if you can follow a recipe to make soup, you can brew great beer. I just have a basic starter kit,
this one.
like others have said, the most important thing is to keep everything very clean. I have made great beers in the following styles:
IPA
American Pale Ale
British Pale Ale
Stout
Bock
Porter
I experimented with adding cranberry to an IPA, and that was a disaster. undrinkable beer.
for bottles, I buy 22oz. bottles which makes bottling easier, cleaner/more sterile, and really is just a better size than 12 oz.