Wedding Beers...Please critique

So I'm getting married in June which leaves about 3 months to go :rockin:

My future wife and I decided to serve some home-brew which should make quite the impression, and ensure everybody is having a good time. The venue will not allow outside beer due to liscencing. However, the day before the wedding we are hosting an outdoor BBQ for our guests outside up in the Colorado Rockies. So the plan is to serve the beer there. We are expecting about 80 or so adult guests at this gathering. My plan is to brew 4 cornies with the following selection:

Saison de Fraise - Strawberry Saison
Colorado Glacier Ale - IPA
JD's Wit - Hefeweizen
Vanilla Porter

I'm hoping the selection goes over well with the guests. I think there is a decent variety. Also, I'm unsure how to serve it. I have a full kegging system to support 4 kegs and picnic taps which may suffice.

The Saison and Porter are underway. Looking foreward to the celebration and serving tasty beer!

May wanna have something bmc drinkers might enjoy....id suggest a centennial blonde

swackattack said:

May wanna have something bmc drinkers might enjoy....id suggest a centennial blonde

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Agreed. For a crowd pleaser, you're going to want something very mellow and easy to drink. The hefe is a good pick, but maybe add a mild pale ale or blonde as a second option.

Congrats, btw

I'm having a graduation party myself in July, and the first thing I came to realize is that I don't want to be serving heavy beers in July. I am serving 4 light styles, an IPA, and some Apfelwine for the ladies.

There are some great recipes for Blonde Ales, Brown Ales, Cream Ales, APA, Light Lagers...you get the idea.

Just a thought.

It's possible you'll run out--I brewed up 6 batches that served 90 at a wedding and only came home with 2 cases. Not that running out is a bad thing! I'll give a +1 to a blonde instead of the porter, or maybe a nice, quaffable red ale

Too lazy to look it up, but I know there's a great thread about a large trash bin or yard waste bin on wheels that someone converted for a party similar to yours. He had four tappers and filled it with ice.

Calculating the keg to guest ratio, and depending on the crowd there's a good chance you'll run out. Maybe that matters, maybe it doesn't.

Ahhhhh......Biermunchers Centenial Blonde..........

Atonk said:

Calculating the keg to guest ratio, and depending on the crowd there's a good chance you'll run out. Maybe that matters, maybe it doesn't.

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There's 40 pints in a corny right? That means you'll have 160 pints so that's two pints per person. You know your guests so that might be plenty or you might run out in half an hour.

Great suggestions here so far. I could always do 5 kegs and add a blond. The IPA is highly drinkable with the recipe I have. Even non-hopheads really enjoy it. The porter may be a tough sell. If I have too much...well I'll just have some left over ready to go after the wedding.

I'm still not sure how to serve. It seems that using picnic taps may warm the beer too much. I really don't want to construct any portable dispensing unit since I don't see myself using it after the wedding. Maybe I could lug the enitre kegerator to the venue, lol!

Atonk said:

Too lazy to look it up, but I know there's a great thread about a large trash bin or yard waste bin on wheels that someone converted for a party similar to yours. He had four tappers and filled it with ice.

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The Grand-daddy of trashcanerators:
www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/biermunchers-rolling-kegerator-byo-published-71719/

Here are a few pictures I posted in a similar thread in the past:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/im-bringing-my-beer-wedding-198675/

Here is another good one:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/my-trash-can-kegorator-build-205607/

It really is as easy as mounting your taps to something, putting the kegs into the trashcan, and filling the trashcan with ice. I like wrapping mine with a tarp to insulate and make it look nicer. If you really wanted to get fancy wrap in a few layers of tarp and finish it with a tablecloth.

I never punctured my trashcan, so it is still a perfectly functional trashcan.

BierMuncher's kegerator is pretty impressive!

do a clone of anchor steam - awesome crowd-pleaser and very classy

Here's the recipe for the IPA. Even people that don't like hoppy beers really enjoy this one. This is probably one of the best beers I've brewed in my short homebrew career.

BeerSmith Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Colorado Glacier Ale
Brewer: Dan
Asst Brewer:
Style: American IPA
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (35.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 6.37 gal
Estimated OG: 1.065 SG
Estimated Color: 11.5 SRM
Estimated IBU: 54.7 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 65.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
12.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 79.63 %
1.00 lb White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 6.64 %
0.81 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 5.37 %
0.62 lb Caramunich Malt (56.0 SRM) Grain 4.11 %
0.51 lb Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 3.38 %
0.13 lb Aromatic Malt (26.0 SRM) Grain 0.86 %
0.50 oz Chinook [13.00 %] (60 min) Hops 17.4 IBU
3.00 oz Glacier [5.60 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
0.50 oz Chinook [13.00 %] (30 min) Hops 13.4 IBU
1.00 oz Magnum [14.00 %] (15 min) Hops 20.6 IBU
1.00 oz Glacier [5.60 %] (5 min) Hops 3.3 IBU
1.00 oz Glacier [5.60 %] (0 min) Hops -
6.50 gal Denver, Colorado Water
1 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) Yeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body
Total Grain Weight: 15.07 lb

very tasty looking beer there - never thought about using glacier in an IPA, love the idea...the recipe also looks like it would lend itself very well to a belgian yeast

Atonk said:

Too lazy to look it up, but I know there's a great thread about a large trash bin or yard waste bin on wheels that someone converted for a party similar to yours. He had four tappers and filled it with ice.

