Seattle - the Far-out Land Of Beer, Beauty And The Bizarre

Let’s get this out of the way: Seattle is a city fueled by beer. Lots of it, everywhere. Wander anywhere and a brewpub, alehouse or drinking establishment will beckon you. It was with this thought that I boarded a train in San Francisco last spring for a pilgrimage to the promise land of malt and hops...the epicenter of brewing and beer connoisseurship...an endless sea of tap handles.

Seasoned travelers say it is best to travel with a theme, and beer was going to be mine. And beer I found--lots of it, everywhere. But a second theme would eventually emerge that, in addition to the finding the perfect beer, would guide my journey: the search for daily heaping of the bizarre, all hidden behind the facade of normality.

I learned, between sips, that behind Seattle’s veiled attempt to appear normal, an underbelly of weird was at work. Yea, there’s the natural beauty of the surrounding Olympia and Cascade Mountains, the fantastic views of Puget Sound. Forget all that. You want to go to Seattle? Remember this: despite what they tell you, Seattle is surreal--and best washed down with a beer.

You Say You Want A Revolution?

Seattle has liquid aplenty (think coffee, rain, and Puget Sound). But it’s beer that started a war whose dust is only beginning to settle. As the western front of the "microbrew revolution" (yes, people do call it that) Seattle is considered by most to be the place where it all began.

Although Seattle’s first brewery opened in the early 1860âs, it wasn’t until the 1980âs that the town earned its beery reputation. It all started when Burt Grant, a feisty, outspoken brewer who entered the industry in the 1940âs, opened America’s first brewpub, Yakima Brewing & Malting Company, and started producing his pungent Scottish Ale just south of Seattle. At the same time Redhook Ale Brewery converted an abandoned firehouse into a brewery and churned forth fruity, Belgian style ales. Other competitors followed, seriously upping the ante and creating a craft brew craze that in time spread across the nation.

Today it’s a rare pub, tavern, or bar in Seattle that doesn’t boast at least a few microbrews on tap (even the Washington State ferries carry Redhook). Brewpubs, where brewing is done on the premises, are several and have created a closer connection to beer making and consumption. And don’t forget the alehouses, multi-tap establishments that offer up to twenty beers on draft. Neighborhood by neighborhood, their is plenty of places to slake your thirst and wash down the weirdness of Seattle.

Pike Place Market: Flying Fish and Men With Hammers

Pike Place Market is Seattle’s pulse and a one-of-a-kind world unto itself. Described as the Marrakech of the Northwest, the market was launched in 1907 and has been running continuously since. Today it is a kinetic profusion of people, energy, and individual enterprise. Flowers for sale. Pottery, pastries, smoked fish, cigars. Teacups and t-shirts. A ragtag band plays Jimmy Buffet from ancient instruments. A hawker at Read All About It newsstand shouts, "Seattle Times! New York Times! LA Times! We’ve got the Times!" Shoppers jockey with traffic along the two and a half-mile stretch of Pike Place. There is as many as 40,000 people visit the market daily.

When visiting Pike Place market (and you must) be prepared to be sensorial assaulted. Also plan on returning more than once to maximize the effect.

Start with a meal at the legendary Athenian Inn. Opened in 1909 as a Greek bakery, the restaurant now serves meals to everyone from fishers to suited businessmen. Grab a table overlooking Puget Sound. The menu is very local--from grilled oysters to smoked cod--and serves breakfast all day (try the Red Flannel Hash). The bar has 16 beers on tap and over 300 international beers available by bottle.

When you leave, be careful. Throughout the aisles the famous flying fish create an odd attraction and a potential hazard. It’s like this--approach a fish hawker, choose an iced whole salmon from the front counter; then watch a man grab it, wait for another to assume a baseball catcher stance, and heave the beast twenty feet where it will be wrapped and iced for take out. Very weird.

When you’ve had enough of the market, walk up the hill, behold Puget Sound, a few boats, and the much photographed market clock, a large public neon landmark dating back to the 1920âs. Look for Rachel, The Market Pig, an overgrown piggy bank that has been a market fundraiser since 1986. Then, prepare yourself for beer wonderland.

Pike Pub & Brewery, located just off the Pike Market, is a mind-blowing panoply of all things beer related. Having no idea what to expect, I was immediately impressed by the number of beers on tap; house beers like Pike Pale, Pike Street XXXXX Stout (as much flavor as any human can handle), and Pike I.P.A., and many hard-to-find imports, including Belgian fruit lambics, flow from the taps.

