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Brewing for a Wedding

bonjour

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It's done, wedding and reception is over, a very, very, happy couple as my son, Andy Bonjour, married Jodi Borders in Ann Arbor, MI with the reception in Livonia at a very homebrew friendly "Classic Catering".  PM me if you are in the Metro Detroit area and are looking for a homebrew friendly environment for a an event.

Admittedly I went overboard with 85 gallons of beer and 24 gallons of wine for 230 people, and not a big drinking crowd.  

I had 9 brews on tap, 1 Root Beer and 1 diet Root Beer on tap and 7 bottled beers available.  And 3 different wines.  The beer on tap went better than the bottles, I think mostly because it was more visible.  Here is a breakdown of what I had.

Three Wines, named His, Hers, and Ours.
His, a Shiraz -- made 6 gal (30 bottles) took 23 bottles, 11 were consumed.
Hers, a Piesporter -- made 6 gal (30 bottles) took 26 bottles, 10 were consumed.
Ours, a White Zinfandel -- made 12 gal (58 bottles) took 24 bottles, 42 were consumed.  This was the wine on the tables and most where not aware of the other two wines.  

All three wines were very well received and had many favorable comments including some from a certified wine judge.  Despite my focus being on homebrew, if you are doing a wedding make sure you include wines, it is important.

The Root Beer,  I made a regular root beer (rainbow) with dark brown sugar and came home with a half gallon,  this was very well received.  I made a Diet Birch Root Beer with "Splenda" with 2.5 gallons consumed.   The Splenda works very well with the root beer and makes a soda that people that "hate" diet soda like.  Kids obviously like this too because (besides the fact that it tastes good) I made it especially for them.

On to the beer.

It Takes Two, a N. German Pilsner, 4 gallons consumed,  it was a bit rough and needed a bit more time to condition.  If you brew a lager for an event, brew early.  I still got many complements on it.  This was the most heavily consumed beer.  I figured that would be the case so I brewed 20 gallons (I did say overboard didn't I) and have 3 kegs left.

Shades of Red, an Irish Red, 3 gallons consumed.  For this crowd a very popular choice.

Oracle, the Weiss one, a hefe made with Munich and wheat malt using 3056.  2.5 gallons consumed.  This was brewed at a Big B4rew event.  It was on a secondary tap that was not as visible as the mail tap.

Bridal Veil Pale Ale, an APA.  2 gallons consumed,  again on the secondary tap.

Alt 'oids, a German Alt beer.  2 gallons consumed.  My son likes Altoids and had them on the table as favors. This is the third beer on the secondary tap.

Borders Porter, a Baltic Porter.  2.5 gallons consumed.  Jodi's maiden name is Borders so the name was a natural.

the Wedding March, a Marzen, about 2 gallons consumed.

Storm King, a Schwartzbier.  2.5 gallons consumed.  A nice lager, an excellent beer, but I'll modify the recipe next time, this one was a bit too stout like for style, but very fitting of it's name.

The final kegged beer was a spiced Imperial stout (11.2%)  this was my holiday beer and about 2 gallons were consumed, leaving me with about a half gallon.

All the kegged beers were pretty evenly consumed.  When and if you do this you want to provide a list of beers in a easily readable and posted for.

The bottled beers:

Malted Bless, an English Barleywine.(14+%)
Kilt Lifter, a WEE heavy (15+%)
A ‘lil bit o’ Kentucky, a Bourbon oak Barleywine (11+%)
Les deux Bonjours, a Biere de Garde (8+%)
“Hey, it smells like coffee”, a sweet stout (3.7%, I can brew small beers too)
Proposale, an 80 /- Scottish Ale
Matrimoniale, a Southern English Brown ale

These bottled beers were not very visable, and with the exception of the Kilt Lifter which was talked about a lot, something about being 31 proof, were barely touched.  Hey, a sworn bud-light drinker said he liked it and could drink this one all day.  I’d like to see him after he finished drinking this one all day.  A beer list would have helped to be posted on the bar.  More knowledgeable bartenders would have helped too.  They did a great job, but lacked the style knowledge that homebrewers have.   If possible, get a BJCP judge to sample, ughhh I mean help around the bar.

Each of the brews, both the bottled and kegged, had a story about the couple that related to the brew name and a style description of the brew posted in the bar.  Everyone enjoyed theses quips.  

It was a great experience and I would gladly do it again.

Fred Bonjour
 
Fred,
 Pretty awesome lineup!  Looks like they consumed a fair portion of it as well.

 Congrats!

Brad
 
Thanks,

And I might add, many of these recipes are in your recipe section Brad,

as I said, that "Kilt Lifter" was mighty popular!!

Fred
 
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