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You land at Heathrow's Terminal 5, the newest terminal in the world. It's big and industrial-looking, with a clutch of high-end boutiques and a Gordon Ramsay restaurant. You're tired, and probably lost. But then you pass a sign: The Five Tuns. You have no idea what a tun is, but you know this is a pub. The decor is homely, with globes reminding you of the British empire's former breadth. You order a pint of Sharp's Doom Bar, a bitter from Cornwall - and just off a transatlantic flight, you're in touch with something essential in English culture since the Middle Ages. Pubs are comfy.

The industry, however, is not. British pubs are closing at the rate of five a day, pounded by anti-smoking laws and sniped at by high beer taxes and low six-pack prices at the local grocery store. The British press is speculating on the death of pub culture and reminiscing about the good old days when a pint down the pub was every man's right and every woman's respite. "Pub closures at this rate are threatening an important hub of our social fabric and community history," says Rob Hayward, chief executive officer of the British Beer & Pub Association.

But in Derby, a smallish city a couple of hours away in the East Midlands, none of that seems to matter. Here on a corner near the train station is the Brunswick Inn, built into a terrace housing project for railway workers in 1842.

"It started out as a railwayman's pub, and it never really stopped being one," manager and brewmaster Graham Yates says. Today, a touristy steam engine still runs out of the station in the summers - and its crew still come in after their shift. The engineer makes his presence known in a Norm Peterson kind of way by yelling, "Steam forever!" as he walks through the door. (Steam Forever is now the name of one of the beers on tap.)

If you like the beer, Yates will give you a tour of the backroom brewery, one of four very good ones Derby has to offer. According to beer guru Roger Protz, Yates makes some of the best microbrewed ale around. His favourite is the Triple Hop, which he says is "very hoppy, very bitter, very delicious."

Derby's had its own share of pub closings. The most popular Derby pub crawl used to be called The Derby Mile, a dozen pubs along a mile of straight road into the city centre.

Of these, nine have either shut or put themselves up for lease over the past two years. But at the same time, other pubs, catching the wave of enthusiasm for "real ale" that is sweeping the country, have sprouted up and are thriving. (Real ale, for the record, is most often defined as "that which is not a multinational lager.")

In fact, Protz included 11 Derby pubs in his Best Beer Guide, a huge showing for such a small city - one that Protz tells me may be, with its 145 indie ales, the best pub city in the nation. There are two annual beer festivals in Derby, for which beers from around the region are collected in a single venue for ease of tasting and difficulty of getting lost. The next festival is July 8 to 12 and will celebrate the 300th anniversary of Samuel Johnson's birth, as well as his 1735 marriage in a Derby church.

But on vacation, it's best to visit these singular ales in their native habitats. Once you're done with Graham at the Brunswick, follow the north bank of the duck-filled Derwent northward and you'll run into The Royal Standard, owned and run by Trevor Harris, the man who resurrected the Brunswick before Yates took over. He brews his own here too, and provides an excellent example of how pubs don't have to be olde-style to be good and authentic. With windowed walls, cedar panels and an upstairs lounge and deck overlooking the river, the Standard is a Derby success story. Opened in 1864, reputedly visited by Queen Victoria and, for a short time in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it was Derby's (and probably England's) only topless pub. It was on the verge of demolition when Harris bought it in 2007 and gave it a thorough renovation. The best thing about it is "the racks", trays of 1/3-pint glasses of the five home brews, served with a selection of local cheeses (and possibly named with a wink to the pub's recent past), all for £5.

From here, you've got some options. There are some fine pubs just outside the city's core. But for your first time, stay in the centre, where the pubs are all within wobbling distance of each other.

Just across the river from the Standard, for instance, is Jorrocks, once known as The George - and the site of a few Bonnie Prince Charlie moments during the 1745 uprising. The ales are real, and so is the caved-in skull behind the bar, dug up during renovations 15 years ago. Liam Kirk, the owner's son who is acting as bouncer, figures it belonged to a Viking woman. Stocky in a rugby, hurling kind of a way, his stout neck size giving him some problems in the sleeve-length department, Liam is obviously a little proud of being in line to own this place where so much has happened for so long. "This place used to be a block long," he says, "and it was Derby's first skyscraper." The skyscraping three floors above the now very small pub are rented rooms.

If you want a real local experience, a glimpse into how that skull got where it was, perhaps, show up here on a day Derby's playing Nottingham. I was there the night before a game, and the staff had cleared out all the furniture and taken down all the wall hangings in anticipation of a truly enthusiastic day's drinking ahead.

The oldest pub in Derby, founded in 1530, Ye Olde Dolphin is just a minute up the road from Jorrocks. With low, timbered ceilings, this old haunt of legendary highwayman Dick Turpin is a perfect example of why you want to go pubbing in Derby rather than London.

In London, an equivalently aged pub would, in Protz's words, be "stuck up and totally suffused with its own history." The Dolphin, on the other hand, is just a very old local, complete with Wednesday talks from local historians about Georgian Derby and Derby Beneath Your Feet.

It's a quiet pub that wears its age well, right down to the gracefully worn upholstery.