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Hmmm... where is that link...

I did a 50th anniversary party and let me tell you, the light blonde ale kicked first.

Not sure how a Porter is going to be received in the dead of summer.

The key to not running out is get yourself some decent quality, clear, 6 oz plastic cups.

RogerMcAllen said:

The Grand-daddy of trashcanerators:
www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/biermunchers-rolling-kegerator-byo-published-71719/

Here are a few pictures I posted in a similar thread in the past:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/im-bringing-my-beer-wedding-198675/

Here is another good one:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/my-trash-can-kegorator-build-205607/

It really is as easy as mounting your taps to something, putting the kegs into the trashcan, and filling the trashcan with ice. I like wrapping mine with a tarp to insulate and make it look nicer. If you really wanted to get fancy wrap in a few layers of tarp and finish it with a tablecloth.

I never punctured my trashcan, so it is still a perfectly functional trashcan.

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That's the one ... I love that thread - it's like a happy bedtime story!

Dude that's a great traveling setup! I'm not quite there but I can dream. Hopefully you never accidently bring it to the curb on trash day.

I put some thought into it however so I'm just going to chill out the kegs in some buckets with ice, but have a cooler with ice also to keep the lines chilled along with picnic taps. I don't expect to do this again after the wedding so this is probably the cheapest solution.

BTW, the Colorado Glacier ale is coming along perfectly. We're calling it "hoppily ever after" at the wedding after some research on this forum, but we all know it's hoppy goodness which really matters whatever it's called. I'm doing 3oz of dry hop additions, 1 oz each week of glacier. Awesome all around and a fabulous hop variety!

I'm sorry that I didn't follow the suggestions in this thread that summer ale would be the way to go instead of a porter. The vanilla porter is awesome.....swmbo loves it! I've found that you can get non-beer drinkers and the bmc crowd to drink homebrew if it's done right.....less bitterness, more novelty, and less pretention. Everybody wants to try our beer!

We're going to have some liqor and bmc crap on standby just in case. However, I'm hopoing to get some converts out of this situation.

.

So I need to give an update for those contemplating a similar scenario. I decided to throw all 4 kegs in an ice bucket. The lines were connected through a cooler with picnic taps connected to the front to keep the lines cool. The cooler was filled with ice and each tap had a few extra feet per line running through it so I would not consider it a true jocky box. The only issue was the carbonation was too high. I dialed it down to <5 psi since during the event you do not need to carb the kegs, but just have enough pressure to push the beer through the lines/taps.

So the WINNER WAS: the IPA aka "Hoppily Ever After". This keg was cashed in quick order. Everybody seemed to enjoy this beer immensely! Second place goes to "For Richer or Porter". I didn't think the porter would have been so popular, but apparently we had enough beer aficionados to get the keg down to <1/4 full at the end of the event. Believe it or not, but the Saison and the Hefe were about ½ full after the event. Everybody seemed to hone in on the IPA and the Porter for some reason.

Two things I need to caveat in the event are that this was not our actual wedding evening and some of the guests were liquor drinkers that happened to bring their own beverages to the event. For the actual wedding (we had to buy commercial kegs) a lot of people drank wine or mixed drinks.
So going with anything that is similar to a BMC beer at any event is highly discouraged in my opinion. Buy that crap separately if people really like to drink that stuff, but don’t spend the time brewing it. Besides, if you make something interesting that nobody else likes, that’s more beer for yourself afterwards. Cheers!

….. If anybody in Denver wants to sample leftover wedding beer let me know! We have some quality leftovers along with good conversations. I’m still a fledgling in this hobby so more critique and “beer sampling” the better!

Congrats on the marriage and beer! I am getting married Friday and just going to do home brew as favors for quest. Bottled 96 bottles for a small wedding.

32 Blonde Ale
32 Amber Ale
16 Saison
16 Imperial IPA

Hey Mexican, how did the wedding go? Most importantly, how did the beers go over as favors?

If you are still looking for oppinion, I got one for you!

if you are serving two beers, 1 light, 1 dark is always a good idea.

If you serve three, I would branch out, one light and sweet, one dark and heavy, and one bitter as all get out.

Serving 4.... I would say same as three, but add a Crisp Cream Ale and BAM you got your BMC drinkers handled.

SO I would stick with your original selection, but swap the hefe for a Cream Ale, it will make the Bud/Miller people happy.

denverdan said:

Hey Mexican, how did the wedding go? Most importantly, how did the beers go over as favors?

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Wedding went great, except for the rain (outdoor wedding). Thanks for asking. Everyone loved the beer favors. Most really enjoyed the blonde and amber, but was surprised by some of the guests that really dug the IIPA.