Beer and Food Pairing: Elliott Bay Brewery Pub

by Kim Sharpe Jones

This is the first of what I hope will become a series of posts featuring food and beer pairing suggestions at our local brewpubs and beer bars. As Paul "Fruit Trees" Orchard (NW Beer Guide) has noted before, we bloggers have the best of intentions to start a series of this, or a series of that, but often lapse and fail after a few posts.

So forgive me in advance if these posts are infrequent or lapsing. But my intention is good. I really dig this new trend of pairing food with beer at fine restaurants so I want to have some fun pairing different beers (and sometimes hard ciders), with any food that I come across, and share what I think are the best of the best pairings we try.



For the first outing, Kendall and I were lucky enough to have dinner plans with our friends Dan and Nancy at the Elliott Bay Brewery and Pub in West Seattle. This being our local brewpub, it was an easy target because we've already tried most everything on the menu. But we haven't tried the dishes with multiple beers for the sole purpose of finding the best pairing for each plate.

Being that Dan and Nancy are also foodies and beer geeks, we had a good foursome with which to start. So we ordered a variety of beers, a couple extra beer samplers and a good variety of food that includes some of what we consider to be Elliott Bay's signature dishes.

We ate: Ahi Tacos, Seared Goat Cheese Salad, Shroomer hamburger with a side Caesar, and Salami Sliders with a quinoa salad on the side.

We drank:

• Luna Weizen (a hefeweizen)


• Alembic Pale Ale (a Pale Ale hopped exclusively with Cascades)


• Hop Von Boorian (a hoppy, Belgian-style Pale Ale)


• Dry Hop IPA (a dry-hopped version of their IPA)


• Demolition Ale (Imperial Pale Ale)

We liked these pairings:
Ahi Tacos + Alembic Pale Ale

(below - Ahi Tacos with a side of Salsa and Chipotle Aioli)

The tacos come with a garlicky salsa, a creamy cole slaw and a hot chipotle aioli. It's the heat of the aioli that screams for some hops like those offered by the Alembic Pale Ale. Since the aioli comes on the side, if you don't put much of it on your tacos you could also go with the Luna Weizen here.

Read the entire article, and hear about our 3 other pairings, on the Washington Beer Blog (click here).