Wedding Beers

I've brewed quite a bit in the last few months (I did 6 batches between late March and early June). The main reason for this is a single cause: beer for my wedding. I'm getting married in North Carolina in early July and wanted to provide a large supplement of homebrew to add to other beverages to be enjoyed. In planning for the big day I took a look at this useful blog post to get some ideas on how to go about brewing, transporting, setting up, and serving the beers at the wedding. While I did not brew nearly as much beer as some of the people I read about during my research, I was able to put together 4 batches with each one netting about a full 5 gallon corny keg. These beers were all brewed between April and June with details below. I was also able to convince one of my homebrew buddies to kick in a 5 gallon keg of his own NEIPA.

My car loaded with 4 kegs and supplies to serve them

While brewing four ~5 gallon batches wasn't much of a difficult task given the timeline, having the beers be at their peak and having (almost) nothing else on tap for a few months made the project tough. The fact that the wedding was outdoors, near the beach, in North Carolina, and in July also posed numerous challenges with getting, and keeping, the beer cold and making sure the bartenders would be able to pour it.

Last minute prep/icing down for the 5th time

Beach Formal Belgian Tripel - Brewed in April in order to have some time to age, higher than expected extraction rate led to this beer being stronger than planned (despite reducing the amount of sugar added). The beer started as 2 separate 3 gallon batches, one brewed with BE-256 and the other with S-33, before being combined to one fermentor after several weeks. While it came off fairly boozy at first, a few months has brought it together to a nice example of the style.

Shoreline Summer Ale - Loosely modeled off Big Wave Golden Ale from Kona Brewing Company this is intended to be a moderately hoppy blonde with tropical fruit forward character. The grist is somewhat of a trimmed down version of my most recent StarTropics NEIPA while the hops emphasize the classic combo of Citra and Mosaic. At kegging in early May this was one of the fruitiest, tropical, exciting beers I have made and I was disappointed I needed to wait so long to drink it (and worried that the character would fade). While the fruit flavors transformed over time the beer still retained some tropical fruit salad goodness, just leaning a little more towards overripe fruit than the super fresh mango and papaya it started with.

Lighthouse Little Saison - A variation on my go-to Maisonette Grisette the beer features mosaic hops and saison yeasts in a small platform that always excites. Not my best batch of this beer, and it picked up some accidental brett along the way (for better or worse), but a tasty and refreshing beer none the less.

White Wedding Wheat Ale w/ Orange, Ginger, and Chamomile - This one was the least based on previous recipes with just mild input from my Summertime Rye beer. Instead of remaking a previous beer, I wanted to brew something of a Blue Moon clone with more interesting fruit/herb/spice character. The end result is surprisingly chamomile forward with light orange and almost no ginger but is a refreshing and easy drinker. This beer (along with the Shoreline Summer Ale) used my house Inglés culture, a slowly evolving blend of British yeast strains that I occasionally add new yeasts to during pitching.

Hazy Gudenius NEIPA - Guest brewed by Scott Janish, of his awesome eponymous blog and the soon-to-be-awesome Sapwood Cellars. Brewed with Citra Cryo Hops, along with Otto Supreme and Amarillo, this one is an obvious crowd pleaser.

Serving at the wedding, fortunately someone knew how to operate ball lock kegs and CO2 to get the beers to pour while I was taking photos

Post wedding updates:
At the wedding the Lighthouse saison and Hazy Gudenius NEIPA were clear favorites and both were near empty at the end of the night while the others were somewhere between 1/3rd and 2/3rds full. The White Wedding and Shoreline had become a bit oxidized and were not as good as they had been when fresh but still drinkable and they got the least love. Overall I think one less beer or switching one for something super different (like a dark beer) might have been a good idea but none of the beers turned out bad and they were much more popular than the light beers we had the bar serve for those who didn't want homebrews. I wish I had taken photos of each of the beers when pouring them, but there was honestly way too many other things going on.

#34 Tripel - Tasting

I decided to do a side by side comparison of my tripel and the stronger (Golden Strong-ish) version which has added honey and a sage tincture. This side by side really demonstrates the similarities and differences between the two that may be harder to discern if working only off memory or even notes.  For this tasting I will focus on the "Tripel", with notes on differences from the "Golden Strong" which I already recorded a tasting for.

Not a great picture. The Golden Strong version is on the right and a shade darker and cloudier.

A- slightly lighter than the Golden Strong, more of a medium gold where the other is a light copper. Both pour with a small and quickly fading white head with no lacing.

S- whereas the Golden Strong version largely demonstrates herbal, floral and honey notes, the predominate aromas on the Tripel are grainy pilsner, fruity apples and banana from the yeast, with some light spice from the hops and yeast.

T- up front this is dominated by a sweet, honey flavor with alcohol becoming noticeable in the middle.  Medium esters and light phenolic spice mingle with a moderately low bitterness leaving a clean but warm alcohol tinged finish. The alcohol is noticeably less strong than the Golden Strong despite only about a 1% difference difference in total ABV.

