So far, the early evening has been kind. The four of us had breezed through rush hour to the new BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse in Summerlin (Charleston and 215) and showed up thirsty from the heat and impressed by what lay inside the brick building. "This place is nice," Amy says, sitting down at a table near the bar. "It's ... it's a little upscale." But not too much. There's nothing less necessary than a pretentious brewhouse. The high industrial-style ceilings and the one grand room containing both lounge and restaurant create a spacious atmosphere much like Gordon Biersch, and the sun-streaked windows, art-decoish posters and perky wait staff keep your spirits up.
It also helps that BJ's has a happy hour—a far too endangered idea these days—and it lasts till 7. I seize the night by ordering the seven-glass sampler of microbrews ($7.95). Each sample is about five ounces and comes in a mini pilsner glass. Our server, Natalie, lines them up in front of me, with the brews getting progressively darker from left to right. She dutifully goes down the row and explains each one. I start at the far left with the Brewhouse Blonde, a flirty little German Kolsch that hits the spot. This nicely sets up the Harvest Hefeweisen, a wheat beer that shocks and awes me with a hint of banana, and then the Piranha Pale Ale, a feisty gal who bites back—but I like it.
Matt, meantime, works on his own row of samplers, while Rob has a cocktail and Amy sips a pint of the tropical hefe. The drinks spark a lively conversation after a long, hot day. Rob tells me about his pursuit of plastic surgery licensing through the crossfire of Amy counseling Matt on the life of freelance journalism. At least Rob's long haul will someday find him in a Ferrari 360 Modena. Matt? Well, good luck making payments on that Saturn!
At this point, I halt my experimentation with the Irish-style amber ale (pretty good, but it's more of an autumn beer) and order a pint of Piranha. The dialogues cease as Amy bumps her pint, it wobbles, and for a split second, she recovers nicely, but before the glass fully steadies, she overcompensates and down ... goes ... hefe! The gorgeous golden brew pools in our midst.
Call it coincidence or catalyst, but the mood of the table changes. And with the mention of the movie Fahrenheit 9/11, it's official. Something's definitely brewing here.
I finish the light ale, move back to the end of my row and point out that I'm not a Michael Moore fan. No strong retorts, surprisingly. In fact, Amy, the most liberal in the bunch, adds, "Yeah, he's an ass." Crisis averted.
But somewhere between the PM Porter (a chocolately dark ale) and Tatonka Stout (which reminds me of a foreign exchange student I once knew) the subject of Moore and 9/11 leads us to politics. I can only remember the fits and starts of a debate:
Bush is such an idiot.
And John Kerry? Please!
I heard on the way over, on NPR, the word that best sums him up: disingenuous.
Which leads us, predictably, down the partisan road much traveled: Reagan and Clinton, what a president should be, blah, blah. The last thing I recall saying was that Clinton never did anything to deserve a funeral like Reagan's, and the only memorable quotes they could replay would be about things he didn't do, like inhale or have sexual relations with that woman.
Still no fight. But I get an eerie sense that there's a big one coming around the corner—whether from this bar or the national stage. Confrontation and blind rage are poised to pounce, and they'll soon escalate into chaos until we sort things out one more time. Mudslinging, scandals, dangling chads, terrorism, wars, Super Bowl nipples ... we always seem to bounce back. And you know that, but it's going to get harder to remember as we descend further into this election year.
But our table didn't go there—not tonight. The topic dissipated like an ice cube on a July parking lot. Summer is no time for polarization. That's definitely a word for later in the year, like winter. There's no such thing as the Summer of Discontent, because this is the season of escape, of harmony, when the world gets melted down to its simplest, happiest, most lyrical form. It's one giant party of forgiveness and procrastination, a celebration of what we've been through and a calm before the coming storm.
Even these thoughts on summer itself are too deep for me right now. I ignore the remnants of my dark beers and order up a tall blonde. We're back to bantering and fun. Natalie comes over and we grill her about the name, B.J.'s. What's it stand for? (Insert nudge-nudge joke here.) Or who is he?
"Actually, it's not a person and it doesn't stand for anything. It's just a name."
Hey, it's summer—why not? Works for them—this is the 32nd link in the Huntington Beach company's chain. And it works for me. Though the brews are trucked in from their Arizona and SoCal locations, I'd rank them neck-in-neck with Gordon Biersch's as among the best in town, especially at happy hour.
The night is still young and I crave one more hefe, but I quit while I'm ahead and do another favorite summer-evening thing instead: drive home with the sunroof rolled back and the songs of Julys past cranked up. I forget about the need for a Stronger America and focus on the barefoot girl sitting on the hood of a Dodge drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain ...
Maybe those old lyrics still mean something, maybe they don't. I'm not in the mood to analyze. I would only add that, if I were Springsteen, I don't think it would have hurt to make that girl's beer a cold one.
Phil Hagen studies bars the way other men study the law, but with tastier results. E-mail him at
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