The time is near at hand! The Deep Ellum Labor of Love Homebrew Competition is this Sunday, and we at New Main couldn't be more excited. We are working diligently to prepare our beer dispensing equipment, and we just received our banner and stickers that will be for sale at the event. Again, if you want information about the event, just go check out Deep Ellum's website.

Now, most fancy homebrewing folk will be offering their brews by means of a Jockey Box. This is a contraption that allows a keg of beautiful homebrew to sit al fresco while the beer passes through a heat exchange coil inside an ice chest to bring it to quaffing temperature. An elegant, albeit pricey venture since the heat exchange coil is either copper or stainless steel tubing. I don't know about you, but I hear the stereotypical cash register noise when I say copper or stainless steel tubing. See, there it is again!

So, instead of spending real live money on something, I naturally chose to mangle something I already have! There's a thin line between frugal and cheap, and I'm waaaay on the cheap side of said line. The way this system works is you plunk a keg of homebrew inside the cooler with plenty of ice, and dispense just like you would out of a standard kegerator. Here's a preliminary look at what we will be serving out of at LOL3:

Fancy, huh? (P.S. Mom, sorry I ruined the top of the cooler you gave me. When I win the lottery, I'll buy you another one!)

Final construction will take place tomorrow to add a few ports for the faucet to attach to the cooler and for the beer line to stay in the ice cold cooler. I'll make sure to post some photos of the finished product for those of you who can't make it to the event Sunday. You can bet your bottom dollar I'll be bringing this bad boy to any hangout or reunion down the road, though!

We also have all our "promotional" items ready to go for Sunday as well. We tried to get koozies together for sale at the event, but after several wasted days of frustration, it all kinda fell through. Oh well, stickers are neat too.

We also have a neat outdoor banner that we'll be hanging up at LOL3. We aren't sure if we'll be inside or outside, but since the event is from 6pm to 10pm on Sunday, I think outside with the breeze would be best. We'll just have to see where it all lands. Amanda and I will be onsite a few hours early to set up and bump elbows with some other local homebrewers.

We'll be bringing all three of our entries, but there are varying amounts of each. We have nearly a full 5 gallons of our rosemary & sage Belgian wheat beer, Palo Alto Wit. We have a couple gallons left of the orange infused American wheat, & HOWE (Honey Orange Wheat Elixir). We also have a few bottles of spICEMAGEDDON to bring, which is our spiced winter warmer, but this batch didn't turn out that great. We'll pour it if people want it, but it's not the best we've made recently.

We hope you can make it out to see us. Stay tuned for a follow-up post on Monday(ish) for our report on the event. As always, thanks for reading and we'll see y'all next time!

Today's Main Break: Beer is officially America's Favorite Adult Beverage. I certainly know it's mine!