Best beers for large wedding reception?

From a Belgian perspective:
- low ABV beers
- 3 beers: 1 bitter, 1 sour, 1 sweet
- if only 1 beer, pour Marriage Parfait Oude Geuze or Oude Kriek (Boon).

 

I wouldn’t try to please 21-25yr olds you won’t. Weddings deserve a keg of good German Lager and a mix of canned low cost beverages of inferior integrity. That will hold the costs down a bit. If there’s booze go major brands lowest cost. Let us know how it turns out.

 

Like people said, it won't matter for 20's year olds. If you want to get something good and drinkable get a German Helles from Weihenstephaner or a Czech Pils like Pilsner Urquell. That will supplant the light beer people. Then get a good and cheap mass produced IPA like SNPA, Hazy Little Thing, Stone IPA, or something of the such.
Since you are in Kansas, I'd recommend Free State Ad Astra or Boulevard Tank 7. The two best beers I've had from Kansas.

 

Unfortunately, it doesn’t pay to get great beer. Most of your guests will not appreciate it. I would get a solid keg and have some bottles for your craft friends

 

My wedding was last summer. We had a mix of ages but most of the people drinking were in their 30s and 40s.

We had Allagash White, Miller High Life, Fiddlehead IPA, Budweiser, Corona, and Notch German Afternoons (a local German Pils).

We ran out of Notch German Afternoons.

 

I would get a few kegs of miller lite or a macro lager then a couple kegs of something more “craft” like Sierra Nevada pale ale, or hazy little thing. Maybe even something like Sam Adams, or Lagunitas ipa. Beers are generally lower cost and universal.

 

I've probably told this story before, but a few years ago one of my (3) bosses put me in charge of buying beer for an Oktoberfest themed company anniversary party.

"Get a good keg of Oktoberfest and ask the other bosses what they want."

Keg of Spaten Okto and Bud Light delivered day-of. Couple worried complaints about the Spaten being skunked. Uh, no green bottles guys.

Guess which keg kicked in record time and which one was still a quarter full the next day?

 

98% of the guests won't be able to name a true craft beer. Buy macro stuff like Miller Light, Coors Light, and Bud, then have a cooler stashed away with the good stuff for you and any other discriminating guests.

 

Depends on the size of the wedding but for 80-100ish people I'd get a 15.5 of the popular macro lager in your area and a 5 gal of a popular IPA. Remember that many people will be drinking wine, sparkling, coffee, and other NAs.

 

Considering Spaten Okto is your favorite beer, I’d say this was a win for you.

 

Sort of. And I was going to say it surprised me, but maybe it shouldn't have.

I can't remember why I didn't suggest 2 kegs, but I think it was partly due to me not thinking it would go over that well.

When the keg kicked the boss asked me to go to the store to get another and I shrugged and said sorry, special order.

 

Define "Large". 500, 5000, Arena sized, stadium?

 

I paid for my daughter wedding. I concentrated more on the meal. Everyone raved about the food. I had a open bar for 1 hour. The guests sure made the best of that! Free tap beer was available all night..
Crowd was pretty much a 50/50 mix of young and older.
The beer I picked was Miller Genuine Draft. Didn`t get any complaints.
You could purchase a variety of bottle beer. Only saw a few Spotted Cows and Pabst Blue Ribbons purchased.
At the end of the night only comments I got were that the Food was great, and they enjoyed the Music.

 

I attended a wedding last weekend and there was a couple/few hours between the wedding and the start of the reception so there was sorta a pre-party in the hotel where everybody stayed before the reception. I brought some homebrewed beers (Altbier, Robust Porter, Wet Hopped APA, and Bohemian (Czech) Pilsner). Only 'old' people wanted these beers. There were plenty of young people (less than 30 years old) at this pre-party and the beers they were drinking were Light beers: Coors Light, Bud Light,...

I would suggest Miller Lite for your @Beefman event.

Cheers!

 

If they are 21-25 they will drink anything and they are drinking for purpose and not flavor.

 

take the beer can whose picture matches the chosen colour scheme of the wedding. Also a few bottles, or cans just for the Beer Geek table.

 

Agreed - I'd imagine that a large portion of the guests (especially young twenties as someone else said) will drink whatever's available. Another portion won't want beer, regardless of what you serve.

If you'll need multiple kegs, I'd go with a different kind of beer for each to maximize the odds of pleasing your guests. It seems like pale ales & fruity sours are the most popular in my area, so I'd recommend one of each if you can find either/both in keg form at a reasonable price.

 

I'd also aim to have a few non-alcoholic "beer-like" options on hand for anyone who isn't imbibing, like N/A beer or high-end soda. I know that Rocky Mountain Soda Co. has craft sodas available in BIBs so you can connect them to a tap (more info here if you're interested). None of the N/A beers I've tried offer the same, but I'm sure there are some good brands out there that do!