It was a joke that stuck. While he was searching for a name for his new bar, Patrick McGann decided to paint The Bar With No Name over the door as a humorous sort of placeholder. The response from his clientele was so enthusiastic he didn’t dare change it. Instead, Patrick embraced the tongue-in-cheek name, making t-shirts with the bar’s new question-mark logo; the logo can also be found on the bar’s own brand of beer, brewed for them by Wellington Brewery. The name may not say a lot about the place, but the beer sure does.
When The Bar With No Name first opened in 2010, it was one of the few places dedicated to craft beer, and there was a similarly small list of producers. Now there are 140 craft breweries in Ontario alone, which keeps Patrick busy testing new brews. He keeps his ten staples always on tap, well-respected Ontario names like Mill St. and Amsterdam, and constantly rotates in two others to keep things interesting. The bottles and cans also represent a few of the usual suspects like Flying Monkey and Nickel Brook, but also adventuresome newcomers like The Brickworks Cider and Prison Break and Fire in the Rye by Double Trouble Brewery.
“I’m a bit of a hop-head. I love hoppy beers, I love the stronger taste," says Patrick. "You don’t want to always have the same thing though, and I’m always happy to try new brands.” Because the range of craft locals is so varied, the bar’s namesake concoction — the No Name brew — is a nice light lager for those who are used to more understated flavours.
