A brighter shade of ale at Steam

It's hard not to warm to STEAM. The place may look like just another style bar kitted out with the analgesic appeal of the moment, but underneath that numb exterior beats a passionate Low Countries heart.

Some of the most civilised and convivial bars in the world are to be found in Belgium and Holland; the idea that a beer list could be as mouthwatering a prospect as a wine list is self-evident there. The tables are always clean; every beer has its own glass; instead of fighting your way to a sticky bar where a dyspeptic landlord does his best to avoid your gaze, your beer is brought to you by an eel-swift waiter in an apron.

Inspiration from Brussels (or maybe Seattle) is slowly sinking in, and I'll be most surprised if there aren't at least two dozen distinguished beer lists in London within five years. Britain's magnificent cask ale tradition, now trickling into bottles, makes us the only country in the world to challenge Belgium for sheer beer diversity (though our greatest talent of all, of course, has been for overlooking this fact).

Not that Steam's emphasis is on British cask ales: for that, you want the Head of Steam - no relation - at Euston. Bombadier is the sole cask ale served at Paddington: it was in fine condition and tasted on exuberantly malty, good-humoured form (£3 a pint). I was interested, too, to try Interbrew's "GB Lager" (also £3).

For anyone who follows the often muddy waters which result when beer and politics mingle, this is the Belgian giant's attempt to compensate for the loss of Carling, which Margaret Beckett told the company it had to sell when it bought Bass Brewing. I think it's better than Carling, for which read cleaner and less cloying, though that still doesn't make it much of an achievement.

Anchor Steam is a brighter and chattier glass (though oddly available in half-pints only, at £2.50). Dwan's Black Pearl Irish Stout (£3.50 a pint) is a soft, coal-smoke alternative to Guinness, though make sure your glass is filled a little fuller than mine was; what a shame Tony Blair's Government hasn't, after a mere half-decade of legislation, managed to keep its "full pint" promise.

St Peter's Golden Ale was missing on the night we called, so we consoled ourselves with bottles of the fierce Suffolk Gold (£3 for 355ml) from the same brewery - as well as the fascinating Anchor Small, a 3.2 per cent ale served in 660ml bottles (at £5.50).

The latter is nothing whatsoever like a Mild as the beer list vaguely suggested; I rather doubt, either, that this roseperfumed yet sinewy glass much resembled the kind of thing Shakespeare breakfasted on in his Stratford schooldays. It was, though, a singular drink of alluringly crisp lightness.

The Dutch side of things is accounted for by a swelling band of genevers, though postpone your visit for a few weeks if you want to take a scholarly dip into these as they're still crossing the North Sea at present.

There is also a cocktail range of the ferocious invention Londoners have come to respect. My enthusiastic preliminary foray into the beers ruled out most of these, but I couldn't resist the Dog's Nose since, in one lethal glass (and at only £6), it combines one of the world's greatest bottled beers (Anchor's Liberty Ale) with one of the world's greatest gins (a double shot of Plymouth). There seemed to be a drift of sugar in there, too.