The menu at Pike Pub is unlike any other. A trailblazing array of beer-infused cuisine fills the "beer lover's menu": Pike Place XXXXX Stout Oyster and Sirloin Pie, Pike Weisse Four Cheese Tortellini, pizzas crusts made with "spent grain" (brewing refuse), and Stout Brownie ala Mode are among the choices.

The brewery's operations are part and parcel of the Pike Place experience--pub goers can literally watch the beer making process in action from their seats. As if this weren't enough, Mr. Finkle's Liberty Malt Supply Company, providing everything under the sun for the brewer and beer enthusiast, and the Seattle Microbrew Museum, testament to the courageous soldiers of the revolution, can be visited on the premises.

Need souvenirs? How about shrunken heads from Ye Olde Curiosity Shop. Founded in 1899 on pier 56, this carnivalesque shop sells all manners of oddities that would’ve made P.T. Barnum proud. On display is a bottled pig with eight legs, three eyes, three mouths, and a pair of tails. Look for Sylvester the Desert Mystery, a mummified murder victim found in the Arizona sand flats in 1895 with a bullet through his stomach.

If you still have energy the Seattle Art Museum is close to the market. Look for Jonathan Borofsky’s Hammering Man, a black, 48-foot-tall mechanical sculpture that hammers eternally at the museum entrance. Museum architect Robert Venturi said he wanted to create a "current urban art museum that is popular yet esoteric, closed but open, monumental yet inviting, an accommodating setting for the art, but a work of art in itself." Exhibits include Native American, African, Chinese, European and American works and artifacts.

Time for dinner? Check out Wild Ginger, a few blocks down from the market at 1400 Western Avenue. Sleek and energetic, this place has atmosphere and great Asian-inspired fare at moderate prices. Try their extensive, made-to-order satays with peanut or soy and black vinegar sauces.

Pioneer Square: Raging Fires, Opium Dens, and Exploding Toilets

(Pyramid Brewery & Pub)

With its ornate redbrick buildings and old-fashioned streetlights, this district is reminiscent of the old West. But don’t let the quaint exterior fool you. This is where Seattle’s weird underbelly is literally underground.

Seattle’s first settlers came to the area in the mid 1800âs. Surrounded by lumber, Seattle built itself from wood. Rapidly felled trees were slid down a hill to the lumberyard, coined the name "Skid Road". The great Seattle Fire of 1889 was a result of a wooden town. Downtown Seattle was leveled in a day. The city immediately rebuilt with a street level about 12 feet higher than before to improve drainage. The result was a maze-like world of elevated streets, which required ladders for crossing the street, and a surreal underground world that served as a shopping mall, opium den, and a center for organized crime.

Then there was the plumbing. Seattle’s founding fathers didn’t grasp a basic principle--toilets at low elevations, plus sewage collecting on higher ground, equaled a toilet fiasco of exploding proportions.

Seattle’s wacky past can be explored during the Underground Tour, which begins daily at Doc Maynard's Public House. Belly up to the bar, have a beer for the pre-tour preamble, then take to underground world of latter day Seattle. Tours run hourly nearly every day of the year.

One of Seattle’s best brewery tours at the ever-enterprising Pyramid Brewery. Located in the shadow of Seattle’s Kingdome sports complex, the young facility just south of Pioneer Square is a marriage of the Thomas Kemper Brewery and the Kalama-based Pyramid, both owned by Pyramid Breweries. The tour provides a peek into this growing enterprise and is more dynamic than most brew tours. Tour the facilities Monday through Friday at 2 p.m. or 4 p.m. and on Saturdays and Sundays at 1 p.m., 2 p.m. or 4 p.m. The tour is free, and for $2 visitors may keep their souvenir tasting glass.

Plan your visit to avoid Kingdome events and you'll find the atmosphere and parking to be more relaxed and pleasant. Food served in the Pyramid Alehouse includes standard pub favorites along with salads and pizzas. The tour is free, and for $2 visitors may keep their souvenir tasting glass.

Belltown: Boogie Nights and Space Needles

"Back when you were in school, if you wanted attention, you put up your hand. That is what the Space Needle will do for the [1962 World’s] Fair and Seattle." The speaker was Joe Gandy, used car salesman and Space Needle enthusiast. He was not alone, and in three-plus decades the Space Needle has become the supreme symbol of Seattle, the equivalent to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. If it seems absurd at first, don’t worry; it will grow on you.

This strange, 600 foot tall, flying-saucer-on-a-tripod anchors the Belltown district and protrudes from the Seattle skyline. Avoid the circulating expensive restaurant at the top and expect to pay too much to ride to the top for a view of the city.

