Two Beers Are Better Than One

It’s amazing what businesses can be conceived out of a basement, be it an internet search engine, jewelry, or great beer. How a business concept, hobby, or passion – ideally all three – meld together to create the dream business for a given founder or given founders.

Take the Two Beers Brewing Company, which all began back in 2007 in a Seattle basement. (Your Hedonista popped in for a media interview and tasting with Joel VandenBrink, Two Beers’ founder and head brewer, last month.) Today, this brewery calls 4,800 square-feet in Seattle’s SoDo District home. Two Beers brews two types of beer: year-round and seasonal. Two of their autumnal seasonal offerings are their Evolutionary (“Evo.”) IPA and their Heart of Darkness Imperial Cascadian Dark Ale, or CDA. The Evo. IPA is an aromatic, hop-laden beer that makes a fab “table beer” – the kind of beer that pairs well with most foods. It’s floral on the nose, with notes of tropical fruit like mango and passion fruit. Hoppy on the tongue, this IPA is a “second sip beer” for the adventurous hedonist: bitter in the first sip, but mellows out nicely in the second. Dry hopped and made with Simcoe, Columbus, and Amarillo hops, I was informed that this beer is their flagship brew, for the Evo. IPA makes up about 40% of their sales. Pair it with cheese, meat, and fish. (Joel likes it with blackened salmon.)

Next, their black IPA, called the Heart of Darkness Imperial Cascadian Dark Ale, or CDA (since we’re from Cascadia) is the most complex of their beer offerings. Made with Super Galena, Cascade, Centennial, and Magnum hops, this latter dark brew is a new style of beer on the market that was first launched last spring; tasting it makes me immediately want to pair it with chocolate-covered caramels. (Think dark chocolate, caramel, molasses, even dark cherry.) Pair it with chocolates, waffles, pancakes, or ice cream. (Joel recommend spicy sausage.)

Yet another of their exciting offerings is their limited 2011 Fresh Hop Ale. First brewed in 2009, Two Beers claims this brew is the first fresh hop style beer to be released in Seattle. The tasting room at the Two Beers Brewing Company began offering the Fresh Hop on September 2nd, 2011, with it reaching stores and on tap throughout the state of Washington approximately three days later. (Some can still be found around town; at the time of writing this article, The Noble Fir still had some on tap, for example.)

Brewed once a year during hop harvest, it’s a beer that uses not only Fresh Hops, but also Amarillo, Simcoe, Centennial, and Cascade hops. The hops must be perfectly ripe in order to make this beer – too young and they have a grassy aroma; too old, and it’s more like notes of onion or even garlic.

The hops go straight from the field to brew kettle; in other words, the hops do not go through a kiln, and thus are not dried and pelletized. Typically ready in late August/early September, this is definitely a beer for the hopheads. Of the four major flavor profile characteristics of hops – herbaceous, spicy, floral and citrus – the Centennial hop definitely falls into the floral and citrus flavor profiles. Thus, the result is a beer that’s sweet-forward with notes of floral, white tea, and citrus notes, with a sweeter rather than dry finish. As a lover of sweet over dry, this is a beer that I would personally drink as a stand-alone, with no food pairing required. Drink this one on its own, or with rich, greasalicious meat. (Joel recommends pulled pork.)

The tasting room at Two Beers also offers kegs, growlers, 22-ounce bottles, and 12-ounce cans for purchase. Joel also informed me that their beer can also be found at such Seattle stores as Whole Foods Market, Central Market, Town and Country Markets, Ralphs, Red Apple Markets, and at bottle stores in the area. And, once again, look for them on tap, too.

Note: In order to comply with FTC Act 16 C.F.R. 255, Heed the Hedonist would like to disclose that it does receive media “comps” and/or media discounts – but not in exchange for favorable coverage, or for withholding unfavorable overage, of the given venue/meal/performance/product/service.