Am I being overly ambitions? (and if not, I need your advice...)

flogen

Hey folks.

I'm getting married in about 6 months time and have been trying to think of some novel table favours that won't break the bank.

Last night I got a brainwave about doing up a personalised bottle of lager/ale/stout for each guest - just as a little keepsake and talking point.

The one minor issue is that I've absolutely no experience in home brewing, so I want to see whether I'm taking too much on.

Ideally what I'm looking for is -

Beers for ~180 people (maybe 2-3 different types, probably 330ml each). With that in mind how long would it take to brew enough using the gear from one starter kit? (Especially when I'd expect the first batch to be for test/learning purposes only!)

And are there certain types of brew that I should favour, given that the first batch will probably be sitting there for a good few weeks or even months before they're given out?

I know plastic bottles are the cheapest option and probably the easiest to work with - but I'm worried they might look a bit cheap. Would glass be a lot more hassle to use? I've seen some on Alpack that were €10 for 40, so not too expensive even when caps etc are included, would that be a better option for the sake of presentation?

I'd also like to do individual labels based on their names (i.e. 'Paddy's Porter') and - depending on how much time/inclination I have - some funny tasting notes ('Quite bitter at first but easy to stomach after a while'). I can do these up myself in photoshop and get some blank labels, so this will be more a time issue than a major expense, but if people have recommendations for suitable blank labels I'm all ears!

Having a look online I reckon all of that could be done for under €300 - with ~€150 for the equipment & beers, €50 for bottles & caps and another €50 for labels. Is that realistic?

And cost aside, am I taking too much on for a newbie? I don't expect to end up with award winning beers - it's more of a novelty thing - but it would be a nice plus if I made something relatively drinkable all the same!

Thanks in advance.

BeerNut

6 months is plenty of time to get a few pilot batches done, learn the logistics, and decide for yourself if it's worth going for. I brewed for a wedding once and did a Coopers Lager kit with spraymalt, nice cool fermentation and dry hopped with 30g of Cascade. Went down well on the day.

madhatter76

Question of calculation and it is a lot of work.
All below are ish:

Equipment 100 EUR

A homebrew kit makes roundabout 20 - 21L. The rest is close to garbage because of the sediments. With more patience and time you could wait longer to settle and get close to 22l maybe, or get a "fast ferment" for good 150 EUR extra.

I would expect a better tasty kit to be in the range of 16 - 20 EUR + 6 EUR Spray malt:
However (I haven't tried yet but heard of) the MasterPint is quite ok for that price.

I would always go for either the LME (Liquid malt extract) version or at least spraymalt.
Don't bother with the brewing sugar, its going to give some alcohol bing but not really a taste bang.

You may be way better off price wise going for some "all grain" but that could be a too big step when just starting.

calculate good 2 weeks in the fermenter for the 20 - 23 L before you can make the next batch, and at least 4 weeks in the bottles. you can print your own labels and glue them to the bottles with milk a few days before the wedding.

Based on experience, glass looks and feels better but its a hell lot of weight to handle. The coopers plastic bottles are quite nice actually.

Ring the usual suspects for homebrew in Ireland with the whole calculation of what you need and ask for a good offer, I'm sure they will make something out for you.
http://www.homebrewwest.ie/
http://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie

But I feel based on reading up your requirements you get better off with purchased beer.
Brewing that amount takes some significant time and efforts,
Maybe check a local brewery for 1 or 2 good priced kegs and spend money on those.

loyatemu

By all means get into home brewing, but I think with a wedding to organise you may be giving yourself too much to do.

Maybe find a local brewery (there are dozens of microbreweries around the country now) and ask if they'll supply some unlabelled bottles of one of their brews (there's some minimum amount they can sell to the public I think). Then make up and print the custom labels yourself.

flogen

BeerNut wrote: »

6 months is plenty of time to get a few pilot batches done, learn the logistics, and decide for yourself if it's worth going for. I brewed for a wedding once and did a Coopers Lager kit with spraymalt, nice cool fermentation and dry hopped with 30g of Cascade. Went down well on the day.

Thanks - I might just give one a go and see if it's going to be too much work.

madhatter76 wrote: »

Question of calculation and it is a lot of work.
All below are ish:

Equipment 100 EUR

A homebrew kit makes roundabout 20 - 21L. The rest is close to garbage because of the sediments. With more patience and time you could wait longer to settle and get close to 22l maybe, or get a "fast ferment" for good 150 EUR extra.

I would expect a better tasty kit to be in the range of 16 - 20 EUR + 6 EUR Spray malt:
However (I haven't tried yet but heard of) the MasterPint is quite ok for that price.

I would always go for either the LME (Liquid malt extract) version or at least spraymalt.
Don't bother with the brewing sugar, its going to give some alcohol bing but not really a taste bang.

