The beer choice should really be dependent on your "audience." If the guests are going to be typical BMC drinkers, then making an IPA or a Stout won't be appreciated by them. And if you've looked at some of the "I made beer for this party and noone drank it, or wasted it" complaint threads (or the "stupidest comment about your beer" thread) you'll see that when we try to impose our maybe more "refined" or at least adventurist tastes on people we have to be willing to realize that if those types of beers were the majority of the population's "cup of tea" then Bud light wouldn't be the most popular beer on the planet.
A lot of new brewers decide to brew what they like to show off their skills to friends, family, etc, and many times there efforts are for naught, because their audience truns out to be die-hard bmc drinkers, and are unwilling to try, or just plain don't like, what they spent their hard earned time and money making.
So if you really want to do this to make people happy, you really need a spread of beers that will appeal to the greatest number of people. It doesn't mean you have to make crappy beers, or budlight clones....it means that if you make all strong, or hoppy, or "challenging" beers, then don't be pissed off if people make a beer run for a case of BMC.
When people ask about this, I usually refer people to the tap list in Biermuncher's BYO magazine Rolling Garbage Can Kegerator thread. He did it for an anniversary party, where more than likely the audience weren't homebrewing beer geeks, like us...
He kept it simple, as you can see from the pics..
It may be hard to see by the tap pics, but he made a BMC-esque Cream Ale (iirc it was his Cream of the three crops, or Centennial Blonde,) and Irish Red ale, and a Blue moon-type clone.)
ANd this is the result of his party...
Biermuncher said:
he Friday night pre-party was at my house for just relatives. There were probably 35-40 Aunts, Uncles and Cousins. We killed one keg of the Cream ALe, half a keg of the wit and surprisingly, nearly half a keg of the Irish Red. It was a nice prelude to the real party on Saturday.
Saturday AM I went over to the house to set up the rig. I gotta be honest...the last thing you want to think about after a 2AM beer binge the night before is waking up early to lug four full kegs around in 98 degree heat.
Once I dropped the three cornies into place, the rig only held two large bags of ice. I put the other two bags into the freezer and asked my BIL, (staying at their house) to refill the rig with fresh ice as necessary.
Turns out the insulation was enough that even after 8 hours sitting in the heat...he didn't need to add any ice.
When I got to the party at 5:00 and hooked up the CO2 unit, I was a bit nervous about everything working according to plan. I went first with the 9-Oz CO2 bottle thinking that if it ran out...I'd then go with the 1-pounder.
I hooked up the beer lines...fastened the gas lines to the CO2 unit and hooked up the ball locks. Dialed up the CO2 just until the needle lifted off the peg...and drew a pint of the cream ale. The first pint was pure foam.
Immediately I started regretting not having my other BIL pick up some cases of BMC as a back up.
I decided to draw a pint of the Irish Ale...and it was perfect. I moved to the Wit and it too was perfect. Holding out hope, I returned to the Cream Ale (which I knew would be the popular beer of the evening) and tried again. The first half of the pint...foam...but then...the beer started flowing smoothly. It looked like the more highly carbonated CA was just a bit touchier.
About this time, people started taking notice and lining up.
I spent the first 1 1/2 hours standing next to the taps talking about nothing but homebrewing. Even the blue haired ladies who were sipping white zin dropped their glass for a moment to sample some homebrew.
By the end of the evening, we went through a full keg of Cream Ale, plus half of a second that I brought (just in case) and killed the full keg of Irish Ale. The Wit had about 1/4 left this morning when I went to break things down.
All in all, the system performed flawlessly. No problems with the CO2. The beer stayed cold throughout and there was even ice in the rig this morning.
We all met back up at the house today (Sunday) for a brunch before people left town and all anyone could talk about was the homebrewed beer and the "cute little" delivery system out of the garbage can.
I couldn't have been more happy with the affair. Now..I'm of to clean some kegs and dismantle "trash-r-ator" until next time.
SO I guess I'm saying, know your audience, and make sure you make enough that would appeal to typical beer drinkers, not necessarily beer geeks...or else if you start one of those "no one drank my beer" threads after the fact I'm gonna slap you aside the head and say "I told you so."