[quote=“rebuiltcellars”]I’m amazed no one has suggested “Designing Great Beers” by Ray Daniels. That is the classic work for teaching how to create your own recipes so that you can make what you want. It sounds like this is exactly what you are looking for.
“Radical Brewing” by Randy Mosher is the book that really got me thinking in the recipe-creation mode. It isn’t as much of a tutorial like “Designing” or “How to Brew”, but it is a fun read and it really goes in the details of different ingredients and how they affect the finished beer. You’ll come out of it with a desire to try out a dozen different ingredients that you never thought of for brewing before, and figuring out ways to make them work.[/quote]
This. At least on Designing Great Beers. Once you have the basics down, this book is indispensable.
IMO Radical Brewing is a little dated. While it does offer some good ideas to get creative juices flowing, some of the beers in it look outright gross, and IIRC, a lot of the information in there is based on dated brewing dogma. I would recommend Experimental Brewing by Denny and Drew over it by a mile.
Start all-grain brewing. BIAB is so easy and awesome, I actually went to it from a dedicated mash tun setup.
One thing I started doing early on is splitting wort. Make a batch as normal, split the wort into two fermenters and tweak just one variable (dry hoppping, yeast, etc.). You can also do 2 different boils on brew day with the same wort to do entirely different hopping schedules.
I also went through a phase where my only goal was to brew ‘boring’ beer. But brew it really well. I was a brewer that wanted to add a little of this, add a little of that, and essentially ‘kitchen sink’ beers early on. Being disciplined helped me dial in my process.
Send your beers to BJCP competitions for feedback. They will give you good, objective and helpful tips on how to improve your beer. This is critical in learning to make better beer IMO.
Finally, as others have suggested, sensory analysis is also indispensable. You cannot diagnose problems in your beer or in others without it. At a minimum, check out some online sensory programs (Billybrew is a good one from what I hear, particularly in your circumstance, where it needs to be virtual), but local BJCP events and certification are great steps to take. In my mind, sensory training is essential.
http://www.garagebrewers.com/champion-of-the-pint/
This comp is 3 hours from you. Go check it out in January and make a day of it. Try to steward so you can see the process.