You may be way better off price wise going for some "all grain" but that could be a too big step when just starting.

calculate good 2 weeks in the fermenter for the 20 - 23 L before you can make the next batch, and at least 4 weeks in the bottles. you can print your own labels and glue them to the bottles with milk a few days before the wedding.

Thanks for that - time-wise it sounds like I've still got plenty of wiggle room, assuming I start early in the new year. Even at 20l of usable beer I'm still looking at 4 brews max to get enough for 180-200 330ml bottles.

The question is whether the work involved in each of those is going to be too much - which I guess I won't know for sure unless I do a test run myself.

Based on experience, glass looks and feels better but its a hell lot of weight to handle. The coopers plastic bottles are quite nice actually.

Hadn't thought about the weight - might see what the Coopers bottles look like and see if it's a worthwhile trade-off.

Ring the usual suspects for homebrew in Ireland with the whole calculation of what you need and ask for a good offer, I'm sure they will make something out for you.
http://www.homebrewwest.ie/
http://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie

I don't live too far from Mottley Brew, which I hear is run by someone very helpful and knowledgable. Might pop in to them next week.

But I feel based on reading up your requirements you get better off with purchased beer.
Brewing that amount takes some significant time and efforts,
Maybe check a local brewery for 1 or 2 good priced kegs and spend money on those.

loyatemu wrote: »

By all means get into home brewing, but I think with a wedding to organise you may be giving yourself too much to do.

Maybe find a local brewery (there are dozens of microbreweries around the country now) and ask if they'll supply some unlabelled bottles of one of their brews (there's some minimum amount they can sell to the public I think). Then make up and print the custom labels yourself.

I would have expected buying beer to be much more expensive - could I realistically hope to get that many bottles for under €300?

Thanks for all the help so far.

mordeith

flogen wrote: »

Thanks for that - time-wise it sounds like I've still got plenty of wiggle room, assuming I start early in the new year. Even at 20l of usable beer I'm still looking at 4 brews max to get enough for 180-200 330ml bottles.

The thought of sterilising, rinsing and filling that many bottles makes me shudder!

It's a lovely idea but personally I think it may be too much of a task. Having said that if you bought a basic kit to start and brewed a reasonable batch of 20-22l then you could say you are 1/3 of the way there.

flogen

mordeith wrote: »

The thought of sterilising, rinsing and filling that many bottles makes me shudder!

It's a lovely idea but personally I think it may be too much of a task. Having said that if you bought a basic kit to start and brewed a reasonable batch of 20-22l then you could say you are 1/3 of the way there.

Ha, I may well regret the idea by bottle 50 alright!

Bogwoppit

flogen wrote: »

Ha, I may well regret the idea by bottle 50 alright!

I did 100 for my wedding, it was a fairly big task to be honest with everything else going on, and I'd call myself a fairly experienced home brewer.

flogen

Bogwoppit wrote: »

I did 100 for my wedding, it was a fairly big task to be honest with everything else going on, and I'd call myself a fairly experienced home brewer.

That doesn't bode well for me, so. If I was doing it I'd start soon to minimise any time pressure, but I've started asking a few local breweries to see how much they'd want for a batch of their stuff as well.

fobster

As you said yourself, it'd be best to split it into three kinds.

Taking the lager kit suggested by BeerNut, I'd go with the following schedule.
Start fermenting a stout kit 3 months out, this will give the stout time to develop
then the dry-hopped lager kit 2 months out
then a wheat beer kit 1 month out as wheat beers are best young. I recommend the Muntons Connoisseur wheat kit.

Stagger the workload!

flogen

fobster wrote: »

As you said yourself, it'd be best to split it into three kinds.

Taking the lager kit suggested by BeerNut, I'd go with the following schedule.
Start fermenting a stout kit 3 months out, this will give the stout time to develop
then the dry-hopped lager kit 2 months out
then a wheat beer kit 1 month out as wheat beers are best young. I recommend the Muntons Connoisseur wheat kit.

Stagger the workload!

Thanks for that - what kind of timeframe are you talking about before they become undrinkable (if there is one). If I were to make a batch in the next month, say, would it be crap by the end of June?

Have you any experience with red ales? That would be one of my go-to drinks so would be nice to make one of my own if it wasn't more work than something else.

BeerNut

flogen wrote: »

what kind of timeframe are you talking about before they become undrinkable (if there is one).

There isn't one. Dry-hopped beers may start to lose flavour after about three months but most beers will keep improving, especially darker ones.

flogen wrote: »

That would be one of my go-to drinks so would be nice to make one of my own if it wasn't more work than something else.

Kits all work the same way.

flogen

BeerNut wrote: »

There isn't one. Dry-hopped beers may start to lose flavour after about three months but most beers will keep improving, especially darker ones.

Kits all work the same way.

