How Much Should I Brew?

BertusBrew · 01-25-2011, 05:48 PM

I am trying to figure out how much beer to brew for my wedding reception. We are expecting about 250 people. I plan on bottling as opposed to kegging. Does anybody have an estimate how many bottles I should bring to the reception hall?

I have already checked the laws in my area and transporting and serving homebrew is not an issue, and the banquet hall has no problem with me bringing my own brew also.

**Walker** · 01-25-2011, 05:52 PM

no way to answer that question, really.

Is it 250 rowdy Irish people or 250 strict Buddhists? You'll need very different amounts of beer for those two crowds.

**azscoob** · 01-25-2011, 06:04 PM

The beers will be served by a bartender who knows how to pour a bottle conditioned beer right? I would hate to have a guest pour his own beer and dump the sediment into their glass, or just drink it right out of the bottle.

**JeepDiver** · 01-25-2011, 06:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Walker

no way to answer that question, really.

Is it 250 rowdy Irish people or 250 strict Buddhists? You'll need very different amounts of beer for those two crowds.

Exactly.
But to give you some idea of numbers, assuming 4 beers a person would = 1000 beers, assuming 48 beers per 5 gallons, you are looking at ~ 100 Gallons.

I would also not recommend bottling unless you want to explain to everyone that they need to pour the beer into a glass, and due to yeast and people not being use to it, if you go this route, I would suggest increasing the amount of port johns for the event.

Frodo · 01-25-2011, 06:08 PM

I'd say "a lot"... and I can't even imagine bottling that much for 250 people at a wedding reception. Have you "seriously" thought about kegging it? Then you could run maybe 6 to 8 5-gal kegs at a time, and plan on say 10 to 15 kegs total for that many people.

EDIT: I know you said bottling instead of kegging, but wow that's a lot of bottling. I just kegged my first beer, and don't think I'll ever bottle again, unless it's bottling from the keg... it is so much easier.

BertusBrew · 01-25-2011, 08:09 PM

Thanks for the input guys. There are 250 people coming and most of them are not heavy drinkers. I really do not plan on providing beer for the entire party, just enough so everybody can have some. I understand the complications that go along with bottling such as yeast sediment, but I still feel this is the easier way to do things. It is my wedding and I won't really have time to monitor the kegs and handle any problems that can arise such as excessive foaming or jackasses messing around with the co2 regulator.

**BierMuncher** · 01-25-2011, 08:28 PM

Assume 15% of the invitees don't drink at all (or won't because they are designated drivers).

Assume 30% of the remaining drinkers don't like beer.

That leaves ~150 people who will "have some".

If you allow 2 bottles per homebrew "taster", that's 300 bottles or 6 batches.

Now...if you advertise 4 or 5 different styles of beer, you simply won't have enough because people will taste one style, and move on to another and before you know it, one person has trashed 5 bottles of beer.

One style only on the other hand...with six ounce serving cups, will stretch your bounty much further.

Still...I'd keg.