how much and which beer????

peanutty2

i'm seeing the estimators (which are giving me all different numbers!) but they're just a general of how many cases/bottles of beer.  but i'm wondering how many i need of each type of beer. 

we're planning to do 5 types - a light, probably miller light (party pleaser), yuengling, guiness, a pumpkin ale, and an octoberfest.  i think the bigggest takers will be the light, yuengling, and october.  the pumpkin and guiness are more specialty.  but based on that... any estimate of how many cases of each one???

also, we only have beer, wine, and sangria.  and it's an outdoor afternoon wedding, 5 hours with cocktail hour and most people sound like they're going home that night. 

with the exception of the light... we'll use any leftover so i would rather have too much than too little... but i don't want to go crazy either.

cadamus

I would do more for the ones that you know people will drink. Maybe do a little less of the light since you and the fi dont really car for light. I love yuengling so i personally would have more of that then any other beer. The amounts all depend on how many people  you will be having there and how much you think they will drink. some may drink more and some may drink less.

calindi

I'm right there with you - we're doing beer, wine and sangria!  We're doing a lot of upscale beers & wines since we're booze snobs.  We plan to offer Labatt's as the light beer option since FI warned me he didn't want any "crap beer" at our wedding, and FI is from Syracuse and his Dad & buddies will go for the cheap option regardless, so might as well give them something local they like (and it's a nice nostalgic thing for FI).

We're also offering a large variety of other beers - Sam Adams, Guinness, Harp, Stella Artois, Kronenbourg 1664, Brooklyn Nut Brown Ale, Pilsner Urquell, Stone IPA, and Hoegaarden.  We're supplying the liquor ourselves, so we're not limited in our choices.

For 150 guests, knowing we can return unopened cases (you should check with your liquor store, because they might let you do this, too), we plan to have 96 bottles of Sam Adams, 96 Labatt's, 48 Guinness, 48 Harp, 72 Stella Artois, 72 Kronenbourg 1664, 48 Brooklyn Nut Brown Ale, 72 Pilsner Urquell, 72 Stone IPA, and 48 Hoegaarden.

I figure the light beer is usually the most popular, followed by local favorites (Sam Adams, in our case).  After that, approachable semi-mainstream varieties that are lighter like Stella & 1664 & Pilsner Urquell.  I personally love IPA and will probably have 4-5 on my own, so that was easy for me and wanted to make sure we won't run out of that one.  The rest we just get 48 of each for the people who want to sample. 

We're going to have the bartenders do samplings for people who want to 'try before they commit' so we don't end up with a lot of drinks thrown out after one sip.  We're going to supply little tasting cups for them to use for that.  FI and I met and fell in love while wine tasting, and our honeymoon is wine & beer tasting, so it just felt right!

Do note that most beer needs to be used within a few months max.  There are a few with higher alcohol content (like Belgian Tripels) that can stay a year or more, but if you aren't going to be able to finish it within 3 months, you might want to throw a party to get rid of some of it if you can't return extras!

calindi

For your variety, not knowing how many guests (for this sake, I'll assume 150 since I'm familiar with it).  We'll also assume you're buying 24 pack cases.

I would do:

8 cases of light, probably miller light (party pleaser)
8 cases of yuengling (a suprising number of people go for the 'upscale' commonly known brands rather than the miller/bud lights)
6 cases of guiness
4 cases of pumpkin ale
5 cases of octoberfest

That will give you 744 bottles, or an average of 5 beers per person.  Considering not everyone will drink beer, that's plenty.