Favors, of the yummy variety

As one who usually wears pocket-less dresses to weddings, I rarely remember to grab favors off the table at the end of the night. Cookie cutters, bubbles, etc. are cute and I notice them when I sit down, but that's usually as far as we go.

The exception? Edible favors! Sure, nobody NEEDS more food after dinner and wedding cake. But those hours of slightly aerobic dancing make me reach for the little candies or homemade cookie every time. As a result, Vader and I will be offering edible favors to our guests in two forms. The first, a candy buffet. They're pretty, they're delicious, and they completely legitimize my five year old self's urge to chow down on Swedish Fish. 

While we hope to Maine-ify our candy buffet as much as we can, we were looking for a way to make our favors more personal. Enter Vader's love for all things beer, my love for DIY projects, and our kitchen floor's love for sticky messes. We've decided that we will make a few different kinds of beer (at the moment we're thinking a fruity ale, a flavored stout, and an interesting IPA) and put them out for guests to grab at the end of the night to remember the wedding fondly. 

Since it had been 3+ years since either of us had brewed beer, and none of it had ever tasted particularly good, we decided we had better start practicing so as to prevent our guests from remembering our wedding while running for the 'loo. So far we have brewed a summer ale that is bottle conditioning and a Russian imperial stout in primary fermentation. Perhaps I'll update once we've tried the beer in proper form (i.e. not warm and flat from the carboy). In the meantime, here's a glimpse into our project until next July!

The kit

 Vader and our very advanced wort chilling system

 Closet/Beer Factory