You never forget your first brewery. I was 21 and working in radio sales at the time, and my boss at the time took me out for a liquid lunch at Empire Brewing Company’s brewpub in downtown Syracuse, New York to celebrate a sale I had just closed. I took interest in his suggestion, since I had recently discovered craft beer from Saranac and Ithaca that was enjoyable and flavorful — I had graduated from the Labatt Blue and Natty Light I usually had at college parties. It was my first time drinking fresh beer at the source, and it set me on the adventure I’m on to this day.

According to the Brewers Association, over 4,500 breweries have opened since I visited my first, so the options grow larger and larger. Many cities that had a lone brewpub in 2003 now boast of dozens of breweries, each offering a unique beer lineup and taproom experience. There are plenty that mimic the most successful breweries, but no two experiences are the same.

There’s Brooklyn Brewery (#3), where I recall having my first barleywine, Monster Ale, in 2003. Since then, they’ve grown from a local brand to a global name in beer, drawing in visitors from all over the world (particularly Scandinavia, where they’re practically ubiquitous with craft beer). But their taproom experience is largely the same as it was then, because it works.

Many of the old breed of breweries who opened in the 1990s craft beer wave and chose to stay small stick with the same taproom formula today. Lucky Labrador’s Hawthorne brewpub in Portland, Oregon (#37) is much the same today as when I first visited nearly a decade ago. While brewers and approaches have changed at San Francisco’s Thirsty Bear (#9), the ambiance is largely the same as during my first visit in 2005. Colorado brewpubs like CooperSmiths’ Pub & Brewing (#23), Wynkoop (#25), and Bull & Bush (#26) were still familiar on recent visits, still sticking to some of the same beer formulas as they did when I first visited ten years ago.

But more common these days as the massive expansions of once-small breweries that mirrored the rapid growth in craft beer in the past few years. There’s Surly (#314), where even in three short years they’ve grown into the massive facility they moved into in Minneapolis, Minnesota, adding a dozen fermentation tanks and a world-class restaurant. There’s 21st Amendment (#8), whose small San Francisco brewpub is now accompanied by a cavernous production brewery (#579) across the bay in San Leandro. Breweries like Greenport Harbor Brewing Company (#73), Revolution Brewing (#100) and Nebraska Brewing Company (#112) are just a few I’ve visited that have added large production facilities, often increasing the amount of beer they make by factors of ten. The growth feels unstoppable.

But for every brewery that’s expanded, there’s many more that want to stay small and true to their roots. Oxbow Brewing Company (#393) added a blendery in Portland, Maine, but still brews their beer in the woods of Newcastle, Maine. Many breweries have chosen the route of staying small and local, even in the face of popularity. That’s likely the only way the industry’s recent rapid growth will be sustainable.

A more recent trend in my travels is the birth of the cult brewery. An early example, Hill Farmstead (#96), sent beer geeks into a tizzy as Shaun Hill started making beautiful esoteric beers in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, drawing crowds to a barn miles away from cell phone reception. Not far away, The Alchemist (#13) has grown out of its brewpub after wild reception for its Heady Topper Double IPA set the bar for Hazy IPAs, a style that drove most of this trend. Now, Trillium Brewing in Boston (#289), Tilted Barn in Exeter, Rhode Island (#375), Bissell Brothers in Portland, Maine (#388), and Tree House in Charlton, Massachusetts (#958) draw hours-long lines for beer releases, to the point that I often find myself avoiding them (unsurprisingly, that’s the reason Tree House is so late on the list). Personally, I prefer the more civilized environment of sitting down to drink a beer, striking up conversation with the bartender or the drinkers around me.

Heck, I could even do that at Cantillon (#646) in Brussels, Belgium, a brewery that has a similar cult-like following among Americans for its amazing Lambics. Naturally, nearly everyone I drank with in their small tasting room had ties to the US — an indication of how craft beer culture has enlightened Americans to great beer. We’re not just exporting our beer geeks, though. American beer culture has infiltrated Europe’s cities in both the styles of beer produced and the taproom culture. Brussels Beer Project (#647) stands in stark contrast to Belgium’s long-standing beer culture, pouring hoppy IPAs in a polished taproom. Nya Carnegiebryggeriet (#263) in Stockholm was Brooklyn’s first foray into Europe, brewing with the same house yeast used stateside. Fourpure (#401) in London and Magic Rock (#833) in Huddersfield are breaking with English beer tradition and pouring hop-forward, higher alcohol brews in taprooms that wouldn’t feel out of place in a suburban Seattle industrial park. Geisinger Brau (#667) in Munich may stick to German brewing traditions, but its branding and taproom would seem familiar to American beer drinkers.

Speaking of traditions, some European beer drinkers would probably argue American beer traditions are rooted in cheap, light beers. I am not above visiting the large, corporate American breweries, and I find their long histories and growth patterns fascinating. It’s helpful, in that respect, that Coors (#10) and Miller (#85) are as much museums as breweries for visitors. I’ve never visited an Anheuser-Busch facility where Budweiser is made, but the company’s buying spree resulted in visits to several breweries acquired by the company before their sale, including Blue Point (#68), Devil’s Backbone (#60), Golden Road (#172), Camden Town (#406), Elysian (#42), Wicked Weed (#207), and Four Peaks (#20). I visited both breweries in the US purchased by Constellation Brands prior to their sale: Ballast Point (#276) and Funky Buddha (#500). Two breweries I visited later took up Heineken on offers of investment, Lagunitas (#221) and Brixton (#939), the latter occurring just this week. Even with signs that some of these buying sprees are dying down, there’s likely more on my list that will see outside investment.

There’s also the possibility some will close. That’s already been the fate of 20 breweries on my list, there would probably be many more if I had been of drinking age in the 1990s. 2% is a pretty record, but over three-quarters of New York City’s 1990s-era brewpubs closed by 2002, leaving the city with hardly enough breweries to count on one hand until 2011. Now, the city boasts 35 breweries, with more to come. It’s hard to tell what the future holds.

In the meantime, I’ll visit brewery #1,000 on Saturday: Jester King in Austin, Texas, and will still only be able to claim I’ve visited one of every six breweries in the US. I’ve got a lot of hard work to do.