marriage brew

Hey, I'm getting married this year, around September. I would like to get one or two celebration brews, as well as an Oktoberfest, ready for this. Doesn't matter if it is a lager or ale. Anyone have any good ideas or suggestions for a wedding brew? It will be around September.

I was also looking into doing a few gallons of apfelwein, as well as blueberry wine. We both like fruit wines. Is wine hard to do?

Also, how many gallons beer and wine would be good for a wedding of around 20 or so people??

Make sure your able to serve your home made alcohol wherever it is being held. Most venues wont allow it as well as bartenders ususally arn't legally allowed to serve a non-commercially brewed beer/wine.

But if its going to be in your parents back yard or something your all good!

depends on the family! I could pic any 20 from my family and take 5 gallons and bring home most of that keg. I could take the same 5 gallons to my step dad's family (fun group) and within 20 minutes it'd be empty.

if they're partiers figure maybe 5-10 drinks/person?

I am making a chocolate stout to go with the chocolate fountain and a pale ale (SWMBO's fav) for our party favors. I am also thinking about making a Scotch Strong Ale for the wedding party and put it in some Growlers.

I think a SMaSH has a lot of applicable wedding themes.

Thanks,

I didn't even think about not being allowed to bring non commercial beer to the wedding site. Of course I could always throw a commercial label on the keg and just call it that

Well, since I wont be drinking it, i will need 5 gallons less My family and friends can drink quite a bit.

If I am not able to bring it on site, I can save the beer for a party before hand.Maybe I could make the wine and beer, as part of the guest tables centerpieces or gifts. One bottle or two to each to each guest of the beer, and one or two bottles of wine per table.

Anyways, what would be a good style? I have friends who range from drinking nothing but Budweiser, to others who are beer connoisseurs. what would be a good neutral style middle ground? IPA's are out, as well as porters, barley wines and such. I do like the idea of the choco stout and fountain.

What's a SMaSH??

I did all of the wine and beer for my wedding too. It was outdoors in the summer and we figured 6-7 drinks per person (it went from 2pm-12am). x 60 people
I made an effort to keep the ABV relatively low due to the heat and duration.
Beer: APA, Red, Wheat, IPA (all 5.5% or less).
Wine: Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon. (all 11% or less). Piece of cake to make if you can make decent beer BTW.

To give people something to do while we had our pictures taken we set up the Hors d’oeuvre hour like a beer/wine tasting, paring them with cheeses.

We took 200 bottles of beer, and 120 bottles of wine up there and brought back 2 cases of each. So, we averaged 8.5 drinks per person.
I forgot to mention that we had 5 gallons of "Hurricanes" (50/50 fruit juice and Rum), so we averaged 9.6 drinks per person.
Needless to say we had a great time!

I like that idea about the beer/wine/cheese pairing. I am def. leaning towards bottles.

fretbrner said:

What's a SMaSH??

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Single Malt and Single Hop

Thought it'd be appropriate because it's two single ingredients coming together to make something better...kind of like marriage...hopefully...

keelanfish said:

Thought it'd be appropriate because it's two single ingredients coming together to make something better...kind of like marriage...hopefully...

Click to expand...

Good call on that, I would say vienna/northern brewer

10lbs vienna
1oz northern brewer @60
1oz @ 15
1oz @ flame out (i prefer hopback but flame out works if you dont have a hopback)

This is an amazing beer and is pretty cheap to make too, I did a double batch (10g) and cost me $32

yea, that sounds like a great idea. I will have to experiment with different malts and different hops for this one. Wonder what Munich/cascade would taste like.

Getting some good ideas Our honeymoon plans to be a beer/food tour of europe.

The majority of your guests will go for the lighter brew you bring; if you make a stout and something else I would go 1 stout for every 3 lighter brew.

I wanted to brew beer for my wedding but the venues didn't allow it and by the time the wedding approached i realized that my family doesn't like beer and it would be a waste of my time and good beer. I envy you and your beer drinking family.

Most wedding planners figure a half barrel per 50 people. Your corny keg is slightly smaller than a sixth barrel, for comparison, so you'll need three per 50 guests. Note that this is total guests, not beer drinkers.

Slightly off subject, but depending what you plan for the bachelor party, you could also make a batch of mead the day before your wedding and have that ready or your first anniversary.

A friend and I made a Munich SMaSH with Cascade hops and it tasted very similar to Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale.

If you're gonna do th stout, get her going now. We know how they can be like a pot of chili. The longer they sit, the better they fall.