It's been hot here in the 513. Really hot. And my apartment is on the top two floors of my building. And we don't have central air. And this whole place doesn't seem to be insulated at all. Needless to say, I'm not looking forward to what the summer will bring to my living situation.

What I am excited this for this summer are the seasonal brews. If you follow me on Instagram, Untappd, or Swig you should know that I've already been drinking some of them. However, I wanted save the one I'm drinking this evening for the purpose of posting. So now, without further ado, let's get into Sam Adams' Porch Rocker.

This is the part of the post where I give a bit of background information on the brewery that produced the beer I'm enjoying or, at least, drinking. I've done that before with Samuel Adams, though. If you want to read it click here to be taken to my post on Cold Snap. Or, if your the kind of person that prefers things directly from the horse's mouth, you can click here to be taken to Sam Adams' history page.

And that's it for this post's "teach your readers something new" bit. Before I start talking about what I think of Porch Rocker, here's what Sam Adams says about the brew: It's a take on the Bavarian Radler (which I've never had) that's a mixture of lemon juice and Helles lager. My best guess is that it'll taste like a lemon shandy.

That's pretty much what smells like, largely due to the, I would assume is, lemon juice. It's a light, crisp, yet not entirely sweet, aroma. I like it. Purrl, with the four reluctant sniffs she gave it, does, too. But not much.


The lemon juice really comes through in the flavor department, as well. It's more even keel than a shandy would be. The bitterness of the brew, though very overshadowed by its fruitiness, brings in a nice balance. After each swig I find a sweet--almost sugary--lemon taste is left on my lips. Very refreshing.

There's a slight fizziness to the brew but that's about it. It's pretty smooth and goes down just as smoothly.

The first time I every had any sort of lemon flavored beer was the night I found out I had a chance of getting into grad school. I was living in Athens and buddy of mine had come down from Cleveland to celebrate his birthday with a two-man shuffle. We were deep into a pitcher of lemon shandy at some bar when we ran into an old professor of mine who informed me that I had been shortlisted for a masters program. I spent the rest of the summer polishing my CV and visiting the man in charge of the program to talk myself up. Luckily, it all paid off. But if my friend and I hadn't split that shandy it may have never happened. What's weird is that that specific beverage doesn't make me think of that night. But Porch Rocker does, and it's not even a shandy. Go figure.

Do you like shandies? If so, then you'll probably like Samuel Adams' Porch Rocker. If you hate shandies you may not enjoy it. But I do. It gets an extremely solid 8.0/10. Keep up the good work, Boston Beer Company.