Toronto, not crap for beer!
My non-British friends and associates do not understand my deep-seated and heartfelt love for real ale. I have found the last 3&1/2 years to be a barren and soulless experience beer-wise. Although I have flirted with lager it has never been truly satisfying. An emotional dessert, I find myself waking in the middle of the night from fevered dreams of London Pride, Youngs Special, Spitfire and Hopback Summer Lightning. I often mull wistfully at the thought of hoppy, living bitters while supping distastefully at a bottle of lager, for it is not in need of the reverence of glass, the yellow, sterilised, pastuerised, filtered carbonated swill masquerading as beer, purveyed by charlatans in the bars of Spain, Gibraltar, France, Canada and Costa Rica. But these are emotionless dalliances with blondes of little worth. The brunette nitrokeg shams that are the Caffrey's and the John Smith's may look good in a glass, but they are cheap harlots dressed as ladies. I am looking for love, not a succession of one night stands.

So, romantic beer prose aside, I was in a pub the other night and drinking a fizzy, cold IPA and lamenting that there was no flat, warm beer about and the barman said they sold a drop of cask ale in the place next door. I drank my pint on the outside on the terrace, quickly and with great expectations of drinks to come. I briefly made the acquaintance of a very nice couple who are also not a little partial to a real beer or two. I finished the IPA, the attentive barman asked if I'd like another, I replied in the negative and beat a hasty path to the place next door, Caffe Volo, which strangely enough was an Italian restaurant. I asked the stunningly beautiful blonde siren working behind the bar if this tale of ale was in fact true. She replied positively and asked if I wanted a thimble full as a taster. She brought the shot glass of Granite IPA to me, I put the glass to my lips and what must have been two nanoseconds later a rapturous obsession overtook me and I was demanding a full pint. Absolutely magnificent a dry hoppy beer, raised from the keg by hand pump and served just marginally below room temperature. Perfection in a glass!

About half a pint later, or four seconds as time is measured by Canadians, the nice couple from the previous bar came in and joined me. A friendlier, more intellectual, gregarious couple you could never wish to meet. Deidre is an American Civil Engineer and her husband Bryan, a Scottish Biochemist. They were excellent company and we passed the night together chatting on the patio of the bar consuming some of the nicest ale I have had in many a year.