WASHINGTON

Elysian Brewing, Seattle

While Seattle and its sleeplessness may be synonymous with an entirely different kind of brew, the city boasts a burgeoning beer scene that owes its vibrancy to the likes of Elysian Brewing. Founded more than 15 years ago, this brewpub in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighbourhood is the original Elysian outpost based within the vast vestiges of an old warehouse. Large, laidback and filled with locals, it has 16 taps pouring Elysian's eclectic array beers, including Dragonstooth Stout, the crisp and citrusy Zephyrus Pilsner and, best of all, Avatar Jasmine IPA, a fragrant and fresh beer, dry-hopped with jasmine.

• 1221 E Pike Street, +1 206 860 1920, elysianbrewing.com

OREGON

Bridgeport Brewery, Portland

Portland is the promised land for great beer. Boasting more than 70 microbreweries and brewpubs, not to mention some incredible craft beer-centric bars and pubs. Craft beer sales make up 45% of all the beer drunk in the city – compared with just 5% in the US as a whole. One of Portland's pioneers was Bridgeport, purveyors of an excellent IPA best drunk fresh from their bustling brewpub in the city's Pearl district. Other discerning beer-drinking destinations include the Rogue Ales Distillery & Public House; both the Laurelwood and Lompoc brewpub chains; the respective tasting rooms of Hair of the Dog and The Commons; Cascade Brewing for barrel-aged beers; and Upright Brewing where, like a hipster wearing a beret, classic Belgian and French styles are combined with Portland's particular take on things.

• 1313 NW Marshall Street, +1 503 241 3612, bridgeportbrew.com

Pelican Pub & Brewery, Pacific City

One of the most spectacular spots on Oregon's rugged coastline is Pacific Beach, popular with surfers and boasting particularly dramatic views of Haystack Rock, as featured in the opening scene of The Goonies. The Pelican Brewpub, perched right on the beach and a multiple-medal winner at the Great American Beer Festival, is a stunning place to sit, with your feet in the sand, and sip a sprightly Saison du Pelican or Stormwatcher – a smouldering soul-stoking barley wine with touches of tobacco, cinnamon and smoke.

• 33180 Cape Kiwanda Drive, +1 503 965 7007, yourlittlebeachtown.com/pelican

Deschutes Brewery, Bend

Deschutes is one of the largest craft brewers in the US and its success has been built on two beers: a black, beautifully balanced porter called Black Butte, and Mirror Pond, pure pale ale perfection. While the brewery offers free guided tours, it's definitely worth sliding on to a stool at the Deschutes brewpub, where they serve exclusive and elusive one-off ales brewed on a smaller scale and with extra derring-do. As well as Deschutes, Bend is home to several other great brewers, including Bend Brewing Company, Goodlife Brewing and the acutely artisan Ale Apothecary.

• 901 SW Simpson Avenue, +1 541 385 8606, deschutesbrewery.com

McMenamins, Edgefield

Well-known for their whimsy and being a little bit weird, McMenamins has more than 60 bars, breweries and pubs, some better than others, dotted all over the Pacific Northwest, housed in former schools, prisons, cinemas, masonic lodges and mortuaries. But this extraordinary, off-centre outpost in Edgefield, south of Portland, is most definitely the mothership. An enormous stately home and former poor farm, complete with 38 acres of sweeping grounds, has been transformed into a slightly psychedelic kingdom of fun, boasting a brewery, a distillery and winery, a movie theatre and ballroom, lots of tiny boutique bars and snugs holed up in dens and sheds, a pool hall, a luxurious spa and outdoor pool, an onsite glass-blower and pottery maker and two par-3 golf courses. You can sleep here, too. Remarkable.

