31Friction,
You asked for it
The standard beginning homebrew book is Charlie Papazian's
Complete Joy of Home Brewing
That book has everything you need to learn how to brew, plus some good recipes. The three other beer books I have found to be really worth having are:
The Homebrewer's Companion , which has some good advice on technique and a few good recipes
The Brewmaster's Bible , which has a ton of good recipes sorted by difficulty and a lot of good brewing technique that you shouldn't be exposed to until abfter you've brewed a beer or two with Papazian's methods and attitude. (Snyder will stress you out if you don't read Papazian first)
Designing Great Beers will give you all the theory and the math to back it up. This is a much more advanced book, but the one I find myself coming back to over and over.
For mead, there's only two books out there that I know of, and both have some serious drawbacks. I'm only going to recommend one:
The Compleat Meadmaker
It has less detail than I would like, but better technique and less filler than the other one.
http://www.beertown.org/ is your starting point for all things brewing on the web. They can help you find suppliers and homebrewers in your area. (You shouldn't have any problems in St. Louis.)
Best of luck and happy brewing. Lemme know how your first batch turns out, and feel free to contact me with questions or for recipes.
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