My homebrew club's homebrew contest — the Austin ZEALOTS Homebrew Inquisition — is coming up. As my homebrew supply has dwindled to next to nothing, I needed to brew some beer. So, that's what I've been doing every other day for the past few days.

I brewed my first batch of 2009 on Sunday. A few days later than planned, but I got it done. I brewed an American pale ale (recipe below) with two slight twists.

This is a brewing blog . . . and finally, I have some brewing to blog about!

Well, my 15-gallon (57-L) batch of pale ale is brewed, fermented and kegged. Everything went well, though I did worry a bit during the fermentation. I fermented the beer in a 20-gallon (76-L) garbage can. The lid closes, but doesn't seal tightly, so it was a quasi-open fermentation. The open part didn't bother me much, but not being able to see or hear an airlock bubble as a confirmation that fermentation had started was a little disquieting. I didn't want to open the lid to look until I was sure things had kicked off and there was a protective layer of kräusen.

OK, so the week after brewing the IPA and porter, I brewed my pale ale and a dry stout.