And there's no better place to end up than The Flower Pot. It's where Eggy ends up most nights. He's a former biker, he tells me, but he has calmed down enough to like this place I tell him we're from out of town, that we're not just passing through, that Derby was our destination, and he looks around the place with a self-conscious look I've seen before. It says, you travelled thousands of kilometres and you ended up here? He asks me what I see in the place. I answer with the same question. "It's comfortable," he says. "And I like the Bishops Farewell. It's a really flowery pint." I tell him meeting an ex-biker named Eggy who feels comfortable enough in his local to call a pint flowery is all the reason I need to be here. The Flower Pot also probably has Derby's largest selection of ales. Which is another reason.

If you haven't already, this is where you'll want to come to terms with the half-pint - as I have. Eggy notices. And instead of disdain, I get a conspiratorial grin. "Out for a big night?" he asks. I look at my wee glass and smile.

"It's the only way to do it and keep standing," he says. Indeed, a necessity in Derby if you want to get through what's on offer, much of which is available nowhere else. The good pubs will know what you mean, and why you're asking.

After all, they have tradition. As The Economist put it last year, pubs "offering a homey, relaxed alternative to the more stylish, high-pressure environment of a bar or nightclub" are "the most significant contribution that the British have made to the cause of human happiness." You wouldn't find an argument in the Flower Pot. And as for me, I've been happy since the Five Tuns.

*****

A half-pint glance

Pubs in Britain:

Approximately 58,000

No-smoking laws

introduced: July, 2007

Number of British beer drinkers weekly: 15 million

Average price for a pint: £2.82

Sale price per pint in grocery stores: As little as 24p

Price change for a pub pint since 2002: +24%

Price change for a grocery store pint: -7%

*****

WHILE YOU'RE THERE

Established in 1189, the oldest pub in Britain, Ye Olde Trip to

Jerusalem - carved out of the rock at the base of the hill that Nottingham Castle is built on -

is a short train trip away; 1 Brewhouse Yard, Nottingham; 44 (115) 9473171.

While in Nottingham, walk a couple of blocks and drop by Ye Olde Salutation, founded in 1240; Hounds Gate, Maid Marian Way, 44 (115) 9881948; and The Bell, founded as a refectory for a Carmelite monastery in the Middle Ages, and as a public ale house around 1539; 18 Angel Row; 44 (115) 9475241. Ask manager Craig Sharpe-Weir to show you the almost thousand-year-old caverns and paths underneath the place, which apparently go for kilometres, right up into the castle.

A little southwest of Derby is Burton-on-Trent (http://www.burton-on-trent.com), world-famous in brewing circles for once having produced a quarter of all the beer in England. This is the place that first brewed India Pale Ale (or IPA) in the late 19th century. This is where Marmite and Bovril also originated, and is still the home of Bass beer.

The Peak District, of which Derby is the hub, is one of the most beautiful walking areas in England, with hills and plains and moors, all starting just a few minutes outside the city centre. You could take a Transpeak bus to one of the villages (Ashford-in-the-Water is especially pretty) and walk along the river Wye (http://www.derbyshireuk.net/ashford; http://www.visitpeakdistrict.com).

B.A.

*****

PACK YOUR BAGS

GETTING THERE

For a glance at the Five Tuns, British Airways (http://www.britishairways.com) flies to Heathrow's Terminal 5 several times a day from all major Canadian airports. From Heathrow, take the train or subway to St. Pancras Station for trains to Derby. A BritRail pass (from $206; http://www.britrail.com) will make this more convenient and also allow you to take side trips.

WHERE TO STAY The Cathedral Quarter Hotel 16 St. Mary's Gate; 44 (115) 8523-207; http://www.cathedralquarterhotel.com. Rates from $160. Jorrocks, the Dolphin, the Flower Pot and about a dozen other pubs are all within a five-minute walk.

WHERE TO DRINK

The Brunswick Inn 1 Railway Terrace, Derby; 44 (1332) 290677.

The Royal Standard Derwent Street, Derby; 44 (1332) 200074.

Jorrocks 41 Iron Gate, Derby; 44 (1332) 346852.

Ye Olde Dolphin 5a Queen St., Derby, 44 (1332) 267711.

The Flower Pot 23-25 King St., Derby; 44 (1332) 204955.

PUB LANGUAGE

Bar: The actual bar and the space immediately surrounding it, with stools and standing room.

Beer ticker: Like a trainspotter, a beer geek who roams the countryside ticking off beers from his life list.

Chip butty: A French fry and butter sandwich.

Cozy: A little room set off from the main space where some intimacy is possible.

Glass: Common word for a half-pint.

Guest ale: An indie brew from elsewhere a pub manager will bring in for a week or two, to liven things up.

Have one for yourself: What to say when giving a barman a tip, a holdover from the time when it was common for barmen to drink with their clients. Tips, by the way, are usually given only with food orders or large drink orders, and even then only at 10 per cent.

Nip: Be wary of your context here, because a nip can be 1/3 of a pint, a strong beer or a turnip.

Real ale: Any domestically brewed ale that distinguishes itself from international lagers.

Saloon: The larger area away from the bar, where there are tables and chairs.

Session beer: A beer that is less than 4-per-cent alcohol and can therefore be consumed at length.

Tun: A unit of measurement, equivalent to 954 litres.