beerventure happy hour

we talk about this all the time, but after a couple of beers we forget, then days later the days hours and offers are blurry.
here's a short list:
taps fish house & brewery in brea. we've only gone twice since it's kind of far for us. their pints are $3 and last time we went there was to try their highly touted pumpkin ale which used 300 pounds of pumpkins. as i recall is was good. the mr. doesn't like to go because he's a hophead and they usually don't have ipas there. some appetizers are half off but i don't remember having gotten any. it's a nice almost fancy place. m-f 2:30-6:30.
yard house is the happy hour we go to most often. usually we just get bear republic racer 5 and something else. for all the taps they have, they don't have many appealing beers. the pints are $3.25 and some appetizers are half off and they are the real reason we go. their spicy tuna roll is amazing. not like a traditional sushi roll, it's like they layer a whole meal in a round cylinder. their pizzas are good too. we've tried a lot of their locations but for some reason the food tastes best at the irvine spectrum. nice, modern, and dark, just how i like em. m-f 3-6.
mccormick & schmick's happy hour consists of severely discounted food requiring a purchase of a full-priced drink. the beer isn't anything special and you may be tempted to try some of the interesting sounding dishes, but the best deal here is the hamburger with fries for $1.95. traditional and dark. m-f 4-6 and 9:30 to close.
bj's isn't my favorite. i finally realized i don't like their pizza, even if it is half off. the beers are okay. the jeremiah red is the best of the bunch, but we usually go for their rotating special beer, even if that means it's cask conditioned and the bartender hands it to you, saying 'you won't like this'. i've been to the real ale festival man, don't tell me nothing. anywho, nice place. m-th 4-7, sun-th 10-close.
there's also oggi's, a bigger and growing chain with okay beer and varying prices and offers for happy hour. i prefer the orange location where pints are $2.+ (can't recall exactly), it's $3 off a pitcher. we usually get the torrey pines ipa which is really good. i love their salads which are positively loaded with good stuff. m-f the rest is blurry...
the ultimate, though not happy hour, but the ultimate beer palace, place, is pizza port. the closest one to us is san clemente which is the least best of the 3 locations but it is still pretty darn good, enough to make a weekly treck down there. mondays you get $2pints/$8pitchers of san diego brewed beers, tuesdays it's $2 for their own beer. their pizzas are awesome, their beer even better. very casual, very excellent.

beerventure hollingshead shopventure h&m e target

we had a hard time finding hollingshead deli the first time around, driving up and down main street in orange/santa ana, cursing the giant star on the mapquest printout making it impossible to tell where exactly this hole in a wall was situated. finally we pulled into a probable strip mall plaza and in the most hidden corner, we found it. reminding me of my native germany, filled with snacks of my childhood and lotsnlots of beer.
served in half liter mugs we had a full sail slipnot imperial ipa and a drake's double ipa. one was $4.50 and one was $5. both were very potent at 3 pm on a wednesday. lots of people were eating sandwiches with their beers so we filed that away mentally for future reference.
a week later we were back and had that sandwich. we had a double ham salad sandwich for $9 (we then had to drive to downtown santa ana to get some tortas to supplement our 'snack'). next time we'll just go for the beer. this time we had the lagunitas brown shugga and lagunitas maximus ipa at $4.50 a piece. both were delicious.
after stopping for a torta we went to the opening day of h&m at the irvine spectrum. the place was very crowded and men were dancing while shopping which was a little funny and a little disturbing. i remember going to my first h&m in new york in 2000 and i bought a bunch of cool shirts. since then you can get cool shirts just about anywhere, so it has lost some of its appeal. however for me a big part of going to h&m are the bargains. i got a pair of leather pants in london which i have never worn and some sweaters in frankfurt which i cannot wear because i'm allergic to the material (but they were so cute!). so i'll be stopping at the nearby 3(!) locations periodically, just to check things out. the madonna line 'm' was/is awful.
also awful is the proenza schouler line at target. i really liked/loved the behnaz line so i'm surprised by this new ill-fitting mess. a lot of it is horrible 80s clothes that i had back then and swore i'd never wear again. so no tshirts with rolled-up sleeves, buttoned miniskirts, and cardigans.
back to beer, it is time to make reservations for the pizzaport real ale festival june 1st and 2nd in carlsbad, ca. it is not to be missed. nothing beats 'sampling' great beers and causing trouble down on the beach!