The only problem is, who can wait that long? I'm doing all I can to wait 4 days past 2 weeks in the bottle for a friend that I havn't seen in 9 years........
And your batch may not be ready in 2 weeks and 4 days...it may not be fully carbed, and it may be carbed and be green....You are dealing with living micro-organisms, and they have their own timeframe, their own agenda, and it is often despite our plans....I have had plenty of beers not be ready for 4 to 8 weeks...I have a belgian that won't be carbed and conditioned for at least 3 months.
Seriously though, If you are serving green beer to people who have never tasted homebrew then they won't understand..
They will think that EITHER you suck as a brewer, ALL HOMEBREW SUCKS (and you'll prolly go blind anyway) or those BMC commercials were right, anything other than fizzy yellow beer, especially homebrew taste like a$$, and we should stick to bud light...
You won't be a great ambassador to the world of homebrewing presenting week old beer....
DO yourself a favor, swallow the dissapointment of your beer not being ready, buy some great beer to share with your friend...and give your beer the time it needs.
And share the homebrew with them when you know it is at it's best. Not before.
...then again, it is my first batch
It really is a new brewer issue. Once you have 2-3 batches going at various stages, you will be finfishing drinking a batch just when another one is at a peak.
Bottle carbing is not like making coolaid...you are dealing with Mother nature, and she has her own agenda.
And don't forget, carbonation is only half the issue...bottle conditioning is equally important...you can have a fizzy beer and it can still be green and taste like a$$.
And you will find, that it is really, really worth the wait.
I leave 99% of my beers in primary for a month...then I bottle...and right now I can't get 70 degrees in my loft to save my life...so I don't expect ANY of my beers to be carbed on time....so in the interim, I buy mix sixers of various beers to try as research for the next beers I plan on brewing and to build up my bottle stock.
I wrote this the last time a noob wanted to know how to push the clock forward.
For Example, I brewed my Pumpkin Ale for Thanksgiving on Labor Day...figuring at 8 weeks, I MIGHT have some ready for Holloween...But they were still green, so I only brought a couple to my annuual Halloween thingy, along with a sampler of commercial pumpkins...BUT come Turkey Day the beer was fantastic, and was a hit at the holiday.
Right now this is my current inventory...
Drinking....IPA, various bottles of Oaked Smoked Brown Ale, Smoked brown ale, Poor Richard's Ale, Biermuncher's Centennial Blonde (but as a Lager,)
Avoiding....Marris Otter/Argentinian Cascade SMaSH (It sucks)
Bottle Conditioning..... Chocolate Mole Porter, Belgian Dark Strong Ale, Peach Mead
In Primary.....Schwartzbier, Vienna Lager
Bulk Aging....Mead
Lagering....Dead Guy Clone Lager
Pretty much anything still in Primary or Lagering I will not be drinking til the end of March, but more than likely April....The Mole Porter needs a minimum several more weeks as well....but the Belgian Strong is prolly going to need 3-6 months to be ready...
The Swartzbier has 3 weeks more in primary, then another month lagering, THEN 3 weeks at least in the bottles...
Some weeks I take a break from my own beers to drink a couple sixers of samplers, so I don't drink ALL my current and other ready beers before the others comes online....Plus I'm craving a couple of styles that I don't have ready (like Vienna Lager) so I will make a bottle run....I also get to try new styles to come up with new ones to brew down the line.
And I'm also probably going to brew something this weekend...don't know what yet...maybe a low abv mild that I would only leave in primary till fermentation is stopped then bottled..so hopefully in a month they will drinkable.....
But do you see...you too one day will have a pipleine....and the wait will be nothing...you will have things at various stages...
This quote from one of my friends sums it up....
The nice thing is to get to a point in your pipeline where you are glancing through your BeerSmith brew log and realize that you have a beer that you have not even tried yet and it has been in bottle over 6 weeks. This happened to me this weekend. The beer was farging delicious.
