Ah, Wednesday, July 8, 2015 — a date that will live in frothy, amber-hued infamy, when the Pacific Northwest’s midsummer sun flirted with the horizon just long enough for Tacoma and Puyallup’s beer faithful to gather, clink, sip, and maybe pretend they weren’t slightly tipsy by 8:15 p.m.

Let’s begin in Puyallup, where 21st Amendment Brewery Night took over the Puyallup River Alehouse, and the crowd pulsed with a heady mix of San Francisco-born brews and locals eager to tell you just how many times they’ve been to the brewery’s original location. “I had Hell or High Watermelon before it was cool,” someone probably muttered while lovingly Instagramming a Brew Free! Or Die IPA next to a plate of something fried.

Meanwhile, up the hill in Tacoma, the noble Parkway Tavern was hosting something slightly more exotic: a wild menagerie of humans and hops for Drinking for Conservation — a brilliantly unholy hybrid of environmental fundraising, slow loris advocacy, and Hop Valley Brewing Co. tap domination.

Yes, you read that correctly: slow lorises. Those mysterious, nocturnal, painfully adorable tree-dwellers that look like if a teddy bear and a stoner owl had a baby. Proceeds from pints were funneled toward loris preservation, and the mood was somewhere between David Attenborough documentary and IPA-soaked hug fest.

There were beer reps in branded polos. There were conservationists in Patagonia vests. There were hazy double IPAs and people who claimed they could taste the difference between hop varieties with one nostril plugged. There was, almost certainly, a mustache contest that never happened but felt spiritually present.

The night ended, as all proper beer nights should, with the righteous buzz of citrusy hop oils and a vague desire to protect something — an endangered species, a beloved brewery, or maybe just the perfect pour.

And somewhere in the distance, the slow loris nodded approvingly.