To the west of City Hall on Ontario Street there are a row of watering holes including the nearest, the Old Speckled Hen, which is a bit of a faux pub but not a bad faux pub in an 1809 building discussed earlier.

Sadly it does not even sell Old Speckled Hen, a loverly hoppy ESB now made by Greene King in Bury St. Edmunds, England - home of Ale-fan. Happily, the LCBO stocks both cans and bottles which, for sheer unsweetended grapefruit hoppiness, rival the former bottled version of Dragon's Breath Ale from the Kingston Brew Pub, once contract brewed by the now defunct Hart Brewery of Carleton Place. There was a spot of legal bother involving Hart perhaps leading to the said defunctness involving a trademark over the name Dragon's Breath which, in the blindness of law, failed to turn on the loverliness of the ale itself. It is still available on tap at the brew pub, though it would compete with McAuslan's Oatmeal Stout from the tap for my attention were I ever to partake there.

Anyway, Ale-fan has announced he has packed in the morris dancing due to a lack of time necessary for the committment. [That is the kindest sentence ever written with "morris dancing" and a word related to the verb "to commit" ever in the English language.] Not as emotionally crushed as I might be by the world having one less knee-slapping stick-clicker, I nonetheless invite the globe to hoist a hoppy ale to his new endevours.