category/aardvarks/ > and the videos here. < http://www.homebrewingvideo.com/category/all-videos/ >

They also sell books that give you recipes for "cloning" your favorite beer, so if you have a particular IPA or Porter that you enjoy you can try your hand at making it yourself.

Hope this helps, Tim

thanks! that points me in the right direction

I would say that you should buy a kit from a shop like MOreBeer. They have a variety of styles you can choose from (IPA and Porter included) and you can learn from there

thanks for reply!