First night of summer swim lesson for the girls and the sunset over Pittsburgh was beautiful.  I saw colors of orange, yellow, pink, red, blue, grey, white and shades in between.  Sitting here in my kitchen setting up to blog last night and tonight's beer and my wife is... you guessed it baking!  But this time its personal!  She is making birthday cake for our SOON TO BE 4 Year Old!  Brecken's Bday is tomorrow at 12:33pm.  We are all very excited no more so then Brecken herself.  She is getting Blue Cake with Blue Icing!  Her favorite color is Blue you know.  So in honor of her, I have a "blue" beer lined up for her.  More on that tomorrow.  But as for the last two nights, here's what I've been drinking:

6/12/2012 - Lancaster Brewery - Strawberry Wheat - Grade 4.5
I actually ended up driving to 4 different distributors to find this variety pack.  I knew/know this is good beer but didn't realize that it was that popular.  I ended up finding it at Beer Express Is Best down on Stuebenville Pike near Crafton, PA.  It was also a nice surprise to see they are taking advantage of some of the new PA Laws that allow to sell home brew ingredients and equipment.  Their supply seemed pretty small for now but they are just getting into it so it will be interesting to see if it takes off.  The prices didn't seem to bad though.  Now onto the beer; I try to have this beer at least once or twice a summer.  Its the original "fruit" beer that made me want to attempt to brew a fruit beer.  I have attempted a strawberry wheat beer once or twice; unfortunately none to my satisfaction.  That is why I highly recommend this one!  I poured this one in the fancy crystal because I know the better glass ware makes it taste even that more delicate.  I poured it into the glass and you get that yellow slightly murky wheat beer presence with just a hint of red tint that is the first hint there are strawberry flavors present.  The nose isn't all that fancy in that it almost smells like any old lager you may have had in the past.  I don't get huge strawberry notes or sweetness at all.  But wait, if you try (at least for me it is trying) I actually do notice just a hint of strawberry sweetness hanging out in the back of the nose.  Not over powering, just nice and present.  From there, the taste of this beer is a well balanced beer that comes through with wheat notes of light banana in the background that are most definitely from the yeast it was fermented using.  From there, you get a light flowery note that is a bit light citrus and bringing up the finish is that always so present strawberry existence.  It is not huge and obnoxious as some fruit beers try to steer.  Instead, they start with a well put together well balanced wheat beer and add the strawberry in as an almost after thought to compliment the banana notes and wheaty goodness.  In general, I love this beer.  I've heard that at the brewery they make "Chocalate Strawberry Beers" using their Lancaster Milk Stout layered with Strawberry Wheat.  Though this sounds incredible (and I may just have to make one to try this week), I always have a hard time attempting to mix this beer with anything as it is such a finely perfected strawberry wheat which in my opinion are hard to come by (same reason I never tried skiing as I didn't want to ruin a great day of snow boarding).

6/11/2012 - Harpoon's - Unfiltered Offering Pale Ale - Grade 3.25
I believe after this one I have one last Offering from the variety pack and I'm excited because all of these beers have been really enjoyable so far.  Harpoon makes a quality brew for sure.  This beer doesn't disappoint either.  Carbonation was nice and large on this beer as it has been in all the others I've tried to date.  It was not surprisingly a bit cloudy in the glass.  It may have been the most clear/clean beer in the unfiltered collection that I tried.  It poured a bit glowing orange or amber red in the glass.  There is a light malty sweet flavor with huge hop flavor.  The hops are very grapefruit and citrus burn.  There was a bit of soapy flavor in the background that I didn't really appreciate.  I attribute this "soapy" floral finish to the specifics hops being used in this beer.  This could have probably hit a 3.75 or 4 maybe if not for this some what undesirable finish in my opinion.

As always, thanks for stopping by for the read.  Please send me updates on my Facebook page on what you are drinking and/or where.  I enjoy all the feed back.

