In no particular order some of the standouts were
LA
Firestone - Propagator- Best DIPA I had the whole time was here.
Mikella - Really nice hazy selection.
Bottle Logic - Really good quality brewery...small but they produce top quality beer.
El Segundo - Same deal as above, A grade beer.
San Diego
Ballast Point (little Italy) - I have always loved Ballast, even though they're no longer 'indi', their beer quality is up there with the best IMO.
Stone World Bistro (outside San diego) - As everyone says, it's worth the stop. Look up brewery tour times before you go if you're interested so you can line it up nice.
Modern Times - I bloody love this place, it's always been my favourite branding even though I'd never tried the beer. It definitely lived up to my expectations, went back twice.
Seattle
Chucks Hop Shop - Huge tap selection...(40+ taps) and huge range of cold store bottles to choose from.
The Beer Junction - Big tap selection and mind blowing amount of cold store bottles, the best part of 15M of fridges on either side lined with craft beer all takeaways and to be consumed on site.
Brouwers Cafe - If you want to take the partner out but also enjoy craft....go here. The pics on Google will show you all you need to be convinced.
Portland
Imperial Bottleshop and Taproom - Tap-room and bottleshop. Awesome fitout and the dudes were really nice. They happened to be just tapping a keg of Pliny when I rocked up which was cool.
Rogue/Deschutes/10 Barrel/Back Pedal are all within walking distance of one another so good place to get a hotel near.
San Francisco
Sierra Nervada - (Definitely not San Francisco but is on the way to when heading south) - This was great to stop in and check out and have a feed - it's something I feel any brewer should do just to pay homage. Same deal with brewery tours, they have a lot of customer interaction offerings but I just popped in to have a feed and a tasting paddle.
Russian River - For gods sake stop here. My first Pliny I had was from the bottle and let me say it was not even close to the same beer I had on draught at the brew-pub. As much as everyone talks it up, it really is just a great DIPA, also other great beers to try there (get the tasting paddle...its huge) - Also only a fool forgets pliny 8% ABV. That said I am a fool. My god I love that beer.
City Beer Store - Probably the best joint I went to in San Francisco - Decent tap selection and great food (get the slow roasted lamb & pink lady sandwich), also bottleshop down the back with good selection.
Cellarmaker - Great brewpub with hazy beers done well.
That's a rough wrap of the highlights. It would be worth keeping in mind I'm a hop head and became especially addicted to hazy west coast ipa's, so I didn't particularly go chasing sours, Belgians, funk etc...
I also did go to quite a few of the well known - high ranked breweries however left a lot out as I felt there was better beer elsewhere. Also as much as I was super excited about the White Labs tasting room I was pretty let down, the beer quality was very average which made me question how much I could grasp from the yeast strain used.......maybe I went at an off time.
It's funny over there because they don't really brew to many neipas on the west coast, which suited me as I'm not a massive fan. Instead they've claimed their own Hazy IPA that just happens to be a west coast style ipa that has had even more hops thrown at it......with a few fruity ones in the mix rather than just the traditional big C's that ends up being this incredible, super resinous, proper bittered and balanced ipa that was pretty darn addictive... I couldn't get enough of them.
