Saturday's Steel City Big Pour is a beer-tasting fund-raiser to benefit Construction Junction, the Point Breeze purveyor of used building materials, and so one theme that runs through the event is adaptive reuse.

All the more reason to love the real fire truck that's been adapted to pump beer.

Brian and Minnie Sprague, who run Sprague Farm & Brew Works in Venango, Crawford County, a few months ago bought their town's retired 1973 American LaFrance pumper. Then they had it retrofitted to carry in its rear four half-kegs and ice, and attached tap handles to dispense their barn-brewed beers.

The truck already has drawn a lot of attention at a few events where they've taken it, Ms. Sprague says. They plan to paint it with their own logo.

The Spragues will be joined at the Big Pour by brewers or representatives from about two dozen other breweries, including their neighbor in nearby Meadville, Voodoo Brewery, which, after a frustratingly long wait for label approval, is starting to sell its brews.

Other participants include Brewery Ommegang (Cooperstown, N.Y.), Church Brew Works (Lawrenceville); Dogfish Head (Delaware); East End Brewing (Homewood); Great Lakes (Cleveland); Hereford & Hops (Cranberry); John Harvard's (Wilkins); Lancaster Brewing; Legacy (Reading); Marzoni's (newly opened in Hampton); Mountain State Brewing (Thomas, W.Va.); Peak Organic (brewed in Maine); Penn Brewery (North Side); Rivertowne Pour House (Monroeville); Rock Bottom (Homestead); Southern Tier Brewery (N.Y.); Troegs (Harrisburg); Unibroue (Quebec); Victory (Downingtown); Wolaver's (Vermont); and Yards (Philadelphia). And the Three Rivers Alliance of Serious Homebrewers, or TRASH, will pour, too.

To go with all that brew, there'll be lots of fun food, prepared by Artspace & Coffeehouse, Bocktown Beer & Grill, Buffalo Blues, D's Six Pax & Dogz, Flame BBQ, Giant Eagle Market District, Harris Grill (offering "Labor Inducing Vegetarian Chili"), Piper's Pub, Point Brugge, Sharp Edge Beer Emporium and a Taste of New Orleans. The food is included in the ticket price.

Not to mention the live music and live art (more on that later).

Sorry for the long lists, but this festival is big, as is the 20,000-square-foot, not-normally-open-to-the-public processing area in Construction Junction's warehouse that it's being held in.

"It's been a big effort to get the space cleaned up," says David Lagnese, the Pour's "main instigator" who is a board member of Construction Junction, a nonprofit conservation project of the Pennsylvania Resources Council.

The event is divided into two three-hour sessions: noon to 3 p.m. and 5 to 8 p.m. Tickets are $30 per session; nonbeer-drinking designated drivers can buy a $10 ticket. Sales will be limited to 750 per session.

Attendees can take in the music of local "Americana" band Hoodoo Drugstore. They can also watch as metal artists Carley Hill and Ed Parish do a hot metal pour with salvaged cast-iron radiators. The solar modular home being built by Carnegie Mellon University students will be open for tours.

"Again, we're trying to make the festival more than standing around tasting beer," says Mr. Lagnese.

Eleven local artists have created art on kegerators -- refrigerators adapted to hold and dispense kegs of draft beer without even opening the door -- that will be auctioned off.

Mr. Lagnese says, "It's going to be pretty amazing." Edgewood artist Christo Braun, for instance, describes his fridge as black and gold, covered in 4-inch mirrored acrylic tiles and, in resin on those, "one of my signature motifs, an abstract sunset looking through autumnal trees. "

Construction Junction is located at 214 N. Lexington St., Point Breeze, one block off Penn Avenue near the Frick mansion. For tickets and more, visit www.constructionjunction.org.