Portland’s local alt-weekly newspaper, Willamette Week, holds an annual “best of Portland” survey. Among the categories is one for podcast. The Beervana Show, with absolutely no help from its hosts (and by that I mean Patrick, whom I blame entirely for this failure), finished second. Second!

Global breweries can be optimized to make beer of exceptional quality; they almost never make the most interesting beer. For that, we look to small and quirky breweries, the protectors of tradition and the tinkerers and experimenters. 

So you’ve come to Portland and are overwhelmed by the choice of breweries. Don’t sweat it—I gotcha covered! Here are a half dozen walkable crawls that will make for a wonderful day out. 

In its final chapter, Stone Brewing ends up in the hands of a multinational beer company as a diminished brand selling a lime-flavored Mexican lager. That’s certainly not how Greg Koch drew it up when he was selling Arrogant Bastard all those years ago.

We know it’s impossible to keep track of all the breweries in the country, never mind their individual beers. I was doing some back-of-the-envelope math recently and was startled to learn just how many beers they actually make. That plus a look at the world’s largest beer company. It’s really large!

This half-mile jaunt through Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood will take you past nine breweries (and a cidery). Surely no place has more breweries per linear foot than this?