Beer for Wedding

[bjd09]

Hi all,

I don't know how many other people have brewed for their wedding but we're trying to introduce our friends and family to home brew in 9 weeks. Any thoughts on what would be great, a crowd pleaser and drinkable? Our wedding is a garden / beer-garden them so currently we have:

Irish Red - bottled 1 month ago (all grain)
Blonde Ale - bottled 1 week ago (all grian)
Spicey Wheat - bottled 1 week ago (extract)
APA - bottled 1 week ago (extract)
Stout - in fermentation (extract)

I'm thinking of doing a stronger mild ale than typical partial mash this weekend. Any thoughts?

 

[dpatrickv]

I brewed 8 beers for my wedding this last June.
Saison
APA w/Saison yeast
Coconut cascadian ale
milk chocolate stout
chardonnay oak aged belgian tripel
IPA
Cream ale
strawberry blonde

I didnt take the full batches but took about 220 bottles or so and came home with about 25-30 bottles of only the stout and cascadian ale.

Good luck on the wedding!

 

[jstuts2260]

I can't bring homebrew to the venue we're having the wedding at, so we're hosting a "welcome happy hour" at our house for all guests after the rehearsal dinner the night before. I'll have everything kegged and served out of a tap box I built. Here's what I have going that night:

Red IPA - 5 Gallons
Pilsner - 5 Gallons
Wheat - 5 Gallons
APA - 5 gallons
Belgian Golden Strong - Belgian Bottles

We're expecting around 80 people for 2 hours so I think it should be enough. You definitely want crowd pleasers like the wheat and the blonde. Your list looks ideal. I think you'll have a bunch of happy guests.

 

[jstuts2260]

I can't bring homebrew to the venue we're having the wedding at, so we're hosting a "welcome happy hour" at our house for all guests after the rehearsal dinner the night before. I'll have everything kegged and served out of a tap box I built. Here's what I have going that night:

Red IPA - 5 Gallons
Pilsner - 5 Gallons
Wheat - 5 Gallons
APA - 5 gallons
Belgian Golden Strong - Belgian Bottles

We're expecting around 80 people for 2 hours so I think it should be enough. You definitely want crowd pleasers like the wheat and the blonde. For parties I like to have 60% crowd pleasers 40% beers that I want to drink.

 

[Teromous]

Coconut cascadian ale

I didnt take the full batches but took about 220 bottles or so and came home with about 25-30 bottles of only the stout and cascadian ale.

How did the Cascadian turn out? Did the coconut flavor come through enough with all the hops? Tasting notes required.

 

[dpatrickv]

How did the Cascadian turn out? Did the coconut flavor come through enough with all the hops? Tasting notes required.

Oh thats a beer I have made a number of times since first making it March of last year and haven't tweaked the recipe at all. Coconut flavor comes through on the back end and tones down the 110-115 IBUs of bitterness. 1 pound of toasted coconut in the mash and 1 pound of coconut into the fermenter after fermentation has finished.

 

[bjd09]

Interesting combination with the coconut. What cream ale did you do? Too bad on venues not letting home brew in. We just have to pay an extra fee for having any alochol, and our caterer thinks the idea is terrific. I think we're going to do a partial mash of a mild ale this weekend, maybe bring the gravity up a little bit to get around 4, 4.5 abv.

 

[dpatrickv]

Interesting combination with the coconut. What cream ale did you do? Too bad on venues not letting home brew in. We just have to pay an extra fee for having any alochol, and our caterer thinks the idea is terrific. I think we're going to do a partial mash of a mild ale this weekend, maybe bring the gravity up a little bit to get around 4, 4.5 abv.

I made my own cream ale recipe.

8 lbs 6 row
1 lb carapils
1 lb c20
1 lb corn

.5oz saaz @ 60/30/0

1056 yeast fermemted as close to 60 as possible.

 

[Fennis]

I hosted a wedding at my home for some family members 2 weeks ago and I offered to brew a batch of beer. It was a small wedding, only about 60 people and not a large amount of beer drinkers among them, or so I thought, so I only brewed and kegged 1 5 gallon batch. I brewed the Austin Homebrew Canadian Ale kit thinking that a light, crisp ale would be perfect for a hot summer afternoon wedding--it was an all-grain batch and it honestly came out like a light cream ale. The keg was drained in about 30 minutes and was certainly a crowd pleaser. I got asked by a few people what brand of beer I had on tap because it was so good and they wanted to buy it in the store--this was also the first event I ever brewed for, so it was nice to receive some compliments like that. Others knew it was crafted and were hoping I had something hoppy on tap hidden away, so I wish I had done an APA as well. I'd say if you have a simple, light, balanced ale, and then some other hoppy or malty offerings, you will please everyone. I think the list you have would fit everyone's desire, especially if you have a crowd of beer drinkers coming. If I were to have a guess, your Irish Red and Blonde Ale will probably be the most popular among non-homebrew beer drinkers.

Congratulations on the wedding and good luck!

 

[bjd09]

Thanks for the comments everyone. We have about 3-4 home brewers in our guests list so I expect it to be a pretty large beer crowed. Though there are a fair amount of white in folks too who will probably just stick to the vino.

 

[huhwha]

My future son-in-law and I just brewed a batch of "Sweet Mess" at the local brew on premises. It's a cream ale with lactose. The important thing for us is that it's fairly low ABV (<5% by memory). Our thought was to brew something on the session beer level. This will be for the after party, as its a very early wedding (10:30am). I will also have 4 kegs on tap at my place, but we wanted to make sure that folks had something middle of the road and fairly low alcohol.

 

[bjd09]

Agreed huhwha. Just made an English Mild Imperial I guess. Hoping to get the ABV around 4, but didn't take any readings so we'll see how it turns out, something drinkable not overpowering with low abv. New recipe, if it doesn't turn out great we only have about 4 gal of it.