The Fixed Gear Canteen Restaurant

A fixed-gear bike has one cog, no coasting, no freewheel — you pedal as long as the wheels turn. Fixed Gear Brewing borrowed the name, then ran the whole conceit downhill: the Canteen in Guelph's west end pours a Breakaway IPA, a Peloton Pilsner, an Alley Cat Milkshake IPA, and a Cherry Training Wheels Sour, and serves them next to a wood-fired pizza called Card In the Spokes. The cycling jokes could have stopped at the tap handles, the way theme bars usually let a gimmick do the work. Instead they run through a real kitchen — wood oven, raw bar, a long board of house beer — that gives the brewpub something to be after the novelty wears off.

The pizzas carry the food. Card In the Spokes is the one to order first: classic sauce, mozzarella, grilled pineapple, prosciutto, mint, and spicy honey, sweet and salty and a little reckless. Off the Chain goes the other direction, roasted garlic and arugula under prosciutto, Parmesan, and a balsamic reduction; Smooth Sailing keeps it to a clean margherita; Backpeddling layers pesto, roasted red pepper, and goat cheese, and Out of the Pines works artichoke, zucchini, and Kalamata olives for the vegetarian table. Around the pizzas sits the rest of the brewpub spread — wings dusted in hot honey garlic or a dill-pickle dry rub, a wood-fired pretzel with house beer mustard, a bowl of homemade chili, and live East Coast oysters shucked to order with horseradish, mignonette, and lemon. Dessert lands a stout-infused brownie, in case the beer theme needed one more turn.