What an incredibly long and wonderful weekend.  My parents came in from out of town for my youngest' 4 year birthday weekend.  We were able to enjoy a fun dinner out at Red Robin in Robinson with the girls and grandparents.  Brecken loved every minute of it.  Saturday was spent mostly ALL DAY at the park.  We had a great day, both sets of my daughter's grandparents were at the park all day with us and really made it a great family day at the park.  We rode some rides, we ate some bad food... the only thing we didn't do was drink any beer.  There is a big story going on at Kennywood about allowing alcohol in the park or not.  I guess they are trying to get it passed but there are many people out there that feel this would be a terrible idea.  That your "family friendly" environment would turn ugly.  I guess as I type this I wonder myself.  In general, adding alcohol to any park in my mind is not a terrible idea.  I mean - I've been to Disney, specifically Epcot several times and never once felt uncomfortable with my family there.  Now, that said, the one bad thing about Kennywood and beer is "location".  Possibly, that could create a level of "concern" that I guess is worthy of investigating.  Although, all that being said, I say bring on the beer!  Please pass this and move on with it.  Feel free to Google Kennywood and Beer and do the reading for yourself.  I do have to say though - it definitely wasn't Kennywood's finest hour.  It was fairly busy from the hours of 1pm-6pm or so and they definitely were not warmed up for the season yet.  Hopefully they will improve as the park seemed a little dirty and the food lines were slow and things in general could have just been a bit better.

6/10/2012 - Rivertown Brewery - Lager - Grade 3
This is a local brewery just on the east side of Pittsburgh.  They do some good things with water, malt, hops and yeast and this is one of them.  I enjoyed this one on the porch of Anthony's Fire Coal Pizza restaurant in Robinson, PA.  Great food and good beer - nice lunch for two as my parents watched the girls for us this morning.  Thanks again mom and dad.  This beer came to me in a bottle with an ice cold pilsner style glass for me to pour it into.  It has that common lager / beer smell.  It has a bit of yeast or bready notes to it.  There is a great white head two inches thick on the top.  The beer has a burnt or caramelized orange color in the glass.  It was a nice well balanced lager for sure.  I have a hard time putting my finger on it but it has that metallic or lager taste characteristic I find with so many lagers out there.  It was very nicely balanced with malts and hops.  There was a small amount of bitter or tart bite to the beer.  It was a nice hot day as we sat outside on the deck at Anthony's watching the day go by.  I had two of these at lunch so it was definitely worth a try when you see it on the stands.

6/9/2012 - Harpoons Brewery - UFO White - Grade 4.25
Is it a bird, a plane, or an Unidentified Flying Object?  Nope, this is JUST a Harpoon beer series!  If this is what aliens drink, sign me up and I'm ready to go all E.T. on this planet!  As for this beer, this was a close call.  We spent all day at the park.  It started at 1pm and we left at 10:30 pm that night.  The drive home was slow going and I pulled in at about 11:50pm.  I immediately grabbed the first beer in my fridge and took the first few sips that I could to get my "beer of the day in" before the end of the official Saturday.  It was a close call.  That said, the first sip I took was INCREDIBLE.  As with the Raspberry Hefe below the most obvious and first notable characteristic of this beer poured in a glass is its UnFiltered approach.  This is a traditional Wheat beer style and really an incredible beer.  I got hints of orange and coriander spice coming from the nose of the glass.  The taste had notes of banana, orange and coriander notes through out.  The orange came through big with this one; it almost tasted like candied orange peels in a liquid form.  It was nicely balanced with the wheat malts in the glass.  Light hints of spicy hops that balanced it nicely.  The color was a murky muddy yellow from the unfiltered approach.  In general a second great beer from the variety case of Harpoons.  Job well done Harpoons.

6/8/2012 - Harpoons Brewery - Raspberry Hefeweizen - Grade 4
This beer is part of Harpoons UFO - Unfiltered Offerings.  First and for most the unfiltered look comes through in the pour of this beer.  They even give instructions on the outside of the case of beer of how to pour this beer.  Pour half way then swirl and pour the rest.  It leaves you with a fresh white head on top.  Unfiltered bright red tint to an otherwise yellow cloudy beer.  It has a huge fruity smell rolling out of the glass.  Smells of sweet raspberry and/or strawberry exploding from the head.  The texture comes across a nice medium bodied beer that coats the inside of you mouth nicely.  I don't sit around and drink "fruity" beers often but for a fruity beer this is super refreshing and enjoyable.  There is a hit of tartness but this is a nice addition to this beer.  It almost tastes like a liquid raspberry with hints of banana and wheat beer hiding in the background.  This beer was extremely nice.  If you see this out there I recommend trying this at your next outing.