Toronto: Go!

Our journey ended in Toronto. As Canada's largest city there was plenty to explore, but as usual it was just a skim of the surface over the course of less than a week.

As it happened we were staying just a block away from the Steam Whistle brewery, or at least its original part. It's sited in a photogenic round train shed with a bar in front, extensive event space, and the compact production brewery at the back where now only the draught beer is produced. The tour was fun, as these things go, and offered my first taste of Steam Whistle Pilsner, swigged from a satisfyingly heavy reusable green glass bottle on the way round.

The brewery's gimmick is that this decoction-mashed pils is the only beer they make, and have ever made. The brewery bar, however, offers a choice of filtered and unfiltered versions. A few days after the tour we dropped back to try them side-by-side. It's not a beer to get excited about, in either of its forms. It's a decent pilsner, with that extra fluffy texture I tend to associate with decoction. I found it a little light on the hopping, however, with a very slight plastic tang in the finish. The unfiltered one is a little bitterer, in a good way, but there's not a whole lot of difference between them. Steam Whistle puts on a good show but the product is decidedly average.

Down by the waterfront is another outpost of a Toronto brewing institution: the Amsterdam BrewHouse. The brewery was founded in this neighbourhood in 1986 before expanding to larger facilities elsewhere, then returning downtown to open this vast and barn-like restaurant in 2013. Despite much signage advertising special edition beers, the selection was mostly limited to the core range.

I began with Cruiser, a 4.9% ABV session IPA with Citra and Sorachi Ace hops. This arrived pale gold with a fine white head and tasted beautifully fresh and zingy: sweet lemon curd on a meringue-pie base with gentle sherbet effervescence and a sternly acidic citric kick on the end. It's charming and moreish, exactly as the style should be. Job done.

The squat orange beer next to it is Space Invader IPA. The aroma here is a mix of tropical juice and resinous herbal dankness, showing off the advertised Citra rather well. There's an expected powerful hit of lime in the flavour, as well as a less welcome fried onion vibe. Bright citrus zest finishes it on a lighter, less severe, note. As one gets accustomed to the hops, its base malt becomes a lot more apparent. While far from groundbreaking or otherwise exceptional, this is a very decent American-style IPA. Enough so for my wife to order a second while I went with the sole seasonal on offer.

That was Starke, another pilsner. This one was strangely fruity, opening on peach juice and moving towards banana. Accompanying these was a differently weird mineral or metal tang: limestone and zinc. Just as I was preparing to write it off as too weird, a proper pils-like green bitterness arose, bringing fresh celery and white pepper. The texture is rather heavy and greasy even though the ABV is a relatively modest 5.2%. This one takes a while to unfold but I think it was worth it in the end.

One last restaurant before we start hitting the bars: Fifth Pubhouse, a slightly down-at-heel bar and eatery, chosen out of a desire for something dirty and greasy which it certainly delivered. To drink, Pickup No. 26, yet another pilsner, this time by Thornbury Brewery. Somewhat joyously, there was nothing odd about this one, though the lack of head was disappointing. It has all the chewy white bread and fresh, damp, grassy hops that any Mitteleuropa lager fanatic could want, with no twists or tricks. It was badged as a house beer here and it's ideal for that: a basic, no-thought offer, that happens to be of superb quality.

From one brick-built downtown bar space to another. C'est What? has been a fixture of the Toronto beer scene for as long as I've been paying attention to it. Despite a very central location it's a little hard to find, situated in a roomy but windowless cellar, dark and quiet on the rainy afternoon we landed in.

In addition to the wide selection of assorted Canadian guest beers, C'est What? has its own brand, brewed by local producers. From these I chose Joan's Dark Secret, a dark mild served on cask. It's a deep cola colour with little head and a strangely wine-ish aroma, fortified and raisiny, like Pedro Ximinez sherry. There are raisins in the flavour but they come at the end of a long dry and roasty taste. It's fairly typical of a mild, then. The only flaw was a minor phenolic buzz, slight enough that I couldn't make up my mind on whether it was a smoky seasoning or bleachy line-cleaner. It was easily ignored anyway. Aside from it the beer is light-textured and very drinkable.

