4 weeks to finish

So I've been assigned to brew a batch for 30 people, a special occasion potluck sort of thing. Thing is, I've only got til May 15th to have this stuff brewed, bottled, and conditioned.
Anyone know any quick and dirty recipes? I was thinking something with high IBU, probably a dry-hopped APA. Thoughts?

I don't think high-anything is going to work in just four weeks. You'll probably do best with something with low alcohol and no strong flavors. Think session beers. A simple pale ale would work.

I was able to get a pretty good pale ale done in 4 weeks, but I keg. The fact that you need to bottle condition is going to make it a lot tougher. With a keg you could knock a bunch of time off by force-carbing.
I'd go along with what erock said: avoid bigger beers, and high IBUs can take a little while to mellow out properly. Depending on the crowd you're brewing for, high hopping rates might not go over too well, especially if the beer is served young. I'd go with something like a blonde or the light end of pale ale.

I agree with no "high-anything". Another reason is it's less likely to be a crowd pleaser. First thing that comes to mind is a cream ale around a 4% ABV.

You need some domestic hops, 2-row extract, pound of sugar and a clean ale yeast. You can steep some lightly kilned malts but don't get carried away. Also, "sugar" can be honey, rice solids or any other fermentable that will lighten and dry the beer out a little.

PT Ray said:

I agreee with no "high-anything". Another reason is it's less likely to be a crowd pleaser. First thing that comes to mind is a cream ale around a 4% ABV.

You need some domestic hops, 2-row extract, pound of sugar and a clean ale yeast. You can steep some lighty kilned malts but don't get carried away. Also, "sugar" can be honey, rice solids or any other fermentable that will lighten and dry the beer out a little.

Click to expand...

Pilsner malt, Flaked rice and kolsch yeast fermented at 62 makes a very bmc-ish beer

wheatbeer could do it.

avoid honey, it takes a little longer to ferment.

Go with a hefe, those finish up real quickly and don't need a lot of "cleaning up" time in the primary. If you track gravity and make a starter you could probably have it in the bottles after 7 days to condition for three weeks.

Milds are also a good bet, theres a thread around here somewhere about people doing milds in ten days

Here's a quick dirty 5 gallon recipe

5 lb extra light DME
1 lb crystal 20
1 oz cascade 60min
1 oz cascade 20min
1 oz cascade 5min
Neutral ale yeast

The hops can be modified to whatever you like and this should come out pretty nice and quickly

Update:

Decided to go with a light hefe. It ended up being a martial mash:
12 oz pale malt grains
12 oz wheat grains
5.5 lb wheat LME
1 oz willamette @60
.5 willamette @15
1 pinch irish moss @15

1 hour boil, brought down to temp and topped up to 5 gallons. Gravity rode low, added:
1 lb honey
8 oz dextrose

By boiling this in water and adding the sanitized liquid to the fermenter, ended up being around 5.5 gallons for primary fermenter. Pitched WB-06 yeast at 70 degrees. OG 1.038

It's three days in the primary at 66-70 degrees. Had some nice krausen but it's settled a little and bubbling nicely and slowly. Color is perfect straw, smells nice and sour and honeyed. Hell yeah.
So what do you think? I'm about to take a gravity reading and I'll update after that. If i'm trying to turn this out for a party on May 14th, when's the absolute earliest I could get this into a secondary? Or should I shoot for a longer 1-stage and allow more conditioning time in the bottle?(We're poor college students with no kegging system)

Gravity update: 1.012
Beer is cloudy and smelling like a blonde beer. Honey's very present and it smells drinkable right now.

check the gravity every day, when its the same for three days in a row bottle and leave it in the bottles till the party