“It’s like family, but with better beer!” The man at the bar laughs as he tosses me an answer to my question, “Why do you come here every day?” His status as a regular was cemented when Geaux Brewing moved in down the street and started serving him the best beer he’d ever had. “Family, but with better beer” is a summation of most of the beer culture in the Pacific Northwest. Good-natured one-upmanship coupled with the lion’s share of the world’s best hops fields is a combination resulting in world-class beer and the first-rate people to go along with it.
Navigating this beautiful Pacific Northwest city can be geographically tricky, due to the clean bisection Lake Washington provides to the Seattle Metro area. Just two bridges, one of those being a toll road, offer the only means of crossing the giant lake that lives right in the center of the area.
The up-and-over method of getting around the lake will take you far north of the city, and going around it on the other end will take you far south. Both options also offer a smattering of fantastic breweries, a bit of a cultural apology for the inconvenience. The abundance of beer, brewers, and hops in this area leaves you no shortage of haunts to hit, regardless of the region of Seattle you’ve landed in.