Time for an update! I have been busy and didn't have time to update on my brewing progress as the wedding came up... but this past Saturday was finally the big day! Everything went awesome and people had very positive things to say about all the beer. In addition to lots of hard stuff and wine, I provided almost all the homebrew I originally planned on: two batches of amber, two batches of a blonde/cream ale, two batches of IPA, and one batch of hefeweizen. I ran out of time to brew that second batch of hefe that I had planned on. However, it worked out perfectly. As the bus was getting ready to take away everyone that made it through the whole party at the end of the night, there were only five or six beers remaining. Someone grabbed them and took them on the bus. It was a wild bus ride back from the reception site back to town where everyone was staying.
I would say that most of the light beer drinkers really appreciated the blonde ales, but everything got sucked down. I brought 360 12-ounce bottles and they all got drank between the hours of 5:30 and midnight. I sampled all the batches throughout the night and I honestly think they were the best beers I have ever made. I had made over 20 batches before I started the wedding batches and I made a couple of changes to my process that I believe ended up being very significant. Here's what I changed:
1. I bought an oxygenation system and oxygenated my wort with pure oxy before pitching yeast.
2. Prior to these batches, I made yeast starters a few days before a brew, put them in the fridge after they had finished up.. then on brew day decanted the spent "beer" and just pitched the yeast from the bottom. For these batches, I basically did the same thing, but I revived the yeast a few hours prior to pitching by making a half liter worth of fresh wort that I pitched the yeast from the starter into. Then I just pitched this whole half liter starter into the five gallon batch. So esentially made two starters for each batch, but I think it was worth it.
3. I used yeast nutrient in the starters and in the actual wort.
Anyway, the beer was all super clean and well-attenuated and I think these changes made the difference.
Oh, one more beer related note from the wedding. My bride found someone to make an awesome red velvet cheesecake as our wedding cake. So a couple days before the wedding I drove up to Wisconsin (we were only about a ten minute drive away) and picked up a sh**load of New Glarus Raspberry Tart and Wisconsin Belgian Red. For those of you who haven't had these Wisconsin treats, they Belgian style beers aged on raspberries and cherries, respectively. They were served with the cheesecake and were a huge hit!
All in all, it was truly the greatest day of my life and I successfully contributed to lots of drunken silliness. Cheers everyone!
