Food & Beer Culture

What do people eat with their beer in Seattle? Mostly something from the water. At Pike Place Market, open since 1907, salmon, oysters, and Dungeness crab, caught off the Pacific coast, lie on beds of ice. The meat is sweet and firm, and a fruity pale ale brings out its character.

Salmon is especially tied to the local cuisine. Alder-smoked salmon, cooked on a cedar plank, is a dish of the Pacific Northwest. The hop bitterness cuts through the fat, while the smoky roasted notes find balance in the malt's caramel.

Also typical of the city is the Seattle Dog, a hot dog topped with cream cheese sold at street stands. The cool cream, the sausage, and an IPA's bitterness balance each other out. Add to that the dishes of the city's many immigrant communities, like Japanese teriyaki, now an everyday part of life here. Sweet-and-sour sauce and hop bitterness get along fine, as long as the beer isn't too strong.

In Seattle, beer culture means taprooms and beer gardens. People sit at long communal tables, kids and dogs are often welcome, and there's no pressure to drink. Gordon Bowker, who co-founded Redhook, had previously been involved with Starbucks, which explains the close bond between coffee and beer here: both industries in Seattle prize craftsmanship and freshness.

Beer is served in 16-ounce pints, in small glasses for strong beers, and in growlers to take home. Anyone pairing a hop-forward beer with spicy food should know that heat and bitterness tend to amplify each other.