There was a minor and mostly non-sarcasm fueled give & take regarding the above tweet numbers. This is a simple straight up tally of breweries. (no telling, of course, if the same boundaries were used in both counts)
It shouldn’t be surprising though. Chicago was an early-ish adopter and in the big tier of US cities. Denver and Seattle are large regional hubs from the west with brewing history longer than others. San Diego was a big mover and a large area and L.A., my L.A. is just plain large. (though 146 seems a reach of a number)
Portland, despite steady growth was always going to fall by the number wayside because of this group it is the smallest. And yes, per capita would be a more interesting number but it is a statistic that should be re-visited every 3-5 years just to see where that indicator is moving.
And for questions that it begs. Will the NE of the country gain an entrant? Which of the top five have capped out? Or have none reached max capacity?