I got into homebrewing because I liked to drink beers that I couldn't find on store shelves, and I didn't like paying $8 for a six-pack of Guinness (I still don't).

I also like the challenge and creativity of brewing. What I don't like is the math that can be involved if you won't precision in your brewing.

That's why ProMash has been nothing short of a revelation for me. There's a handful of brewing software programs out there, but I can't imagine that any is more useful than ProMash, the creation of brewer and software designer Jeffrey Donovan.

I could spend the next three issues of The Final Draft describing all of the details in ProMash, but for brevity's sake I'll leave it at this: Through a combination of grain, hops and yeast databases, plus calculators for almost every brewing formula you would ever use, you can formulate a recipe that will take you from style to grain bill to hop bill to the International Bitterness Units you'll have and the color of the beer, expressed in SRMs.

That doesn't even include the exact starting gravity you should have, the finishing gravity you should have and the expected alcohol content. If you're mashing, ProMash will tell you how much water you'll need and at what temperatures during a step-infusion mash.

ProMash also keeps an inventory of the grain and hops you have on hand; it's nice to be able to punch a couple of computer keys and see how much pale malt you have instead of digging out a bag of grain and getting out the baby scales.

All of this is nice to play with, of course; I've found myself just dreaming of recipes and punching in various combinations on ProMash to see what would happen. I've taken a couple of 5-gallon recipes and adjusted the size to 100, 200 gallons just to see how much grain I would be using then.

But the ultimate test is the field test, and that's where I'd have to give ProMash a thumbs-up. I've used it for about a half-dozen batches and almost nailed my starting gravity to the letter every time. Two weeks ago, I did a partial mash (ProMash also works for extract batches) which went to a hell in a handbasket. My mash started out too thick, I had a stuck sparge, I eventually poured all of the mash into a grain bag and started squeezing, I had to pour everything through a funnel into my carboy because it got stuck again.

I started out looking for a 1.068 gravity. My reading was 1.068. Amazing.

I can't think of any real criticisms, other than just the sprawling nature of the program itself might intimidate a computer novice. And, since I like fruit beers, I'd like to see Donovan add some of the most popular ? or at least raspberries ? into the mix with some approximations on how they will affect gravity.

ProMash costs $24.95 (or somewhere near there; whether it's $22.95 or $26.95 it's worth the extra couple of bucks), and you can download a nine-batch demo by going to http://www.promash.com.

(RATING: 4? steins of 5)