I don’t go to Pub 1905 for the food. Nor is it the generic sports-bar ambience that draws me there, nor the efficient but perfunctory service, nor the row of Golden Tee games that accommodate multiple virtual golfers simultaneously. If I wanted a hipper bar with a more cosmetically fancy clientele, I could go to the Red Star Pub across the street. The main reason I go to the 1905 Pub on Jasper Avenue is because they have Creemore Springs Premium Lager on tap.

Creemore Springs is brewed in the town of Creemore, Ontario, just north of Toronto and, apart from Ontario, Pub 1905 is the only place I’ve ever found it. It is absolutely one of my favourite lagers, though its honeyed amber hue, medium body, creamy mouthfeel and seamless balance of hop bitterness and malt richness could easily fool you into thinking it’s an ale. The only lager I can think of that attains to the same refreshing substantiality is Mahou, which once saved me from the parching heat of August in Madrid (and is pretty hard to find anywhere outside of Spain).

So before I gave any thought to Pub 1905’s extensive bill of fare, I asked my server for a pint of Creemore Springs. Only after a few restorative sips could I properly turn my attention to the menu’s selection of burgers, sandwiches, pizzas, panini, pasta, and assorted entrées. Stumped, I asked my server what she would recommend. “Anything but the chili,” she tossed over a shoulder as she fled to another table that seemed to demand her attention more than I did.

Caught as I was in that no man’s land between lunch (which I hadn’t had) and supper (which I hoped to have), I thought a full meal might mess with my schedule, so I decided to take advantage of 1905’s Friday afternoon 25-cent wing special with a spinach salad ($8.95) to offset the dietary guilt of sucking back a whole plate of deep-fried chicken skin in salty hot sauce.

It was still early enough that the downtown post-work crowd was just starting to trickle in for snacks and discount libations, so another, different (but indifferent) server approached very shortly after I ordered.

“Wingsandspinachdip?” she said to the air above my head. Wait a minute, my mind stammered without engaging my mouth, I didn’t order spinach dip. The dish of dark leaves she slid before me showed that she had misspoken, but there was no time to discuss the disconnect between her words and the empirical facts—she did not break stride as she passed the table. “Awesomenjoyourfood.” Then she was gone.

I guess the tacit agreement between the purveyor of cheap wings and the consumer is that bulk orders at 25 cents a pop do not entitle you to frills. I was provided a steel bucket in which to dispose of the inedible earthly remains of my chicken wings and a small sheaf of napkins, but there was no creamy ranch, bleu cheese, or parm dip to complement the vinegar-and-capsicum sting of the angry reddish-orange meatsicles, no veggie stix, no finger bowl with lemon slice to rinse my oily digits—not even a moist towelette. I might have asked if a server had come near my table again before I was finished, but instead I accepted it. I was getting a bargain, after all, and I didn’t really need a side dish of creamy fat to go along with the crispy, salty fat I had procured in such abundance.

They were pretty good wings—not exceptional, but almost exactly what I think of when I think of wings, with a good wing-to-drumette ratio and a light coating (rather than a slathering) of Louisiana red hot. The spinach salad, on the other hand, went above and beyond the expected. The abundant heap of baby spinach leaves was tossed with slips of prosciutto ham and wedges of mandarin orange, drizzled with a tangy mango vinaigrette that did not stint on the cracked black pepper—it challenged the hot wings for tingling rights on my palate—and topped with a generous dollop of warm goat cheese. I was quite pleased to have such amicable company for my favourite lager, but most of all I was happy to have my favourite lager. That alone guarantees many a return visit to Pub 1905.