Friday, July 5, 2013

Sharing Is Caring

Last weekend I reached the pinnacle of my homebrewing hobby: I shared my beer with numerous people who I'd never met before. I've held tastings amongst my friends previously and they may bring along an unknown person or two, but this was a whole new level. I catered the beer during cocktail hour and dinner at my friend's wedding.

The couple always appreciated good beer and loved every homebrew I had shared with them previously so when I found out about the wedding I figured it would be a fun gift to brew a few batches for the event; an idea which they were quite enthusiastic about.

I set forth to brew a modified pilsner and a Belgian farmhouse summer ale. I won't go into too many of the brewing details, but in regards to the styles I wanted to have a varied selection that matched their respective colors and tastes! However, most fun part was the naming. The groom's last name is Sheiber,so "Sheibier" was an easy pick for the farmhouse ale. Meanwhile the bride's first name is Amy and AmAle seemed to be the way to go for the pilsner (made using ale yeast, not lagered).

The wedding was the true test to the taste of my beer as I'd never met the majority of the people at the wedding prior to the weekend. Both beers ended up on the lighter end, which was perfect for the hot summer day!

Breaking into 5 gallons of Amale and 5 gallons of Sheibier
Smelling Sheibier's aroma making sure it's worthy of consumption
Apparently it was!
And was even deserving of a thumbs + beer bottle up!
The Sheibier was the first to go
And the Amale didn't last much longer either

THE VERDICT: People loved the beer! Rather than calling it quits after one people kept on coming back for more and it didn't take long before the cooler was empty.

The Sheibier was the first to clear out, although my suspicion for this is that my description sounded more exotic in combo with the fact that all the Amale was in 22 oz bottles (rather than the typical 12), which may have intimidated people initially. However once people discovered the Amale it soon became a favorite.

In the end, it was a wonderful experience. One of the few things more fun than drinking your homebrew is watching other people enjoy it, which they certainly did!

I'll leave you with my favorite image from the wedding.

Amy with Amale. Sheibier was already out, so pots were a solid substitute

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