Joy of Home Brewing, by Charlie Papazian, is the 'bible' in beer brewery world. You should be able to borrow one from your local library. I checked our mine from our local library. What you really need is the first part--"how to" for the beginner.
To brew beer you need three things: 1. a bucket (keg), 2. malt extract, and 3. yeast. The process is simple: boiling the malt extract, wait for the temperature to cool down, add yeast, pour into the keg, then wait.
The secret to be successful is the sanitization process. Basically, you want to get rid of other bacterias except beer yeast. You don't need special sanitizer, home plain bleach is good enough. You have to water thoroughly to remove the bleach odor. Sanitize everything you will touch--the can opener, spoon, keg, pot... If you fail, most likely you did not sanitize well. Yet, don't worry, the failed beer is still drinkable and won't get you sick. (for the alcohol in the beer will kill bacterias) The taste is not pleasant, though.
Temperature is important, too, and autumn is a perfect season to brew ale.
There are a lot of information online, too. Check out http://www.beertown.org/
To start you first batch, you would like to use malt extract rather than to malt barley yourself. The malt extract is just "麦芽糖"+hops (for the bitterness in the beer). You can buy malt extract from local brewery store or on-line. Normally, the can comes with a bag of yeast.
I got my initial brewing accessories (keg ..etc), as well as malt extract cans, from Mr. Beer I chose it simply for the shape of the keg. There are many on-line suppliers. You can choose the one you like. You don't need bottles. Soda bottles will do. Recently, I found that there is no need for bottles at all. It is perfectly fine and tasteful to drink fresh ale from the keg directly. So, I omitted bottling lately.
