Big Homebrew Wedding Project

Hey guys,

I've been brewing about 6 months, but mostly extract. I've only done 1ish all grain, and that was just because my friend let me use his brewery. Well now I just got the word that my sister is getting married, and I was asked if I would make the beer for the wedding. Thankfully I have until a year from this June to prefect my craft. Also thankfully, I am graduating from college this semester and I landed a job that pays well enough to buy all the toys that I can't afford now. Anyway, here is my general idea. First buy all the all-grain stuff and then get as many good recipes down as possible. I also want to build a kegerator with four taps, and just serve the rest in bottles. These are the beers I have in mind as well as the recipe that I kind of like.


Rye Pale Ale (My future brother in law is a Terripin guy) https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtle-terrapin-rye-clone-72839/

Hefe http://www.brew365.com/style_hefeweizen.php

Bock https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f61/red-baron-bock-25004/

Blonde Ale https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/blonde-ale-recipe-160256/

Wit http://www.beersmith.com/Recipes2/recipe_367.htm

light lager http://www.brewboard.com/index.php?showtopic=33488
I don't think this one is really true to style although I bet it tastes a heck of a lot better. But when people ask me for something that tastes like Bud light I should probably have something to give them.

Banana Bread Beer (This was the all grain I made earlier, and I had great reviews so I had to include it)

Coffee Stout
American 2 row 8
Flaked oats 1
Roasted Barley 0.5
Chocolate Malt 0.5
Lactose 0.75
Chocolate 0.25
Coffee 1 qt

Add 8oz of lactose to the end of the boil
Add 1 quart Coffee when racking from primary to secondary


English Bitter (Its my sister's favorite, but I haven't found much on it.)

Brown Ale
I've found a couple of good base brown ales, but its a style that you can go crazy with so I kind of want to do that if I can.

Apologies for posting so much in one thread. I'm a little overwhelmed with the project myself even though I have very excited about it. Any tips would be appreciated.

I'm confused on the banana bread recipe. I've never made one or never tried one (it just doesn't sound tasty to me, but that is my preference) but I would imagine it would include banana, right? And I've never had banana bread with coffee in it, where did you come up with that?

edit: Nevermind, I see. You didn't label it very clearly, I missed that it was a coffee stout, next time try bolding or underlining it to make it stand out.

So it looks like you're making 10 different beers? That is quite a lot. How many people are going to be at this wedding? Honestly, if I were in your shoes, I would just choose 5 beers and brew the appropriate volume you decide on. I just think that is too many choices, and less is more. Try focusing on making 5 of them, making them well, and not getting yourself too bogged down with a bunch of different recipes.

keesh said:

I'm confused on the banana bread recipe. I've never made one or never tried one (it just doesn't sound tasty to me, but that is my preference) but I would imagine it would include banana, right? And I've never had banana bread with coffee in it, where did you come up with that?

Click to expand...

Sorry I had to edit that later. The one under that was a coffee stout. I was in the local beer and wine shop a few months ago, and one of the tastings for the week was a Wells Banana Bread Beer. I thought it was a really cool idea and a really cool beer and wanted to make it. You get the banana flavors from Hefe yeast fermented high, and from banana added to the secondary. The bread I got from biscuit malt, oats and honey malt. It came out well, but it wasn't really Wells. I'd be willing to listen to advice on that one too.

That's kind of big topic there. Do you have specific questions about something that folks can help you with?

chickypad said:

That's kind of big topic there. Do you have specific questions about something that folks can help you with?

Click to expand...

Well I suppose mostly I am doing recipes at this point, especially for the Bitter. Otherwise, if you think I should include X style for the summer that I lot of people would like, or if you know of a better recipe on a style that I have included.

Also I have a fair idea on how I am going to make the all grain setup, but I am far less comfortable with the kegerator setup. I want it to be a chest freezer. I want it to have 4 taps. I'm hoping I can build the kegerator+get kegs etc for 800 or less.

just know that the bock will need to ferment at least 10 degrees cooler than the ales/ wheat based beers.

you're gonna need a lot of toys man. and +1 to work on like 5 beers instead of 10, you dont have enough time to not ef up.

Try and catch a range of flavors in those 5 also, If I were GONNA pick 5 I'd maybe go with:
a rye IPA
a Dunkel
a belgian wit (blue moon clone?!)
a Blonde/Light Lager (for the sissys)
a Red or brown (honey brown)

Its a good range of flavors for a crowd, session and dinner drinks. You need to take atleast 5-6 months with 5 fermenters to get atleast 2-3 batches of each to know if you want them or not.... Tough job

This is a cool idea but you got a big undertaking in front of you. IS your sister going to help finance this? Get them to buy the equipment and you cover the grain cost and labor. I agree with the others, cap it at 4 or 5 beers top and do them on a color scale, light to dark. If you have trouble doing the lager type brews that take more work I would say eff it and get a keg of bud light for those folks!

Not a bad idea to just buy a keg of bud light and make the rest. My sister hasn't indicated that she will help financially, but my parents have said they will. Works well for me as I get to keep the new toys after I'm done.

btw, if you go the kegerator route, don't even bother bottling any. too much of a hassle plus if you need bottles it's a wedding, making sure you get you get the bottles back vs. them ending up in the trash is a pain that you don't want to deal with. Your biggest issue is going to be quantitiy. I'm even newer to this than you are and have just made my first 5 gallon all grain batch. I already want to do 10 gallon batches because of the amount of work involved. I remember throwing parties in college and we would get 2 kegs and they would kick in a couple of hours. If the goal is to have enough beer for the entire wedding, you will need a lot of beer. If it's going to be more of a novelty thing in addition to the regular bar and it's offerings than you won't need as much. I've been to a ton of weddings and they differ all over the country but if your sister and soon to be bro in law are beer connoiseurs and their friends are as well, perhaps you should brew beer as the favor. Instead of brewing enough beer to party to all night, Just brew a 22 ounce bottle for each guest, or a 6 pack for each guest and get labels or 6 pack containers with their pictures on it or something that commemorates the wedding. Just my .02

Another thing I didn't say originally is that you might want to ask them where they are going to do the wedding, so you can find out how the venue will look at bringing your own homebrew. I've read before that people have had problems with that because of license issues and whatnot. Also, this might be an option. Its like a giant jockey box with the kegs inside.