Union Barrel Works

Visited for lunch on 4/25/13. I've been there many times in the past, mostly just for the beer, most of which I like. I've had dinner there once or twice, first time for lunch. I was with a party of three. The service was very cordial and timely. Drinks brought out and served in good order. Lunch was a little long in coming, but still not too bad. The meal that I had, however, left much to be desired. I had the Prime Rib wrap. The beef was very, very fatty, and the advertised horseradish mustard was missing. My partners had a crbcake sandwich and a Chicken Ceaser wrap respectively, and they said they were "OK". The french fries were good, though. A bit disappointed.

This was my third trip to UBW. Overall, they do the brew pub thing quite well. We started with the beer sampler because we always love trying a little of everything. Most of the beers were pretty good. The Fester was my favorite an the hubby went with the hefeweizen - we were both happy with our choices. We didn't want to stuff ourselves so decided to share the french onion soup (amazing), the crab cheesecake, olive tapenade, and seared tuna. We had the crab, tapenade, and soup here before. I was quite disappointed in the crab this time around. It was not as creamy or as sweet as I remembered it. Also it had a bit of a "gassy" flavor - like maybe they flamed the top and it picked up the butane odor from the torch??? The tapenade was a hit (we love olives), and the tuna was perfect! For dessert we had black forest cheesecake. It was a layer of cake, a layer of cheesecake, another layer of cake, a final layer of cheesecake... this was soooooo goood!!!!!!!

We will go back, maybe give the crab another shot because it was really yummy the other two times I had it!

Lunch after some high class shopping at Green Dragon.

Stopped by on the slow-ish 230 in between period and had the place to ourselves, bar and tables in front started to fill as we ate.

Beer - Went with a porter, better half had a pumpkin ale.   Porter was on the lighter side for the style, not bad but it didn't suit my preference.  Pumpkin Ale was met with rave reviews.

Food - split a bowl of the trout chowder which was excellent.  Elk meatloaf for the novelty (good not great) and a Pittsburgh salad (on par, large portion).  Service was very good, he let us know he was training a new guy so we took the gaffes with a grain of salt.

Enjoyable lunch.   Made a decent account of themselves to earn another visit.