Tasked with brewing a Wedding beer

[Averman]

Late last night the groom-to-be asked me to brew a favorite recipe of mine to be served at his wedding... so I naturally said yes without fully thinking things through. My biggest reservation is how to transport/serve the beer, as his wedding is 7 hours away from my house, and is a week long celebration. I'm leery to keg the beer via my ball locks, because I don't want to have to bring my CO2/regulator/shanks/taps and I would also have to find a jockey box. I'm also leery to bottle it because I'm concerned about the extra carb time and I'm scared about even distribution of priming sugar throughout my beer (don't want a bad product). The only other thing I can think of is to brew/keg like normal, then transfer the beer into bombers? Or is there a way to "convert" a ball lock keg to sanke so I can use a picnic tap there?

Any other suggestions?

Happy to provide any back story I might have left out. Thanks in advance.

 

[cernst151]

I brewed all of the beer for my week long wedding celebration too. I'd definitely say bottle it. Then again, I don't have equipment to keg so that was my only choice. As long as you boil the priming sugar and put it in your bottling bucket before racking on top of it you should be plenty mixed in. If you're still concerned a few gentle stirs with a sanitized spoon will make sure it's evenly mixed.

I would make one suggestion. If you want to really impress them then bottle with DME instead of sugar. That has been one of the single biggest individual improvements in my brewing process. Use a brewing calculator to figure out exactly how much and if you're worried about over-carbing then go a little light.

 

[Falcon3]

Get one of the little CO2 cylinder primers, attach a picnic tap to your OUT post- voile, you've got a portable keg. Should be way easier than getting all those bottles lined up......

 

[mspindler]

Keg it!

I did this for a buddy once. He wanted an easy drinking hoppy pale and a coffee stout, and it had to be ready in a month. Brewed a simple, all falconers flight pale and a 6% stout with cold brewed coffee. Don't remember the grain bills. Kegged it up, took it to the wedding, threw the kegs into a bucket of ice and stored them under the bar, hooked them up to my spare co2 tank, and served from picnic taps. People loved it and it really wasn't that difficult with the kegs. I'd do it again!