Let's hear it for New York

My recent trip to New York City made me look at beer with an "Empire State of Mind." Like with food, art and theater, New York knows how to do beer right.

The best beer experiences from the trip:

5. Drinking Peroni at Lombardi's Pizza in Little Italy. The pizza, of course, was better than the beer. But if you're crunching an old-school Margherita, drinking anything but Peroni would be blasphemy.

4. Drinking Hoegaarden at the White Horse Tavern in the West Village. At this bar where Dylan Thomas drank himself to death, the beer selection isn't great. But Hoegaarden was a nice find. And our server happened to be a native Nebraskan.

3. Drinking Green Flash West Coast IPA at the Blind Tiger in the West Village. The bar had lots of good craft beers. They advertised having Dogfish Head on tap, but they didn't when I walked in. Lots of Rogue, which is cool. But the Green Flash was a nice hoppy treat on a sunny NYC day. The bar is cool with 30-some craft brews on tap daily.

2. Drinking Three Floyds Dreadnaught IPA at the Pony Bar, three blocks west of Times Square. The Pony Bar is awesome -- young, professional drinkers crammed into a small but classy bar. And beers are $5. That's a sweet value that close to Times Square. Plus Dreadnaught checks in at No. 30 on Beer Advocate's Top 100 list, so that was a nice find. The Pony is best bar I've ever been to in New York City.

1. Buying a bunch of hard-to-find beers at New Beer Distributors in NoHo. The warehouse-like beer store near Little Italy and Chinatown was dark and dingy. But it was full of brews you can't score in the Midwest. My haul included the much-sought-after Fantome Saison, the awesome Brooklyn Brewy Black Chocolate Stout, said Green Flash IPA and a Young's Double Chocolate stout. The only drawback: My suitcase was really heavy on the way back. Had I had my car, I'd probably have bought the place out.

The worst experience? The $10 Miller Lite at Yankee Stadium.

Best bars in the West

Every major town has at least one beer lover's bar. I hit up quite a few of them on my swing through the West. Here are the best six:

6. Father's Office, Los Angeles.
Huge selection in a very small space. Pricey, as is expected in LA, but you can get almost any style of beer you want.

5. Brouwer's, Seattle.
Sixty-four beers on tap. A faux-Belgian layout. This is probably the haven for Seattle-area brew lovers. The downside is it has a bit of pretension because of it.

4. Bottleworks, Seattle.
Technically, this is a beer store. But they have three to five beers on tap everyday. It's very low-key and often features hard-to-find beers.

3. Horse Brass, Portland.
An English-style pub, but this one is actually very authentic. The beer list is staggeringly long. This is the perfect place to drink after a long day snowshoeing on Mt. Hood. Getting so hammered you sleep in your car is completely optional. But likely.

2. Toronado, San Francisco.
Located in the famous Haight district, this bar is a must-visit in SF. Huge beer list, very cheap happy hour prices and an awesome sausage joint next door.

1. The Dray, Seattle.
A small, clean spot with just a few beers on tap. But, man, those beers are awesome. The owner has agreements with Belgian breweries. Often, The Dray will have the only keg of a Belgian beer sent abroad. The bartenders are awesome and friendly. Their music selections are killer.

Three Seattle honorable mentions: Uber, Naked City and Hopvine