Before the holidays, I brewed two beers — the pumpkin ale that I wrote about in a couple installments of my blog and my porter that I brew a couple times every year. 

I brewed a pumpkin ale on Wednesday. These spiced ales are popular this time of year, but I did one thing a little differently than most — I’m fermenting the beer inside of three giant pumpkins. 

I haven't posted a blog entry for awhile, so here's a scattershot update of what I've been doing and what will be coming up on my blog.

Well, my idea to grow and malt my own barley will have to be put off at least another growing season as all my barley has died. I planted two blocks of barley and one block of wheat in my garden this year. The wheat developed fine, but the barley never developed its heads. (If you know anything about barley development, it looks like it got to the "boot" stage and then died.) I suspect it was the Texas heat.