Great, thanks.

ian_m

Presentation is definitely better in glass bottles. In fact it would be easier than using the plastic coopers bottles if you chose glass fliptops. Much easier than tightening plastic caps or using a hand capper for crown caps. 330mls and 500mls available from the usual homebrew shops. I use them all the time.

Anything that makes bottling day easier. Coopers bottles rip the plam of your hand by the time you tighten 40 of the things.

Guests will also be more likely to keep the fliptop as a momento. My two cents worth.

flogen

ian_m wrote: »

Presentation is definitely better in glass bottles. In fact it would be easier than using the plastic coopers bottles if you chose glass fliptops. Much easier than tightening plastic caps or using a hand capper for crown caps. 330mls and 500mls available from the usual homebrew shops. I use them all the time.

Anything that makes bottling day easier. Coopers bottles rip the plam of your hand by the time you tighten 40 of the things.

Guests will also be more likely to keep the fliptop as a momento. My two cents worth.

Would love to go with flip top bottles - but going by the prices on Alpack it would add a significant amount of cost to the whole thing. If I see them for something closer to regular glass bottles I'll be all over it though.

UnknownSpecies

I'd probably stick with buying directly from a brewery if I were you. I know that my first few batches were just about drinkable. Leaving aside the time needed to brew that many bottles, getting a very decent tasting brew takes even more time and experience.

flogen

UnknownSpecies wrote: »

I'd probably stick with buying directly from a brewery if I were you. I know that my first few batches were just about drinkable. Leaving aside the time needed to brew that many bottles, getting a very decent tasting brew takes even more time and experience.

I have started asking to see if doing that is in my price range.

Out of curiosity, what changed for you as you brewed more? Was it trial and error in learning what worked best for your taste or did you find you were doing things wrong initially? From reading up for this I've decided I'm going to have a go at brewing one way or another - even if it's just for my own sake - so interested to hear your experience

flogen

I also just noticed I said 'ambition' rather than 'ambitious' in the title. Duh.

fobster

With regards to red ale kits, I've heard good things about St Peters ruby red ale.

flogen

fobster wrote: »

With regards to red ale kits, I've heard good things about St Peters ruby red ale.

Yeah - I've seen that name pop up with positive reviews attached.

Carawaystick

I presume you've checked with your venue re corkage/if they let other beer on premises?

The other option would be to have 2 one litre bottles of beer per table of 8 so everyone can get a taste.
You are probably going to have many guests who a) don't drink beer
b) who don't drink non-massproduced lager/stout

I'd go for two of a munich/vienna malt lager/a stout/ a weissbier

And a weissbier and stout are the most forgiving brews.

Regarding buying from a craft brewer, I think the minimum amount they can sell is 20 litres

flogen

Carawaystick wrote: »

I presume you've checked with your venue re corkage/if they let other beer on premises?

That'll be done before anything is bought - just want to see if it's possible/practical before I ask.

The other option would be to have 2 one litre bottles of beer per table of 8 so everyone can get a taste.
You are probably going to have many guests who a) don't drink beer
b) who don't drink non-massproduced lager/stout

To be honest it's largely the novelty factor - especially in having personalised labels... but I want to be sure what's inside is drinkable for those who decide to crack it open.

As for those who don't drink at all, I'll still do up the bottles but maybe put some soft drink in there instead.

I'd go for two of a munich/vienna malt lager/a stout/ a weissbier

And a weissbier and stout are the most forgiving brews.

Good to know, thanks.

Regarding buying from a craft brewer, I think the minimum amount they can sell is 20 litres

Great - I should be well above that figure if I do end up going ahead with the plan.

flogen

Venue say they'll look for €1 per bottle if we want to do it as favours - might blow the idea out of the water as it all but doubles the cost. Will see if there's any wiggle-room in it. Hopefully there is as I've really gotten my heart set on it now!

Buona Fortuna

flogen wrote: »

Venue say they'll look for €1 per bottle if we want to do it as favours - might blow the idea out of the water as it all but doubles the cost. Will see if there's any wiggle-room in it. Hopefully there is as I've really gotten my heart set on it now!

I think you need to talk more on that. Emphasise that they are gifts and very few people will drink them at the venue. That you'll get the best man to say in his speech that these gifts from Eric and Emelda and they'd like you to take them away and enjoy them later on - any old blather

flogen

Buona Fortuna wrote: »

I think you need to talk more on that. Emphasise that they are gifts and very few people will drink them at the venue. That you'll get the best man to say in his speech that these gifts from Eric and Emelda and they'd like you to take them away and enjoy them later on - any old blather

Yeah - I've said as much to them and let them know it's a really important part of our plans. Looks like there might be a glimmer of hope of some movement but will have to wait & see. Will probably end up getting a starter kit one way or another - am curious about the whole thing now!