Fantastic, practical brewing book and very highly recommended. As a BJCP judge, I most appreciate Mosher's perspective on styles and formulating recipes. His approach should enlighten and enable the reader to understand styles and build recipes on their own, without using this or any other resource as a crutch. This book contains an excellent description of malt varieties--the best I've read for practicality. Mosher achieves his goal of getting the newbie up to speed quickly, but there is plenty in here for seasoned homebrewers, as well.He and Jim Koch, who wrote the forward, dispense some conflicting advice for new brewers, however: Koch urges newbies not to brew before reading the book (pg 13), but Mosher recommends brewing right away as an accompaniment to the text (pg 16). Take Mosher's advice.It could have used one last round of copy editing. I read this book cover-to-cover over about 2 weeks, and noticed the following errors, inconsistencies, and omissions:1. No explanation of why mash pH is important, despite stressing how important it is;2. No description of a triple decoction, despite noting that it takes 22 steps;3. No explanation of what lautering is, despite devoting a section to "Lautering and Sparging" on page 140. Also, there is no definition of it in the glossary;4. Crediting Garrett Oliver as the author of The Oxford Companion to Beer;5. Random photo of a carboy and keg washer on page 180 under "Wort Aeration" without any explanation;6. Illustrative photo of the Closed Wort-Transfer Method on page 221 omits the plastic carboy cap on the sanitized vessel;7. Categorizes American Cream Ale, Munich Dark Lager, Maibock, and several other styles as "Biere de Garde" on page 261;8. Writes that "highly flocculent strains are usually the most attenuative", and then writes that they are "the least attenuative" on page 272;9. Writes that the first Oktoberfest occurred in 1810 on page 281, then writes that it occurred in 1816 on page 301;10. Errors with Plato / OG conversion in recipes on pages 302 and 349;11. Emphasizes spice character of Saison but omits mention of fruitiness on page 309;12. Confusing explanation of alcohol by weight and volume on page 326 (probably a misplaced parenthesis that caused it);13. Listing a Wahl/Henius text from 1901 under "modern" resources and a 1902 text under "historical" resources.14. Mistakenly refers to a "flat switch" on page 170. This should be "float switch." Also, does not explain that using a grant and float switch is to avoid pumping wort directly from the lauter (or mash/lauter) tun, which can result in a stuck lauter or sparge due to compression in the grain bed.