First taste of home-malted pale ale

When I force-carb my beers and I want to get them ready to taste as fast as possible, I put the CO2 at 30 psi for 48 hours, then drop it down to serving pressure. This accelerates the process a bit more than just keeping it at 10-12 psi for a week or two, and seems to work quite well. This is what I did with my "Home-malted Pale Ale," since I really wanted to see how this stuff was going to taste.

So, I just poured my first pint, and it's not that bad! Despite the fact that I had problems with the efficiency of my homemade malt and had to add some extra sugars before pitching, it came out okay. It has a nice hop aroma with a hint of honey (I had to add some honey to bring up my gravity), it is nice and clear and light amber colored, it came in at 5.4% alcohol by volume - it's just lacking body (to be expected), and has poor head retention (also expected).

Here are some pictures of the first glass:





Half empty or half full? You be the judge. I'm just happy to have homebrew in the keg again, even if it isn't the best I've ever made. Cheers!