Many of you will remember my rant a few weeks back about the dearth of decent beer offerings in Canadian airports. It still stand by it (although it is hardly controversial), but I do wish to now add a caveat. I had a chance during a recent layover in Toronto’s Pearson airport to pop into the new Mill Street Brewpub (although it is not exactly a brewpub) for a beer.

Tucked near the central hub in Terminal One, it is surprisingly easy to miss. I found it immediately because (a) I was looking for it, and (b) I know the Mill Street logo well. But a casual beer fan might walk right by it, not realizing superior beer lurks within.

The pub has a cramped look and feel, like it was shoe-horned into too small a space. They try to offer some wood paneling decor and Mill Street beer paraphernalia, but it still can’t remove the institutional airport feel. The service was a bit chaotic and uneven – I got a quick initial greeting but it took a surprisingly long time to get my beer. The place and the servers seemed on the edge of crisis. I suspect this is expected early kinks that will hopefully get worked out over the next few months.

But I am prepared to put up with less-than-stellar service to avoid the usual Canadian-Coors-Budweiser axis of insipid. The offer 9 of their beer on tap, including most of their regular bottle line-up (Original, Wit, Tankhouse, Lemon Tea, Stock Ale) plus some tap-only selections – Cobblestone Stout, ESB and IPA. In addition they have two seasonals. Neither caught my attention on this trip (both were fairly boring fruit beer). The ESB was quite enjoyable, and the IPA a little too timid but still flavourful enough to justify a pint.

I found the staff’s beer knowledge not up to snuff. The bartender kept insisting that the ESB was hoppier than the IPA, for example. I also witnessed that they were very quick to direct customers to the Original Lager, rather than see if maybe something else might work. It is like they are expecting everyone to be a Bud drinker, and don’t want to scare them away. They might have something there – but still, why offer only craft beer if you can’t find a way to do a little beer education on the side?

Overall, I was relieved to spend my layover appreciating a decent beer or two, rather than desperately watching the clock tick along. Outside of an airport, I might have been disappointed by Mill Street Brewpub, but behind the iron curtain of the security gate, the beer went down just fine.