Belltown is a traditionally bohemian neighborhood experiencing gentrification. A brightly painted garbage can near First Avenue and Virginia Street says it all: "Move to Belltown. See the artists. Buy a condo. Kick the artists out." By day, office workers share the sidewalks with panhandlers, homeless and low-income residents; by night, it transforms into a bustling mecca for the city's hottest clubs, bars and restaurants.

Hungry? Go to the Flying Fish, which serves innovative dishes that blend the usual Northwest suspects (such as Dungeness crab and grilled king salmon) but might also include tender arctic char in a rich chanterelle sauce; moist, snapper like escolar in pleasing chipotle vinaigrette. The Fish also serves a late-night menu until 1 a.m.

If you are in the mood to swing, check out El Gaucho "Swanky" best describes this dinner-only spot. Throw open the institutional doors and step back into the future. A 1950s supper-club scene lies straight ahead. This is supposed to be a place to dress up and escape into fantasy. Beer aside, El Gaucho is primarily about martinis and meat. Portions are large, prices high.

And beer? With its refined pub fare and healthy selection of Washington and Oregon microbrews, Belltown Pub tempts you to linger in one of its spacious booths and survey the crowd. Also worth checking out is McMenamin’s Pub & Brewery, with its roots in Portland the recently opened brewpub serves up several house brews, including Terminator Stout and Roy Street Special Bitter.

Some quintessential Seattle weirdness might include Crocodile Cafe--a great place to catch live music and bizarre atmosphere over a beer. Kitschey art crams every corner and literally drops off the ceiling and walls. Another funky stop is the Cyclops--cluttered with detritus, walls that glow purple and yellow, and an endless drone of bizarre music coming from the sound system.

North of Downtown--Microbrew Mania And Car Eating Trolls

The districts north of downtown contain the majority of Seattle’s brewpubs. Back in the late '80s, before everyone was spouting the glories of "craft brewing," Big Time Brewery was quietly putting out some of the best ales in the Northwest. Located in Seattle’s University District, the pub is loud, open and spacious. Basic pub fair here. Thanks to an abundance of stained woods ÷ complete with faux-antique beer ads ÷ the interior smacks of the collegiate experience. Try the Rainfest and Bhagwan's Best I.P.A.

Fremont has been called "The Center Of The Universe", home to many coffee shops, bookstores, and restaurants. Fremont is also home to the car eating troll, a large VW grabbing monster beneath the George Washington Memorial Bridge (a.k.a. "suicide bridge) and one of many examples of unusual street art throughout the neighborhood. Look for a neon Rapunzel gracing the window in the Fremont Bridge tower, and the Waiting For The Interurban, a statuary crowd awaiting a bus at 34th and Fremont.

In Fremont visit the Redhook Ale Brewery, which calls itself the Northwest's "largest microbrewery," though it’s a bit of an oxymoron. The highly automated facility is a testament to brewing technology. Take the tour, which addresses Redhook’s new alliance with Anheiser Busch (disdainfully dubbed "Budhook" by micro loyalists), and eat basic bar fare in its Trolleyman Pub.

Ballard sports a couple of spots for the thirsty. Hale’s Brewery & Pub is really more a taproom than a pub features nothing but Hale's ales: Pale Ale, Special Bitter, Celebration Porter, Honey Wheat, Moss Bay Amber, Moss Bay Extra, Moss Bay Stout, and two seasonal inventions, such as winter's Southbound Porter and Wee Heavy, or summertime pale and dark wheat ales. The pizzas here are popular, and the crostini with tapenade is delectable.

Just down the way is Maritime Pacific Brewing Company, which offers a line of handcrafted ales and a selection of seasonal brews. The regular lineup includes Flagship Red Ale, Nitewatch Dark Ale, Islander Pale Ale, Clipper Golden Wheat and Salmon Bay Bitter. Both regular and seasonal brews (as well as T-shirts, caps and trinkets) are available at the brewery store. Tours are offered Saturdays on the hour from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

If you are going...

Many Seattle attractions are easily accessible by foot from any downtown hotel. Negotiating the streets of Seattle by bus is fairly easy and commercial core of the city. Most of the city and the suburbs are laced with bicycle routes. For more information, contact the Seattle Visitor’s Bureau, 520 Pike Street, Ste. 1300, Seattle, WA 98101. Visitor Information: (206) 461-5400. Visitor Hotline for lodging information: (800) 535-7071.