Two Beers Brewing Co. and Seattle Cider Company will be the guest hosts for the Peaks and Pints Lodge Meeting at 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 10. Drinking for Conservation will be in the house raising money for Cascades Pika Watch, an organization that studies Columbia Gorge pikas’ resilience in their ecosystems in the face of a warming planet.

TWO BEERS BREWING CO.

In 2005, Joel VandenBrink found himself in a disagreement with a friend, so they headed to a local pub to talk it through. After the second pint disappeared, the two friends had an honest conversation. Engineering grad and outdoorsman VandenBrink had just moved to Seattle from Holland. After a homebrew starter kit and an inspirational tour of New Belgium Brewing, VandenBrink founded Two Beers Brewing Co. in a 170 square foot ActivSpace facility along Highway 99 in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood in August 2007. VandenBrink engineered his beer recipes on two burners and two 27-gallon fermenters. In June 2008, VandenBrink delivered his first keg, 20:20 Blonde.

The rest, as they say, is history.

PEAKS AND PINTS LODGE MEETING

Eric Willard, director of Operation at Seattle Cider Company and Two Beers Brewing Company, joined the Two Beers brewers in brewing a special beer for the Two Beers Peaks and Pints Pals night Nov. 10. “We added a crazy amount of spruce tips to our EVO IPA recipe,” says Willard. “We were a bit worried that it might have been too much, but I think I turned out well.” Indeed, as it seems that they bought the local Christmas tree lot right out, chopped them all up, and let them steep throughout the whole bloody brew cycle. It smells of spruce, that much is very true, all green and acrid and compelling, with a bit of appropriate dirty earthiness, and maybe a suggestion of some grainy and mildly caramelized malt. The EVO IPA alone hits the nose with pinecones and tropical fruit, as it’s hopped with Yakima Valley Simcoe, Amarillo and Centennial, then aggressively dry-hopped with Simcoe and Columbus. The taste is replete with resinous spruce tree bitterness, tropical fruit and a slight toffee finish. It finishes dry, earthy, spruce needle-y, and faintly grainy.

The other Two Beers craft brews pouring from the Peaks and Pints’ Western red cedar tap log will be the Overhang Imperial Porter AND Jive Espresso Stout as well as a Seattle Cider red wine barrel aged Berry.

DRINKING FOR CONSERVATION

Tacoma’s Drinking for Conservation is an organized committee of dedicated zoo staff and volunteers from the Point Defiance American Association of Zoo Keepers Chapter.  Dedicated to professional animal care, the vision of the AAZK is to provide resources for zookeepers and animal care professionals. Every month, Drinking for Conservation partners with a Tacoma drinking establishment to raise money for a specific endangered species or environmental situation. For November, they will be hanging with Two Beers Brewing Co. at Peaks and Pints Thursday, Nov. 10, raising money for Cascade Pika Watch’s effort to study the cute, little pika. Pika are considered to be a sensitive indicator of climate change due to their inability to survive long periods of warm summer weather. Columbia River Gorge pika are of particular interest because they live at a lower elevation than any other pika population in the U.S. Through Cascades Pika Watch, people can help scientists better understand changes in pika populations.

PEAKS AND PINTS TWO BEERS BREWING LODGE MEETING, 6 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 10, peaks and Pints, 3816 N. 26th St., Basecamp Proctor, Tacoma, no cover, $1 raffle