Recipe advice for a beer for the uneducated, leaning towards a Kolsh

[Andy Q]

Hiya,

Rather that buying 2 boxes of whatever is cheap in tesco, a friend of mine has asked me to brew a beer for a get together next month, and I want to brew something safe for what I would imagine are a budweiser/miller crew.
Because I can't larger, I reckon a Kolsh would be the way to go, because I have more than enough time to ferment for two weeks at room temperature, and then another two weeks in the kegerator.

The recipe I'm leaning towards seems to be a standard Kolsch type beer for 20 odd litres:-
4kg Pilsner
500g Vienna
20 odd IBU (hops to be decided)
WLP 29 German Ale yeast

The advice I'm looking for would be regards what I might need to add to ensure better beer while maintaining mass appeal,
I'm considering thing like:-

* Acid Malt-I'm on lucan water supply, will I need this to help the mash of he pilsner malt, too lazy to do the chemistry but do have some ph 5.2 buffer)
* Wheat malt-am playing around with the idea of adding torrified wheat for head retention,but am afraid any wheat might add too much of a distinct flavour for a bland palate
* Crystal malt - am wondering will the beer be too dry without it
* Hops -  have a small bit of citra & nelson Sauvin left from my last IPA, am reckoning maybe 15 each last 20 mins or so might be subtle enough not so scare people, or would saaz/spalt/tettnang be the safer bet

All recommendations welcome, Thanks a mill,

Andy

[SB]

Hi Andy

Jamil's Kolsch recipe is supposed to be one of the best around

http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/jamils-jz-fruh

You could always try Biermunchers Cream of Three crops. I brewed it before and it went down very well with my lager drinking friends.  Another good mass appeal beer to look into would be Centennial Blonde. It's really easy to brew too.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f62/cream-three-crops-cream-ale-66503/

Hope that helps

Good luck!

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

The Centennial Blonde is brilliant. Light and balanced.

[Andy Q]

Sorry I didn't reply earlier, but the responses were greatly appreciated, went ahead with a toned down version of Jamils',
I reckon 6% would be too strong for the group I'm aiming for, so lowered the base malt, and added dark wheat just to add colour, brewed it tonight, turned out as follows:-

Batch Size (L): 23.0
Original Gravity (OG): 1.048
Final Gravity Est.(FG): 1.010
(ABV): 4.97 %
Colour (SRM): 3.5 (EBC)
(IBU): 23
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 75
Boil Time (Minutes): 70
3.5 kg Pilsner (73.68%)
0.5 kg Pale Malt (10.53%)
0.5 kg Vienna (10.53%)
0.25 kg Wheat Malt, Dark
13 g Sorachi Pellet (14.1% Alpha)
Yeast WLP29

Won't lie, it was a pleasure to brew, my last few brews have had too much grain/hop editions going on, leading to low efficiency/clogged taps etc, it would be a recipe I would recommend to new brewers, just to get a hang of the process, I will update yee in about 4/5 weeks to let you know if it works with John Q public, I know I wont let it go to waste!