New to home draft beer

It is dropping. Check in the a.m. and if still dropping just let it keep going. If it stabilizes before 37-38, turn it colder.

 

The picture isn't showing. Are you getting foam on beer 1 and subsequent beers also?

 

If it was just the first beer it would be tower cooling, but since it continues there is more to it. Silly question - you are tipping the glass and not pouring directly into it, correct? Descrbe the flow from the faucet - i.e .burst of foam, beer, burst of foam, etc. Also pouring beer on foam causes more foam so if you have foam in the glass, beer on top of that will only make it worse.

 

It makes sense. If you have solid beer in the line, and no bubbles moving around or air pockets forming, it sounds to me like something in the shank / faucet might be aggravating the beer. You should probably take the faucet off, disassemble it just to make sure everything looks ok, then reattach to the shank. You should get a look at what the washer situation is like between the faucet and tower. The faucet should be rigidly attached to the shank - no play up down, side to side.

 

You should make sure there is a washer, and only one in between the faucet and shank. I think it is technically called a faucet coupling gasket. It is thin, you should be able to look into the back of the faucet and see it.

 

That's it. Is that washer completely round and centered? Hard to tell from the photo. It should be. You should also take the faucet all the way down to components and check that everything looks good. Also make sure there is no crap left over from the manufacturing process in the small hole(s) on the underside of the spout

 

It is a vent hole, rear closing faucets have them. It should be an actual hole, I'm not sure what a semi hole is. Something in the hardware has got to be aggravating the beer because you are close on the numbers with balance. Either some physical thing like a burr on a fitting, or possibly the regulator not reading properly and what you think is 12 psi is much higher.

 

Have you checked temp lately? The lower the temp goes the lower the pressure should go, so if the temp is still dropping on you, the pressure would want to also. Check temp. If still around 38 you could make a guess that the regulator is the issue and is reading low (it shows 12 but is actually higher....) and vent and dial back a few psi.