Stubby● Trail · crawl
The Bloordale Crawl
Four breweries, about 2 km, one easy afternoon on foot.
Four breweries, about 2 km end to end, every leg a short walk - the rare Toronto crawl you can do entirely on foot in an afternoon. It threads the Junction Triangle and Bloordale into College West, built for contrast: start loud and fruited, settle into an easy amber-and-lager house, detour through Niagara grape ales, and finish on clean German and English styles. Go on a Saturday when the kitchens are open. Pace yourself - flights over pints if you want to make all four.
Start here because the heated retractable-roof patio is the most weather-proof launch point and it anchors the south end of the walk. Order the Wizard of Gose if you want fruited-sour punch up front; come hungry, the kitchen does jackfruit 'pulled pork' and truffle parm fries.
Five-minute walk north on Sterling Rd and a deliberate gear-down - sessionable amber and a lagered blonde after Bandit's sour assault. Hit the on-site bottle shop here mid-crawl so you're not carrying cans the whole way; the first Wednesday of the month is their 'Gone to the Dogs' night if you've brought one.
The middle leg is about 10 minutes east into Bloordale and worth it - almost no one else in the city does Niagara grape ales, so order the IPA du Vin or the barrel-aged Rosé. There's a proper restaurant and an attached music hall, so this is the stop to make your real food stop if Bandit's snacks didn't hold.
Finish at College and Lansdowne, about 12 minutes southwest, on clean classic styles - the Gold-winning Hidden Rivers pale ale or the Brockton Bitter ESB, a palate-resetting change of pace after the sours and grape ales. The small shaded front patio fills fast, and the in-house Mexican kitchen runs Wed-Sat, so time it for an early-evening taco landing.