The other dark beer, obviously kegged, is C'est What?'s Mocha Porter. This is a wholesome and filling affair: 6% ABV, smelling and tasting of dark chocolate but with a quick clean finish, reminding me of Baltic porter more than the usual warm-fermented type. It's as smooth, rich and creamy as it looks: a perfect sup for a dismal day.

Once we got confident using Toronto's excellent public transport system we started exploring a little further afield. One such stop was Indie Ale House, a brewpub in the north-west of the city. I liked the way the emphasis was very much on their own beers here, with only a couple of token guests on the menu board.

I picked the barrel-aged Indie Table Beer, one of just 3.8% ABV, though I appear to have omitted any note of what sort of barrel it was aged in. Apologies. I'm going to say white wine, though, as it had the fresh kiwifruit notes of a Sauvignon Blanc and a toasty Chardonnay finish. A more distinctly hop-derived tangerine note runs through it as well, and the whole thing is deliciously spritzy and refreshing.

For the other half, Breakfast Porter. This was a 7.2% ABV thumper with a powerful coffee aroma. The texture is thick and syrupy with a cloying sweetness to match. A metallic tang and a certain black-cherry sour note did little to balance it. I'm guessing they were shooting for "bold" in the flavour design here, and if so they've achieved it. They're wide of the mark on "good", however.

On our first evening in the city we fought our way through the glamourously-attired hordes, paparazzi and celeb-spotters who had gathered for the Toronto Film Festival and made our way to Bar Hop on King Street. It was doing rather well out of the event, it seemed: the table next to us was occupied by blazered security men, earpieces out, as they took their evening meal and swapped stories.

From the list here I opted for Tremolo IV, a mixed fermentation farmhouse ale brewed by the establishment's sister brewpub. It's pale yellow with an immediate white wine aroma. It proved thicker and smoother than most of these, showing peach and mango juice flavours, with herbal bathsalts in the background. The big 6.5% ABV doesn't help lighten it any. While not amazing, it's still clean and complex, doing well to balance the pith and spice elements. I'll always prefer extra spice, though.

A baseball-themed novelty beer accompanies that. Squints is a gose from Toronto brewer Left Field, designed to resemble the classic ballpark snack of sunflower seeds. No, I didn't know either. There's also lime and black pepper because why not? The whole thing is a bit of a mess, to be honest. The flavours are all there, even the savoury seeds, but they all shout too loudly over each other. I don't know if black pepper concentrate exists, but that's how it smells, and then the flavour is rough and sour with a lime cordial sweetness and a sickly brine finish. It's just too weird to enjoy.

To follow, a pair of hoppy offerings from Great Lakes Brewing. I picked the solid-sounding Canuck. This is a clear deep gold colour, 5.2% ABV with a lovely zesty aroma of fresh lemon and mandarin. So it was a surprise to find the beer watery and thin on tasting, those citrus notes turning to bland discount orange juice. I guess it's refreshing, and clean, but I thought it a little out of place in a speciality beer bar like this.

Karma Citra IPA is 6.6% ABV and a cloudy orange colour. Another promising aroma: loads of resinous weedy dank to the fore. But once more the flavour doesn't match up, providing a confusing mix of granary loaf, caraway seed and harsh lemon and lime pith. Again, this one gets the very basics right but just seems to be lacking something: substance or spirit or depth.

I mentioned that Bar Hop had a brewpub and we dropped in there the following evening. I went for their saison Miracle Cure. It's a soft and fruity one, with peach juice dominating, plus ripe white grape. It tastes stronger than its 5.3% ABV, turning a bit sickly towards the end. A spike of pepper and some medicine-cabinet herbs help balance it a little but it could stand to be crisper.

And a porter to end on: Kemuri, a smoked one from Godspeed, another Toronto brewpub but one we didn't visit. A strong bacony aroma sets out its stall very early on. The flavour is a little acrid: a harsh metallic twang in with the peaty phenols. I usually like this sort of thing but I felt this one leaned too much on the smoke novelty at the expense of the underlying porter. A few points higher than its 5% ABV might have helped balance it better. Another one for the "bold but no thanks" file.

Much more Toronto pubbing to come later this week, but tomorrow is a holiday and I know just the beers...