Good Breweries in Seattle?

I'm going to be in Seattle WA This coming Monday for work and was wondering what is a good brewery or two to hit up? I enjoy stopping at all I can while on the road and collecting shirts and growlers. Thanks for any tips

Where will you be staying?

Here are a few of my favorites:
Big Time Brewery
Elysian Brewing Co.
Pike Brewing
Stix Pizza & Brewing Co.
Maritime Pacific Brewing
Lazy Boy Brewing
Diamond Knot Brewing
McMenamin's Six Arms

and some popular places close to downtown

Gordon Biersch
Rock Bottom
Pyramid Alehouse

Great places to drink beer while in town

Collins Pub
The Stumbling Monk
Taphouse Grill
Beveridge Place Pub
Brouwer's Cafe

and for beer to go
Bottleworks
Pike St. Beer & Wine

Enjoy!

I'll second Pike Brewing. Often when I visit a brewery the beer just seems par for the course (you know, really good, but not unique from other breweries). Pike really stands out in my memory as having some great beers, and it's right downtown.

I'll third The Pike, they pretty much rock. Also check out the beer mapping project. http://beermapping.com/


CHeers

I fourth the Pike Brewing Company. . . one of my favorites. You also can't go wrong with McMenemin's 6 arms (I think its up on Pine, across the interstate if I remember right). If you are looking for good commercial beers, go to the Taphouse Grill-- 160 beers ON TAP. Can't go wrong. And all of those places are right around downtown. Of course if you are going to the Pike, go past the Pike Market and go to Kell's Irish pub-- great atmosphere-- not a lot of beer selection, but a fun bar, nonetheless, and its right down the street from the original Starbucks.

Have fun. . . Seattle is a great town to have fun in. Even the smallest hole in the wall place has something good on tap.

Brewtopia listed off most of the breweries worth noting, I'm a big fan of Diamond Knot and Elysian myself.

There are a few bars that have a number of beers from local breweries that I like.
Hopvine usually has some great IPAs on tap.
Beveridge Place Pub in West Seattle has a good selection of beers if you're over in that area.
Pub at Piper's Creek if you find yourself up near Northgate, Piper's Creek has a great selection of local beers.

Big Time....is the shuffleboard still in the back room?

If you are in the Ballard area, Old Pequliar on Market St is a nice little pub and one of my frequent haunts. The Bit is also close to there as well as Maritime Pacific Brewing, and is a hell of a good time later in the week once the other bars die down.

If you can, please support Skookum brewery. They are a tiny brewery north of Seattle, near the town of Arlington, where I grew up.

They just started out, like in January 2007.

Here's a map of where you can find their beers on tap:
http://www.skookumbrewing.com/TapMap/tabid/225/Default.aspx

And here's a good list of breweries in Washington:
http://www.beerme.com/region.php?c=us&s=wa

I'll Fifth Pike Brewery, but my all time favorite Seattle Brewpub is Elysian. All of their beers are good, they always have seasonals and always have something cask conditioned. It's also walkable from downtown.

If you like Rogue and can go for a 20 minute drive, there's also the Issaquah Brewhouse. See rogue.com.

And to Faber: Big Time still has the shuffleboard in back!

You can skip Pike, but you have to hit Maritime Pacific Brewing. Be sure to order onion rings. For dinner you can hit Hale's and after both of those you can head north a mile to a great pub called "Reading Gale" IIRC RIght next to the Tin Hat http://seattle.citysearch.com/profile/10793348 which has the BEST long island ice tea.

Checking this thread after being back for quite some time. Just thought I'd update. I hadn't seen the replies before the trip. I did hit up Elysian, Pike BC, and Rock Bottom. Actually hit Pike twice. Thats where I had my first ever Barley Wine. Good Stuff. I never had a bad beer my whole 3 days there. Just wish I had a week to walk around Seattle and Sample. But i was able to hit one pretty much one place a night for dinner after working. I woulda went to the Tap House also but didn't notice it (walked right past it) on my way back to the hotel, but I also got half lost walking back to the hotel that night too after having no problems the first two nights (just to mention the brewery effects that night). Hope I get a ahcnace to go back out sometime. I've only been to one other place out west to Moscow Idaho to watch my bro graduate college (U of I) and don't think you can find a bad micro brew out west.