Bricks

Brick is a decorative building block that does not naturally spawn anywhere. It is mostly used to make nice looking homes and towers. Since brick is non-flammable, it is often used to make fireplaces. Brick blocks are made by putting clay in a furnace and then crafting the bricks in a 2x2 square. Brick resists explosions no better than cobblestone. A pickaxe must be used to recover the resource of a placed block, but it will take under a second to break. Breaking a block with the player's hand is slow and will not yield the resource.

Clay's only current usage is to be made into bricks or clay blocks, as breaking clay drops 4 clay balls, which can then be smelted into clay bricks. The 4 clay bricks can then be crafted into one brick block. This means that for each clay block found in a map, players can make 1 brick block.

Crafting
A brick block can be crafted from 4 Bricks in a square pattern.

As a Crafting Ingredient
Bricks have acquired two new crafting recipes as of Beta 1.8:

Usage
Some players use brick for its elegance in representing a home. Many players choose to use brick blocks for a fireplace/chimney. Brick's blast resistance (30) is no higher than cobblestone.

Trivia

 * As well as Clay Brick, Nether Brick and Stone Brick also exist. All of these are available in Slab and Stairs form too (except for Nether Brick which cannot be found in Slab form).