From that day long ago when he first took a swig of stale ale from a stubby left out at the cottage, Ian Coutts has been a dedicated beer lover. His loyalty to the fermented beverage has never wavered , although his taste has improved with time.
His new book, Brew North: How Canadians Made Beer and Beer Made Canada (Greystone Books), is the culmination of decades spent thinking about beer. To write it, Coutts sought out experts on how beer is brewed, how it is marketed and how it is advertised. He found the foremost collector of breweriana in Canada. He read pretty well every word that had been written on beer in books, magazines and newspapers in Canada in the last sixty years.
Above all, he drank beer. Icy cold lagers. Robust pale ales. Amusing wit beers. Mainstream commercial brews. The task was demanding; lesser men might have given up. More than once, as he raised yet another beer to his lips, Coutts found himself asking why he even bothered. Ignoring the skepticism and mockery of others, and fighting his own nagging dark moments of the soul, he pressed on. Just one more, he would tell himself, just one more and it will all make sense. Brew North is a testament to his literary skill, his profoundly felt commitment to Canadian beer, and perhaps most important of all, his bladder.
After decades spent working as a book editor, Coutts jumped the proverbial transom in 2003 and has never looked back. He is the author or co-author of several books, including Titanic: The Last Great Images (with Robert Ballard), Backyard Birds (with Robert Bateman), The Ultimate Guys’ Q and A and Dadzooks. His writing has also appeared in Toronto Life, Canadian Geographic, the Globe and Mail, and Quill and Quire, to which he contributed a regular column called “Watch Your Language.” He lives in Toronto; Kingston, Ontario; and Merida, Mexico.
Where do you head when you need something cheap & cheerful for lunch?
I have lived and worked around Bloor and Bathurst for the bulk of my adult life. Our stretch of Bloor has a hell of a lot of restaurants, but if I wanted to choose one for this category, I’d go with Sushi on Bloor (515 Bloor Street West) - a standby pretty much since it opened.
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