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 juicy and hop-forward, settle into an amber-and-lager house, detour into Bloordale for a fruited sour, and land on clean German and English classics. Go on a Saturday when the kitchens are open. Pace yourself - flights over pints if you want to make all four.
Start at the old auto shop on Dundas West - the widest board of the four and the one stop with a full kitchen, so eat here before you walk. Juicebox, a 5.5% pale ale, is the opener; leave Clyde (8.2% double IPA) for a day when you aren't walking to three more taprooms.
Five minutes north on Sterling Rd into the arts district, and the deliberate gear-down of the route: Henderson is a fresh-lager and session-ale house with an enormous archive - the numbered Ides series runs past 100 beers. Order Rennie's, the amber, and read the board; the Myth of Permanence lager series is the other reason to linger here.
About ten minutes east into Bloordale, and the detour that makes the route worth walking: Burdock is a brewery, restaurant, and music hall in one building, specializing in wild-fermented and farmhouse ales. Kini Watermelon Lime is the tart mid-crawl reset. This is the stop to make your real food stop if Bandit's kitchen didn't hold you.
Finish at College and Lansdowne on classic styles: Hidden Rivers Pale Ale is the pick, a light, dry-bodied pale ale with citrus, pine, and herbal hop aromas, and a 2024 Ontario Brewing Awards Gold winner - a clean, credentialed close after three taprooms of contrast. If you've still got legs, Brockton Bitter E.S.B. (5.4%) is the English option, and the Cactus Juice prickly pear sour is there if Burdock left you wanting more of it.