Need some help. It's serious time.

Hello everyone, my name is John. Let me be succinct.

I'm been reading HBT for awhile; it is good. I've got about 15 extract brews under my belt and 2 AG. I need help but have a very low post count, so I just bought a membership, which I feel should give me instant street cred.

Formalities aside, I'm getting married May 20th, and my fiancee just told me that she wants me to brew the beer for the reception. This is a primary example of why I love the woman.

We're expecting about 250 people, 150 of which I estimate to be beer drinkers. My calculations tell me that I need 40-50 gallons o' brew.

For primary suds making equipment, I've got a couple a keggles and a 10 gal Rubbermaid MLT. I've only done 5 gallon batches, but I imagine that I could do some 10 gallon jobs with my equipment.

What I need help with is developing a nicely rounded repertoire of malty freshness for a large relatively diverse crappy beer loving set of people.

Any recommendations for a set of 4 or 5 10 gallon batches which will be unique yet somewhat complimentary? The winner get a 6-pack in the mail once they're ready.

 

Also, I'd like to do most of the brewing this weekend. Serious time for real.

 

aside from any permitting issues....

Mix it up.

Cream Ale, brown ale, pale ale, maybe a red - look for things that will appeal to masses. Stay away frm RIS, IIPA, etc....

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f62/cream-three-crops-cream-ale-66503/
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/centennial-blonde-simple-4-all-grain-5-10-gall-42841/
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/bee-cave-brewery-haus-pale-ale-31793/
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/tap-room-american-brown-ale-45-50-gold-medal-204500/
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f65/irish-red-1st-place-hbt-comp-141086/

 

No problem with permits, we're not selling. At least that's my understanding...

 

Pale ale, wheat beer (perhaps apricot wheat), stout, kolsh, IPA. Did I win?

 

For people who generally like American light lagers, I'd recommend a cream ale. Here's the most popular one I know of:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f62/cream-three-crops-cream-ale-66503/

I've also had very good reception to belgian whit and hefewiezen from the non-educated beer drinking public.


Couple of questions:

1. Are you planning to bottle 40 gallons between now and May 20? Personally, I'd use this as an excuse to get a keg setup.
2. 40-50 gallons sounds like alot, I had about 200 people at my wedding and I don't think we even went through a single keg. You know your family/friends better than I do, but 1/3 of a gallon each for 150 people is some serious drinking.

 

edwort's haus pale ale
edwort's bavarian hefe
cream of 3 crops cream ale
waterford brown ale

 

Well we'll just have to wait and see. If those came with recipes you'd have a better case. Sidebar, I love Stout. Stout stout stout, in my belly.

 

the types i mentioned have recipes all over the net. stouts will still be green in a few weeks

 

Almosted tempted to say that Im trying to learn how to do all grain... dont know if I can make it down to Lincoln this weekend though.

 

Cream ale sounds like a good idea. I just kegged a hefeweizen a couple of days ago...it tasted damn good warm and flat.

Answer #1:
I'd love to be able to keg it, but our reception hall doesn't allow kegs. I got the go ahead on bottles. Sounds like a rough couple of weekends, but Ive got some good brothers that'll power through it with me.

Answer #2:
I'm not a wedding planner, so I just went with 3 beers/beer drinker. Or so I thought. Lemme do the math....150 people * 3 beers * 12 oz per beer / 128 oz per gallon = 42.19 gallons. I've also been drinking, with doesn't help my mathicals. They're mostly German Catholics, which apparently gives them a license to drink on any occasion, including funerals, easter, new years, tuesdays, ash wednesday, and rosh hashanah. All of which I naturally approve of. I very well may be overestimating the amount of beer needed, but the benefit of that overestimating is that I may end up with a metric ton of beer afterwords. Even better than leftover turkey and stuffing.

 

Those cornhuksers like to drink

It's okay - I can say that --- I detassled corn for a summer outside of Seward.....

 

Well sure, but I want proven delicious. And I gots like 9 weeks!

 

re-check Page 1 - I posted a bunch of proven recipes...

 

You guys are too fast. That's actually a pretty good thing, because I probably need to order stuff tonight.

 

Many of those recipes I linked are likely already in the "brewbuilder" program at Brewmasterswarehouse.com; meaning, you can just click on it and order the whole recipe....

 

Edwort's Apfelwine will help you essentially cheat on one beer, it's ridiculously easy, and good!

 

Not in 9 weeks though....

 

This caught my eye. If it were me, I would only maybe brew one simple beer that would fill the needs of the "diverse crappy beer loving set of people", and by simple, I mean one that most people in the group of "diverse crappy beer loving set of people" still would not drink.

