Wednesday 20 November 2013

November 10, 2013

This month we will have a dual entry in the joints I miss feature.  Amsterdam and its sister pub Rotterdam were part of the first wave of Toronto's craft beer scene.  Amsterdam was located on John Street in what is currently known as the Entertainment District.  At the time, which is to say prior to the opening of the Skydome (now the Rogers Centre), the area featured little more than warehouses.

I'm not exaggerating to state that at the time, Nut Brown Ale was the flagship beer of Toronto's microbrewing scene. I had a lot of amusement there largely because my job at the time gave me days off during the week and there's a fun, conspiratorial air in a pub in the afternoon.  People imagined that I really ought not to have been there either and that we were enjoying sharing a secret.

Amsterdam was to become Al Fresco's, still a brewpub.  These days it is a Jack Astor's.  I cannot attest but I suspect I cannot drink a nut brown ale there.

Rotterdam was the sister brewpub and after Amsterdam closed it housed the main brewery and bottling plant.  They had in excess of three hundred beers on their bottles menu.  We engaged a barmaid in conversation one day and she confessed that at any time they were out of as many as one hundred choices.  She also surprised us, informing us that the two litre beer going for $120.00 was rather popular.  She said a half dozen guys would come in and drop a twenty dollar bill to be able to say that they had drank from a one hundred and twenty dollar bottle of beer.  You could get a good burger there back in the day.

Today the location is a Bier Markt.  I have never been to any of their spots, not being one for waiting in line to drink beer.

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