Homebrewing is fun. And at its core, it's about experimentation.

When you're brewing with the end goal of commercial production, this experimentation becomes more focused. You are experimenting in small ways to work on a particular recipe.

When we first started brewing, we brewed whatever we wanted. Which was fine. We were learning the process and enjoying ourselves. But we soon realized that if Monday Night Brewing wanted to actually launch with beer we were proud of, we had to be very deliberate about developing a few strong recipes.

With each recipe, we first brewed a standard "to style" version a couple of times to make sure that we understood the basics and could replicate the recipe well.

Once we got to a certain level of consistency with a base recipe, it was time to make it our own. This is the tough part. There are inevitably a lot of changes we want to make to any given recipe. "What if we change the base malt?" "Let's update the hop schedule." "Let's add mayonnaise!" (Note: not recommended).

There are so many variables that go into each beer, and each variable can have a profound impact on the rest of the beer. Isolating each variable, "scientific method" style, became extremely important.

So with each new iteration of a recipe we would only change one thing at a time. Sometimes we were able to do even more controlled experiments. For instance, we could divide a beer into two batches and dry hop each with a different hop mix and compare later.

Jeff Heck took the lead on recipe formulation, and he found two books incredibly helpful throughout this process. They are as follows, with some thoughts from him on each:

Designing Great Beers, by Ray Daniels
This is my number one go-to book when it comes to the blocking and tackling of recipe formulation. The first half provides an overview of the impact of grain, water, yeast and hops on the flavor and character of beer. The second half is a deep dive into some main style categories and how to think through recipe formulations for each. Don’t expect any help with your 13% ABV Belgian Watermelon Trippel IPA, but the fundamentals for brewing a solid brew are all here.

Radical Brewing, by Randy Mosher
Ok, so you want to brew that 13% ABV Belgian Watermelon Trippel IPA anyway? Then this is your book. Mosher’s book doesn’t offer much guidance on the basics, but it’s a great help when thinking through ingredients that would place your beer in blatant violation of the Reinheitsgebot. It also has some helpful basic guidelines for high gravity and Belgian style beers, including some recipes to get you started. It’s not as brainy as Daniels’ book, but a lot of fun.

Another thing that also helped in recipe formulation was being very conscious of tasting and taking notes after each batch. It's easier to know what to change if you can look back on past notes and see how a beer has progressed. Saving past beers is also helpful, though homebrews don't have quite as much shelf life as commercial brews. Especially when you've got beer-loving friends around.

Jonathan Baker