h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Now that was a most informative and well written piece! I cannot think of a better thumbnail primer for the neophyte brewbie (newbie + Brewer = Brewbie)! I have only one comment:

The idea of putting plain sugar into beer, and especially putting a teaspoon of plain sugar into each bottle, is not the best one. Your optional suggestion of using the dried malt extract is much preferable, in my experience. Also your suggested alternative at bottling of putting all the priming sugar into the beer first then bottling the mixture is far superior and is far less likely to lead to exploding bottles in the garden shed (an all-too-common occurrence using table sugar right into the bottles!).

Kudos to you too for referencing Charlie Papazian's work. That book is vital to anyone getting starting in brewing at any level. Good section on mead in there too!

Thanks for the enjoyable article!

-Starchaser

Thanks for your nice comments, from the subbie who integrated the numerous contributions from different researchers. The sugar issue was then descussed a bit controversially and so I mentioned both alternatives.

Glad you liked the article!

Palmer's HOW TO BREW is also a great book for beginers. also i prefer to prime the beer in a bottling bucket prior to bottling to ensure an even sugar distribution (and prevent any messy over priming misshaps).