Yikes! It's been awhile since I've blogged about what I've been up to.

What have I been up to? Well, my wife and I drove to the National Homebrew Conference in Denver. My club, the Austin ZEALOTS, had a booth there on club night. The ZEALOTS brought the most beer of any out-of-state club and had more members in attendance than all the other clubs in Texas combined -- and we're just a little, unorganized club from Austin, not one of those mega-clubs from Dallas or Houston. Most importantly, we all wore spiffy Viking helmets to the event.

Nobody expected it, but the ZEALOTS held our competition -- The Homebrew Inquisition -- again this year. The number of entries we received stayed about the same (in the ballpark of 150, mostly from the Austin area). Judging was a blast and I was psyched that my pale ale -- basically the Patrick Henry Pale Ale recipe from the March-April 2006 issue -- got a 1st in the Balanced Beer category.

I've brewed a couple batches in the meanwhile, one with an interesting mash schedule that I am going to write about in the December 2007 issue and another made with Mt. Dew as the brewing liquor. (The recipe for this "beer," which I called Beelzeboss, ended up in the October 2007 issue.)

Unfortunately, I injured my shoulder last month sometime and haven't had any brew days in the recent past. I hope to get a batch of something going in the next few weeks, though. I've got the ingredients for another batch of my IPA. (Both my wife and I have been on a bit of an IPA kick recently. She's starting to say "where's the hops" whenever she tries any beer under about 50 IBUs.)