M- fairly noticeable pop on opening but light carbonation by the time I finished the 12 ounces. Fairly well attenuated but still doesn't finish dry, with the sweetness disappearing in the finish more due to the alcohol presence than a crisp ending.

O- a decent beer all around, no flaws and a good balance of the hops, yeast, grain and sugars. If I could change anything about this brew it would be to remove the honey to allow the yeast and grain to fully shine through.

#34b - Sage Honey Golden Strong Ale Tasting

I've been really enjoying this modified version of my #34 - Tripel which used a sage tincture and an extra 12 oz. of honey on 2.5 gallons of beer.  A beautiful day in Arlington in the middle of a brew session seems like a nice time to do an official tasting.

A- Medium copper, hazy, with a very nice bright white 1 finger head of small bubbles that's sustained by constant, but not overly strong, carbonation bubbles.

S- Floral, herbal, grainy, honey sweet, fruity, yeasty.  Golden grahams cereal, fresh bread, pizza (from both the herbal sage and the yeastyness), bubble gum.  The sage and honey come on stronger as it warms, giving off more of the sweet, savory, herbal and floral characteristics.

T- Again, a melange of primarily sweet flavors with some savory notes sprinkled in.  Up front it is crisp and fruity with honey and sage showing in the middle and a finish that is medium dry, off-sweet, slightly bitter and moderately warming from the high alcohol.  The sage seems a bit more noticeable with every sip, though always in a refreshing and not overpowering way.

M- Carbonation is right where I would like, medium/medium-high, with a fairly dry body despite the high gravity and moderately sweet taste.

O- Of all the Belgians I recently brewed this may turn out to be the best.  The alcohol is warming but only just so.  While far off from a true Duvel style Belgian Golden Strong Ale it certainly has a similar ability to sneak in the alcohol.  The honey and sage play together very nicely with the underlying beer and I would have to say that the sage tincture was very well done.  This seems like a great beer for a beautiful, warm, spring day like today.

#34 - 8° Tripel

Continuing my themed set of trappist style ales I brewed an 8° Tripel. Like the 6° Dubbel (brewed prior to the tripel but aging longer, post to come) this beer uses primarily Belgian Pilsner and a little Munich malt with some sugar additions, Wyeast 3787 Trappist High Gravity yeast and a simple continental European hop bill featuring Styrian Goldings and Hallertau (and in the Tripel's case a little Strisselspalt as well).  The Tripel however should turn out quite different with less dark malts, a much higher hop bitterness, flavor and aroma and the sugar additions being white sugar and honey rather than the complex dark candi syrups leading to hop/yeast balance rather than malt/sugar/yeast.  As the name suggests this beer will also start with a slightly higher gravity (1.080) for an added alcohol oomph.

Trying to work in the same kitchen that my girlfriend was using to make bread led to some issues with tight space and a few spills.  In the end I lost about half a pound of the pilsner malt trying to add it to the mash tun and lost about half an ounce of hersbrucker hops when trying to vacuum seal.  I made up for the pilsner malt with more white sugar.  Pitched 12 oz. of slurry harvested from my Belgian Session IPA on December 26th (about a 50% over-pitch according to Mr. Malty).

In addition to wanting to brew to-style Trappist beers in each of the 3 major varieties (dubbel, tripel, quad) there was an additional goal to this themed series to experiment with tinctures and blending.  Unlike the Dubbel which will be blended with the Quad to create my 7° beer, this beer will have additional sugars (largely honey) added to bump up the equivalent starting gravity just 1 Belgian degree (up to the equivalent of a 1.090 OG) to create a Belgian Golden Strong ale.  Similar to the 7° beer which will be spiced with a number of warming festive spices this beer will have a simpler tincture of sage added to lend some floral, sweet and savory characteristics.

1/28/14
Extremely vigorous fermentation led to me replacing the airlock with a blow off tube.

2/13/14

Gravity down all the way to 1.006 after getting to 1.008 at moving to secondary.  Bottled just under 2 gallons with 1.5 oz of sugar. (as brew #34 despite the Dubbel actually having been brewed before it).  ~2.5 gallons were mixed with 12 oz. of honey for what will be the Sage Golden Strong.  Taste is surprisingly high in bitterness with some noticeable alcohol, fruity yeast derived flavors and a touch of honey like sweetness.

3/1/14

Bottled the Golden Strong with most of the sage tincture (roughly 1/2 cup worth of extract from 2/3 cup vodka, 1/4 cup sage mixture).  Taste is sweet and estery up front but dry and bitter in the finish with the sage giving a citrusy, herbal character that I might have liked to see even more of.

4/12/14

Sage version tasting notes.  Very tasty, noticeable but not overpowering sage presence.

5/17/14

Straight Tripel tasting (with side by side notes of Sage Golden Strong). Also a good beer, though not as true to style as I was hoping.