• 2126 S.W. Halsey Street, Troutdale, +1 503 669 8610, mcmenamins.com. Doubles from $70 per night, hostel beds $30

CALIFORNIA

Anderson Valley Brewing, Boonville

Each May, Anderson Valley hosts the legendary Boonville Beer Festival, but it's worth the swift detour to this brewery at any time of year. Anderson Valley is famous for Boontling, its own language invented in the late 1800s by mischievous kids hell-bent on hoodwinking their parents. Plenty of "bahl hornin" (or good drinking) can be had in Anderson Valley's terrific tap room, but you can also drink and drive on the brewery's awesome 18-hole disc golf course. Grab a six-pack before you tee-off – opt for the copper-coloured Summer Solstice, a brow-wiping wheat beer, or the fresh and floral Hop Ottin IPA.

• 17700 Highway 253, +1 707 895 BEER, avbc.com

Bear Republic, Healdsburg

Bear Republic is home to the iconic Racer 5 IPA, brewed with the classic west-coast combination of chinook, cascade, columbus and centennial hop varieties, which has brought home the booty from America's most prestigious beer festivals. It flows fresh from its own friendly, no-frills brewpub, which is complete with bear-themed taxidermy, decent food and a great little sun-trap of a garden.

• 345 Healdsburg Avenue, +1 707 433 2337, bearrepublic.com

Russian River, Santa Rosa

Surrounded by vineyards in the heart of Californian wine country, multi-award-winning brewer Vinnie Cilurzo is rightly revered for the way he has deftly dovetailed the grape with the grain. While ageing his beers in wine barrels, he cleverly cajoles brettanomyces, a feral and rather funky strain of yeast, to create sensational sour, tart beers that have more in common with sherry or traditional cider than conventional beer. In addition to some sublime Belgian ales, Vinnie's legendary Santa Rosa brewpub is a hallowed destination for hardened hop heads, with Pliny the Elder and Blind Pig particularly classy examples of that classic Californian bitterness and balance. The pub also pours some limited-edition beers, which you can either take away in a growler or sip alongside some phenomenal pizza.

• 725 4th Street, +1 707 545 BEER, russianriverbrewing.com

21st Amendment, San Francisco

This brilliant brewpub is named after the act that ended Prohibition in 1933 and situated just a wild pitch away from San Francisco Giants' baseball stadium. One of the first microbrewers in America to embrace the idea of putting craft beer in cool cans (in both senses of the word), it runs a broad gamut of styles, including a Hell or High Watermelon wheat beer, a superb session beer called Bitter American and Marooned on Hog Island, and a silky shuck-it-and-see stout, brewed with local Oyster shells. Try and get down there on game day when it all goes off.

• 563 2nd Street, +1 415 369 0900, 21st-amendment.com

Anchor Brewing Company, San Francisco

Anchor Steam beer, also known as Californian Common, emerged following the Gold Rush in the mid-1800s. Extremely popular prior to Prohibition, Anchor resurrected the indigenous American style in 1933 when, supposedly, it earned its name from the vapours that wafted up from the brewery's rooftop fermenters into the cool city air. Having nearly drowned amid a sea of insipid industrial lager in the 1960s, Anchor was rescued by Fritz Maytag, who bought the tumbledown brewery and, setting sail in a sieve, single-handedly saved "craft" beer. Initially aided by the city's colder climate, which prolonged its shelf-life, the beer has become an American classic. Fermented in open fermenters using lager yeast at temperatures more readily associated with ales, it is a hard-nosed hybrid that's smooth, citrusy and still synonymous with San Francisco. Steam's superb stablemates include the immensely aromatic Liberty Ale, Old Foghorn Barley Wine and Anchor Porter – the first to be brewed after Prohibition. The brewery offers an excellent 90-minute tours, complete with tastings, twice daily.

• 1705 Mariposa Street, +1 415 863 8350, anchorbrewing.com

Ben McFarland is one half of the Thinking Drinkers duo and the current British Guild of Beer Writers' Beer Writer of the Year and has won the award twice previously. He is the co-author the Good Beer Guide West Coast USA

• For more information on holidays in the USA, visit DiscoverAmerica.com