Labor of Love - Home Brew Competition

For the holiday weekend we headed over to Dallas’ Deep Ellum Brewing Company’s 2nd Annual Labor of Love Home Brew Competition. The event features local bands, food trucks, some Deep Ellum brews and unique offerings from home brewers across DFW. Your ticket got you a tasting glass, a can of Deep Ellum beer and a tasting card for six samples. 

Logistically the event was not set up well. The main stage was up front with two of the food trucks and a seating area with an accoustic stage and other food trucks out back. There were no tents outside to offer shad from the sweltering Texas heat and no fans in the overcrowded main brewery building were the home brewers were set up. There were areas selling Deep Ellum beer and merchandise and Labor of Love merch but no areas inside the competition area where you could stand aside and enjoy your samples. The more popular tables created bottle necks and congestion. We had to wait in line twice to get to our friends at Knowles Brothers.Three of the larger of the home brewers, Knowles Brothers, Oak Highlands, Mox Nix and the Manhattan Project were all placed next to each other creating back up and then newer home brewers were on opposite ends with little to no traffic. 

With that being said,  the home brew offerings were interesting, competition was strong and we saw a few groups that should be expanding to professional brewers soon. We wanted to try Knowles Brothers  because we met on of the brothers at a Saturday brewery tour. Their main offerings did not disappoint.  The Lady in Red was my favorite, it is a slight spicy, hoppy but smooth double IPA. The Hop Freakness I expected not to like just by the name but it was a smoky rich black IPA with a great toasty aroma. The hashtag is a slightly spicy and hoppy imperial double IPA with floral notes and the Lil’ Red Rooster Rooster is a classic American amber.Another popular brewer was Oak Highlands with their 10% avb Freaky Deaky that was a smooth belgian triple. Mox Nix, a home brew club based in Grapevine undoubtedly had some of the best names with the Citrabomb, Hassel Heff and wheat in tribute to David Hasslehoff and the LBJ ipa and LBJ2. The most interesting samplings  were a peach IPA,  sour watermelon, a fig and raisin flavored dark saison  and a peanut butter cup porter. 

I don’t know if I would do this event again on a hot labor day weekend but they did have good music, good food and good beer and it’s hard to go too wrong with that.