If they cannot appreciate a good beer and understand the love that is put into each batch of good beer, no mater what type of beer it is, then in my book they have no business in drinking my homebrew.

Sorry about this possibly useless post

 

I appreciate your possibly useless post, if for no other reason than I thought your name was Bennigan's, and I had a delicious Monte Cristo 'sandwich' there one time.

However, I for some reason feel obliged to defend my loosely related clan of Iowegians.

Point 1; I feel that it is my job to help people have a good time at my wedding reception.

Point 2; I couldn't say for sure, but perhaps these so-called relatives of mine are homebrew virgins, in which case....well, you know.

 

Ooops. That's what I get for not reading....

 

true but if you did an edworts apfelwein with the wyeast hefe yeast (i cant remember the number), itd be ready by then and it tastes FREAKING INCREDIBLE.

 

Thanks everyone for your suggestions! I'm going through them all right now and will let the winner know shortly.

 

are you addicted to winning?:cross:

 

BierMuncher's Centennial Blonde and 3-Crops, most BMC drinks like them both very mush. I'd also do a Pale Ale for the people who can appreciate a "more flavorful" beer and also a wheat, chicks love wheat beers. so do BMC drinking dudes.

 

people will have fun. its a wedding. gauranteed fun.
and for point two. if they are hombrew virgins they probably don't know to much about beer either. before i was really into beer, any brew that someone made was the ****. (weither it really was or not.) people will apreciate it for being made by you. the fact that it has more flavor than their bmc's will help too.
is there going to be a bar tender? just school him on how to pour (if he doesnt' know how to pour bottle conditioned beer) and everything will be gravy.

congrats by the way

 

I brewed beer for a birthday party one time. About 65-75 people of which about 90% were BMC drinkers. I made a bit over 6 cases and it was gone in about an hour and fifteen minutes. I made a cream ale, copper ale (amber), and a pilsner. Even though they drink crappy beer regularly, if its free it will go.
Tom

 

yeah. the only thing people love as much as free beer is something homemade

 

+1, if it were me id do probaby 45 gallons if what you want is 450 beers, 3 beers a person x 150 beer drinkers. so with that figured out and wanting to do proven recipes I would do:
15 gallons BM Centennial Blonde
10 gallons BM Cream Of Three Crops
15 gallons of a proven wheat beer
5 gallons of pale ale

it is 4 brew sessions but this is definately what I would do given such short time, and given you didnt state you have any proven house recipes. let us know what you decide, all the recipes can be found in the recipes section of the forum along with instructions in how to succesfully brew them. additionally, you may want to pick up a few extra ale pails to take care of this large volume you are planning on doing, oh and some dextrose and a bunch of cases of bottles

 

Austin Homebrew is having a great sale on recipe kits right now. http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f41/20-20-20th-anniversary-recipe-kits-231078/

 

Welcome, I think you'll fit right in!

 

Well thank you sir!

 

And it's AZ_IPA for the win!

Pretty much doing your exact recommendation..

10 gal Cream of Three Crops
10 gal Centennial Blond
10 gal Bee Cave Brewery Haus Ale
5 gal Tap Room American Brown Ale
5 gal Irish Red

Might throw in some sort of Stout if I can fit it in.

I got me a big ol' couple of packages from Fed Ex today, including but not limited to...

70# grain
10 oz hops
6 new buckets

It's gonna be fun!! Hopefully

AZ_IPA - you, good sir, can expect a tasty six-pack in a couple of months! I'll get your contact info later.

 

Also, I've only done 3 AG brews so far, so how much this stuff doesn't cost hasn't really set in yet. For 40 gallons of beer, I think I only spent $115 on ingredients. Far less than my last Guinness keg!

 

good to hear you went with Centennial Blonde, i bet its gone first

 

Not needed -

Good luck with the brews and wedding!

 

You're going to be exhausted by the wedding. +1000 for the kegging idea. I would've changed locations just because of that. You sir are going to need a lot of bottles!

 

Wow, 40 gallons worth of bottles. That's 426 bottles. You're going to need a lot of help drinking just to get ready for this.

 

Yeah, I'd love to be able to keg for this, but alas, I cannot. My fiancee only approved of this last week or so, and the wedding is in two months! Too late to change the reception hall, I suppose. I've got two brothers that I live with who will gladly help, and I've got people saving up bottles for me.

Funny that the bottles would cost 2x as much as the actual beer if I were to pay for them. Nuts

 

My biggest concern right now is figuring out how to move 426 or so bottle 50 miles to the reception place. My current running idea is to make crates that will hold 6 six-packs each. I figure that it won't be too expensive to make around 12 crates out of pine.

Anyone have any thoughts on that aspect?