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For anyone interested in homebrewing, I strongly recommend reading Jim Palmer's How To Brew [0]. It's available for free online and does a great job explaining the basics of brewing, while also including details about the chemistry behind what happens during the brewing process. It's much easier to brew an ale than making the lambics described in this article.

[0] http://www.howtobrew.com/

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Also the book "Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation (Brewing Elements)" provides an excellent guide to using yeast. Describing aspects such as the different flavour components produced by yeasts, up to plating your own yeast samples.

It's amazing how different yeasts can produce radically different flavours. A fun experiment to try is to split the wort (unfermented beer) into different vessels and try different yeasts out. For instance using a hefeweizen yeast, will give clove/banana notes.

A classic for a reason! If anyone is interested in the more complex brewing process and chemistry of lambic beer, Jeff Sparrow's "Wild Brews" is another great read.

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