Wedding favors

My friends had asked me to brew two batches of beer for their wedding to give away to their guests as favors.  They liked all my homebrew they have tried and had some of the bottles I made for special occasions and really liked them. I can not begin to tell you how honored I was.  I consider myself an intermediate brewer. Almost all of my brews have turned out really good, but for my daughter’s first birthday, I gave out a batch that I had a chlorine/chloramine issue with and to me it tasted like plastic.  I didn’t want anything similar to happen for this.

She chose a stout and he chose a Hefeweizen. I was extremely nervous about these two batches. I came up with the recipes, brewed and bottles the beer, and designed the labels to match their wedding scheme/theme(green color, beach/ocean, and orchids).  If the beer was bad, there was no one to blame but me and I had the possibility of ruining their day.  I was freaking out because I felt like I took a big risk doing everything myself and not just buying kits, and I had never brewed an all grain hefe before.  I had two nightmares the week before. One was that the beer tasted bad and the other was about beer bomb bottles of stout during the reception from overcarbonating or infection.  Their wedding was last Friday and a lot of the beers were opened before the reception was over.  Everyone, especially the bride and groom,  loved everything. The beer, the labels, everything.  I could not have been more proud, honored, and grateful to be a part of anything as I was that day. I’m really happy that I could help to make their day special.  I could finally RDWAHAHB.
Here are the labels:

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Very cool!  Congratulations on your wonderful gifts to the couple.  I like the labels, and especially like the choices of styles by the two.

Cheers!
  Janis

Very cool. I’m working on a Champagne-style Saison for my friend’s wedding, and I know exactly what you mean about the nightmares and stress. Hopefully it’ll be worth it!

I did a pilot batch for a friend who wanted an imperial stout. Had a taste of the sample batches on Wednesday - one was ‘plain’ and the other had been aged for a week (and is still aging) on 10 grams of bourbon-soaked toasted oak chips. I preferred the bourbon one, he prefers the plain, which is good because he’s having the ‘real’ batch contract brewed and those guys can’t do oak. I will be looking forward to seeing the differences between my beer and the contract brewer’s beer.

Nice work.  I’m surprised at the choices from the bride and groom, thats backwards to my house.  But I do know a lot of women who like stouts.  The two make a nice contrast.

Thanks all. The couple is very cool and are both into beer.

I added stress because I put off making the labels until two weeks before the wedding, but then we had a family emergengy and I wound up having to make the labels and label the bottles the week of the wedding.  The worst part is my wife told me a month ahead of time: “I dont want to hear it when you are putting labels on right before the wedding.”  My advice is make everything well in advance. It may save you from nightmares and stress later. It was for absolutely worth it for me and I’m sure it will be for you. Cool choice. Was it bride/grooms or yours?

That’s cool he asked you to come up with the recipe instead of using one from somewhere else. He must really like your beer.  Also being able to compare your beer to a professional brewer has to be cool too.  I’m looking forward to hearing the results if you post them.  I’d prefer the bourbon one too.

I’m doing it as a surprise present. They’re both fans of my Belgian beers, and I thought a Champagne-type beer would be perfect.

I can relate.  We did our house amber ale for a friends wedding two years ago.  The groom came over and helped brew and they both came over and helped bottle the 10 gallon batch.  They served it at their reception along with some commercial beers.  We got lots of nice compliments throughout the reception.  It was great to see people pass over old standby commercial beers to try the homebrew.

It was quite stressful throughout the process though.  The last thing we wanted was to ruin their wedding reception with a contaminated beer.  They saved a couple of bottles for their 1st anniversary and let us know that the beer was still pretty tasty a year later.

Congrats!

My friend that got me into homebrewing made a batch for my wedding, and it was the best present we got. He gave us a copy of his design and process notes, which was pretty fun.

Bravo!

Haha this is great! Love the labels and anecdotes. People are always brewing for friends weddings and their own. Excellent to hear that everyone was pleased!

A champagne type beer is a good idea. It would have been cool to make something that could age so they could have it on their anniversary.

They both want to start brewing. We wanted to brew the beers together but could never coordinate a day.  Giving them the recipes would be a great idea.

Thanks! The best part was having brew days that trumped anything else we had to do. They are my wifes friends too, she knew it was for their wedding so there were no “You’re brewing again?” kind of questions. My wife likes that I brew, but doesnt like the fact it is an all day process.  I may be brewing for some imaginary friends wedding in the near future.  ;)  :-X

Cool stories. I will relate mine from my wedding 4.5 years ago.

Since my wife and I were both older (well, at least I was) and I already had a house and everything I needed for it we just asked our good friends (who a lot of them are homebrewers) to brew us their best beer for a wedding gift. My wife’s task was to find a reception hall that would let us bring our own beer and not charge us. She did a wondeful job of finding a place and we had a wonderful reception/party.

The final results were that we served 12 different homebrewed beers on tap (I brewed 2 of them) from CAP to Impy IPA to Old Ale (with cool names like Old Ball and Chain, Hen Pecked Hefe, Pre-Nup Pilsner, etc), our toast was with champagne-style carbonated mead (a bottle on each table), and most of the guests received a bottle of Wedding Wee Heavy that I brewed as favors.  I also had glasses made (brandy snifter type) with my brewery logo on one side and the wedding date and info on the other and gave those as groomsmen’s gifts so they could drink out of them at the party.

It was a wonderful evening that I remember fondly. Oh, and several of the beers went on to win medals for their brewers, including 1 best of show and 1 medal at the NHC.

That sounds like a nice party!
I also brewed for a friend’s wedding, calling it Wedding Veil Pale Ale, and it was the first beer gone at the reception.  I still get complements on that 7 or 8 years later.

I am getting married next spring and I’ve been asked by a number of my friends if I’m going to “brew something” for the wedding. My initial response is, “Yes” but I am a little reluctant. I think a lot of people like the idea of craft beer more than they like beer. For instance, I did a cranberry IPA for Christmas called “Hoppy Holidays” and it came out great. My dad, who is a Bud drinker, said, “That’s not real beer.”

My point is this: I don’t want bottles of something I spent time and money on perfecting to be discovered the next day half full.

Am I being too cynical?

You just need better friends.

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You just need better friends.

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Well played, sir. It’s not friends I’m worried about. It’s the aforementioned drinkers of “real” beer.

I think you are being too sensitive.  Unless you think comments like the one from your Dad are going to ruin your wedding day, you need to brew a beer for your wedding.  You will regret not having that special beer to share with those who actually appreciate it.  Even if it’s just for you and your spouse.

We made a Hefe and something else for our wedding. A friend brought some homebrew too. A lot of people enjoyed it, even my wife’s wiener uncle who only drinks BMC. People who didn’t enjoy it were polite enough to keep their tasteless mouths shut.

not cynical, but not realistic. You will never brew a beer that everyone likes. brew for you at your wedding. or for you soon to be wife. You could also consider this an opportunity to get a kegging set up. if you serve your beer from a keg there will be no half empty bottles!