Chimaek is the Korean portmanteau for pairing fried chicken with beer.
The word combines “chi,” from the Korean pronunciation of chicken, with “maek,” from maekju, the Korean word for beer. Chimaek describes both the food pairing and the social occasion of eating fried chicken while drinking beer, often as an evening snack or anju.
Modern Korean fried chicken developed distinctive styles such as plain huraideu chicken and sweet-spicy yangnyeom chicken. Restaurants commonly serve these with beer, pickled radish, and other sides. The combination became especially visible during the 2002 Korea–Japan World Cup, when crowds gathered to watch matches while sharing chicken and beer.
Chimaek is not the name of a particular chicken recipe. Tteokbokki is a spicy rice-cake dish, bibimbap is a mixed rice bowl, and bulgogi is marinated grilled meat. Korean fried chicken itself has older roots, but wider access to cooking oil and the growth of chicken restaurants in the 1970s helped establish the pairing that the word now names.