Celebrate Seattle Beer Week

Seattle's beer scene is known as one of the best in the country and Thursday kicks off a special week of celebration.

Mathew Younts says he and his friends, all who have ties to the local beer industry, were able to use their professional backgrounds to develop and organize Seattle Beer Week.

"We all know different aspects of everybody in the beer business in Seattle and we figured we'd just build a website and ask all of our friends to put an event on. It turned into a full-fledged event."

According to Mike Hale, who owns Hale Ales Brewery in Ballard, a brewery opens in the greater Seattle area on almost a weekly basis, so it makes sense the popularity of beer is giving coffee some competition.

"We've always had kind of a do-it-yourself spirit up here. We're kind of a port town, so we get a lot of influences from all sorts of cultures."

Matt Younts said he hopes the week-long event educates people about the culture of beer drinking.

"We just want people to come out and see that beer isn't just baseball and frat boys and loud music. It's definitely a much deeper culture," he said.