or decades, faux-bohemians have tried to enhance their cool levels by sucking on bottle after bottle of fad beer. The discerning brew drinker knows to go straight to the source: Bohemia. Genuine and posture free, Czech's favourite barley son, Pilsner Urquell, has been sousing hop-heads for almost two hundred years. Our Beer Guide will navigate you through Toronto's myriad Pilsner purveyors, pointing out the best back room bars, neighbourhood dives, and shish resto-lounges for sud imbibing.






The Academy of Spherical Arts
Triangles peaked in popularity last year. Now, all of the kids in the suburbs fight schoolyard wars over scalene versus isosceles loyalty. Urbanites have moved on and embraced the sphere. The purest way to interact with that hallowed, round, geometrical shape: play billiards. Proportionally epic, The Academy is the most refined stick, slate, and ball spot in the city (perhaps the country). Housed in a historic post-factory building, the Academy space formerly belonged to the Brunswick/Samuel May Company (the billiard table manufacturers (apropos)). Now, with four elegantly appointed rooms, running the gamut from cavernous and fine to fine and stately, AS of A caters to chalkers and diners of the well-pressed ilk. -S.T.
1 Snooker Street (formerly 38 Hanna Avenue), 416-532-2782




Al Frisco's
If your name is Al Frisco you only have three vocational options: you can be the guy in San Francisco, wandering the streets looking like a rave/hippie hybrid as you search dumpsters for better-than-thrift-store finds; you can become a neo-en plein air painter; or you can open a bar in clubland. This Al chose the latter. For years, Al Frisco has poured pints on its expansive patio and throughout the bar proper. A former brewpub, Al retains its suds-emphasis, drawing heavy 905 crowds and pre/anti club imbibers. The rave/hippie thing would have been cool too, but outdoor painters have too much of the look-at-me thing going on. -S.T.
133 John Street, 416-595-8201




Allen's
Allen's is like Alice's Restaurant, but without the annoying hippies and cinematic offspring (well, I guess that it's nothing like Alice's restaurant). This restaurant boasts a casual and subtly refined backslap air; it's thankfully devoid of the standard neighbourhood-joint, shabby proletariat aesthetic. A huge draw, the willow on the fantastic back patio weeps in your glass so that you don't have to. With an exemplary beer card and killer burgers, trips to Allen's have become ritualistic for area denizens. -S.T. 143 Danforth Avenue, 416-463-3086 -S.T.
143 Danforth Avenue, 416-463-3086




Archeo Trattoria
Ever since Archie got back from Bologna, he has insisted that everyone Italianize his name. At first, Jug Head refused, but glutton placation is simple: Archeo kept feeding him (and feeding him and feeding him); now Jug conforms. Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, nothing goes better with an artful plate of pasta than a towering pint of draught. Sure, red wine is the go to, but you're not a lemming, are you? A sheep? Trust me on this. In an industrial-esque fine-dining Italian eatery like Archeo Trattoria, suds go well. Ask Midge (but beware of Moose). -S.T.
55 Mill Street, 416-815-9898




The Auld Spot Pub
If your hair starts to clog your sink, don't make a puppet out of it; that's just creepy. Also, don't deal with your newly exposed skin with a bottle of spray paint. Furthermore, a goatee and muscles don't compensate for head gleam. Embrace your dome, damn it. Ditch your hat collection and grow that horseshoe out. If that doesn't placate your self-consciousness, drink away your insecurity at the Bald Spot Pub - what? This place is called the Auld Spot? Sorry, my mistake. Well, whatever its name is, it certainly is one of the Danforth's finest neighbourhood pubs. With innovative yet comfortable fare and a solid lineup of draught, the Auld Spot draws the hairy and shiny alike. -S.T.
374 Danforth Avenue, 416-406-4688




Avenue in Four Seasons Hotel
Avenue is a chichi networking hub, the place where the idle famous blow out their rich, little livers, and where generations of modern-fabuloso come to do the same. Awash in bright (okay, beige) cleanliness, adorned with candles and little Zen gardens, the lounge is a showcase for fusion fashion; a genteel marriage of the local produce, abundant local old ladies and masculinized lunchroom white-collar men, great, naked planks of real estate ladies (well, under their clothes anyway). Creamy local waitresses are oh so happy to serve yet another beer during the liquid lunch. This is what the cosmopolitan life is like, even without cosmopolitans. Models and visiting film industry glitterati nibble at tiny portions of haute cuisine while hovering around the bar sipping vintages. The attitude, of course, is directly proportionate to the look (take that however you want). -E.J.
21 Avenue Road, 416-964-0411