One the most satisfying things about creating your own beer is sharing it. To be sure you always have enough beer on hand, you need a keg. But sharing often requires transportation or serving in the great outdoors. Unless you have a keg fridge in your backyard near your grill and all of your friends have keg fridges, kegs can really be a pain in the butt to keep cold.

If you don’t drink all the beer and it gets too warm, your beer could be ruined.

You can always put the keg in a container with ice, but ice melts. It’s also hard to find a suitable container for a cornelius keg and its ice. Here are two solutions to the warm-keg problem: a draft box and a keg cooling jacket.

The other problem with sharing your homebrew is the drooping cobra faucet — if it’s not covered with grass, it’s dripping on the carpet. A tombstone tower should solve that problem.

The Draft Box
This draft box works quite well for a cornelius keg, especially if the keg is equipped with a cooling jacket (described later). You may already have much of the needed hardware, but it’s a good excuse to go to the hardware store nearest your favorite pub and do some shopping.

Materials:
• 8-qt. plastic cooler
• 12 to 20 feet 1/4-in. OD (outer diameter) copper tubing (or stainless steel, a commercial standard but more expensive and harder to use)
• Draft faucet
• Faucet shank
• Length of 3/16-in. ID (inner diameter) tubing
• 1/4-in. flare nut
• 1/4-in. flare to 1/4-in. flare adapter
• 2 hose clamps

Putting It Together
Essentially we’re building a box to cool your beer just prior to filling your glass. It’s the same type you see at festivals and other events. You could, of course, build a much larger box using a regular-sized picnic cooler, but for practicality this small version is perfect.

1. Decide where you want to locate the tap. I prefer the narrower end of the cooler rather than the wider front or back. Due to it’s small size, the cooler can easily tip over when you pull the faucet handle unless the faucet is located on an end. Drill a one-inch hole about two inches below the top edge of the cooler, making sure that the cooler top will still fit on with a faucet shank inside.
2. Insert the faucet shank and attach with supplied fasteners. Attach faucet.
3. Next we need to make the cooling element. Bend the length of copper tubing around a round, solid object such as a small paint can just small enough to fit inside the cooler. Leave at least five inches unbent at one end of the coil and at least three inches at the other.
4. Drill a one-quarter-inch hole through the side of the cooler opposite the faucet. Insert the longer of the two unbent portions of tubing through the hole. Slide on a flare nut and flare the end of the tubing. Put a small bead of silicone sealer around the hole.
5. Cut an appropriate length of the three-sixteenths-inch tubing and attach it to the other end of the cooling element with a hose clamp. Attach the other end of the tubing to the faucet shank with a hose clamp.
6. Thread a one-quarter-inch-to-one-quarter-inch adapter onto the flare nut. To use the box simply fill it with ice and hook it up to your keg.

Keg Jacket
This is a device that helps maintain your keg’s temperature. It’s kind of like a can cooler (not that you drink your beer from cans). This is an easily constructed device that works wonders.

Materials:
• Piece of canvas at least 2 by 4 feet
• 3 feet of hook-and-loop fastener (such as Velcro)
• Piece of carpet padding, 2.5 by 2 foot   
• Thread

Putting It Together
You can make your own beer; you should be able to sew. If you can’t, maybe you know someone who can and will for a few beers (yes, beer is also a tool).

1. The first thing you want to do is wash your canvas. If you don’t, you will get this whole thing made, spill some stout on it, wash it, and it will shrink, never again to fit your kegs.
2. The average cornelius keg has a circumference of about two feet and three inches. You will want at least a one-inch hem at both ends to affix your Velcro to. Cut the height of the canvas (top to bottom of the keg) to about three feet, 10 inches and the width (the part that will wrap around the keg) to about two feet, six inches.
3. Fold the canvas lengthwise so the ends meet in the middle. The height of your folded piece should now be about one foot, 10 1/2 inches.
4. Fold in the ends at the width to make one-inch hems. Sew the hems. You now have a pocket in the canvas that opens in the middle. This is where the padding will go.
5. Now you need to sew on the Velcro. First, see how this jacket fits around your keg. This will give you an idea exactly where to put the Velcro. Sew a strip of Velcro on each hem so that when the ends meet, the jacket is snug enough.
6. Slide in the padding.

Tombstone Tower
Now we need the device that will help you keep the faucet off the ground and the beer off the jacket. If you plan to use a draft box, then you have no real need for the tombstone tower. The tombstone is a device that allows you to use a chrome faucet on a cornelius keg. This is a wood-working project, and quite an easy one.

Materials:
• 1  board 3/4 in. by 3 1/2 in. by 2 feet (any wood will do except plywood as the plys can separate with moisture)
• 1/4 by 20 threaded insert (1/4-in. diameter, 20 threads per inch)
• 1/4 by 20 thumb screw
• 1 washer

Putting It Together

1. Start by cutting the wood to size. Cut one of each of the following pieces: (a) tombstone (tower), 3 1/2 inches by 13 inches; (b) the support, 31/2 inches by four inches; (c) the adjustable stabilizer, 3 1/2 inches by 21/2 inches. These are the rough cut pieces, see drawing (page 28) for actual size.
2. Cut a three-quarter-inch dado in the tombstone (a) three-eighths inch in depth, one inch from the bottom. Cut the top in any shape you find aesthetically pleasing.
3. Drill a one-inch hole in the top of the tower to accept a faucet shank.
4. Cut the support (b) with the arc indicated in the drawing (page 28). This arc is crucial to the stability of the tower, as it fits tightly against the lip for the top opening of the keg.
5. Drill a three-eighths-inch hole about three-quarters of the way through the support, one-half inch from the center of the arc, to accept the insert. Drive in the insert.
6. The stabilizer (c) is the tricky part. The arc should be cut as indicated in the drawing (page 28), but with the saw (sabre saw, bandsaw, or scroll saw) set at a 13-degree angle. This angle makes the stabilizer seat correctly against the inside of the keg handle.
7. Now you must make the slot in the stabilizer to make it seat tightly against the handle. Start by drilling a three-eighths-inch hole, one-quarter inch back from the center of the stabilizer. Drill another three-eighths-inch hole toward the angled arc so that the two holes are one inch apart at the outside ends of the holes. The space in between the holes can now be chiseled or cut out to form a slot.
8. Now the support (b) can be glued into the tower (a).
9. To use, attach the faucet and insert the support into a keg handle. Put the stabilizer on and insert the thumb screw through the washer and thread it into the insert. Push the insert tight up against the handle and tighten down. Other stability modification can be done such as a block on the lower part of the tower under the support. This would rest against the keg to aid in stability. The dimensions for this vary, as kegs differ by manufacturer.