Bar 10. Bar 7. 54 Below. 71 St Vincent St. No 16 Byres Rd.
A night out in Glasgow is more like passing an arithmetic exam. Instead of taking a well- stocked wallet and donning some funky gear, you'd be better off with a calculator and an abacus.
Drinking games? Forget it. A trawl through Glasgow's pubs and restaurants is more of a numbers game. While 71 and 16 might in fact be restaurants, the pattern is nonetheless there.
Yet numerate readers, who crunch beer cans as well as they do numbers, will have spotted a glaring omission from this list - and it's one of the most popular bars in the Merchant City. It's an odd number - the result of seven multiplied by 13 - and although just nine years old, already a familiar face in an area that seems to change from week to week.
Bar 91, folks, is the boozer in question.
The Merchant City is, in some quarters, derided for the fact it's turned into a poser's paradise with good traditional drinking man's bars bulldozed in favour of some superficial consumerist style.
A few years back, bars like Granny Blacks and The Riggs Bar provided the eastern block of the city centre - previously known as Candleriggs - with a healthy contrast. With bars like Arta, Corinthian, The Brunswick, Moda, Metropolitan, Cuba Norte and Tiger Tiger all jockeying for position within one square mile of each other, a newcomer to the city could be forgiven for thinking the G1 postcode was always the place for the fashion conscious - with style police on the doors.
For the record, Glasgow artist Stuart Murray brilliantly chronicled these changes a couple of years ago in his scratchy lithograph drawings of disillusioned Merchant City drinkers.
These days, ask anyone who goes to Sub Club and shops in Dr Jives where the action is and they'll likely tell you Bar 91.
When city planners razed the old bars to the ground, Bar 91 inherited the mantle as a Merchant City veteran. On the night we visited, it was difficult to gauge the punters as most were wearing Scotland strips, some with wigs, to celebrate the 1-1 tie with Germany.
Any other time, it's full of confidently trendy types - shunning the freshly- ironed-shirt look of neighbouring punters - relaxing under the dark wood mirrors and stripped brick walls.
A rocket booster arrangement behind the bar is always a talking point while waiting for a pint.
And on a summer's evening, Bar 91 indulges its patrons with a wee bit of al fresco drinking by opening the big partitioned windows - allowing them a view of the ever- changing Merchant City.
Open: 11am-midnight, Monday-Saturday; 12.30pm-midnight, Sunday
Food: 11am-6pm
Drinks: Pint, £2.20; bottled beer, £2.50; vodka and coke, £2.40
Details
0141 552 5211
A few years back, bars like Granny Blacks and The Riggs Bar provided the eastern block of the city centre - previously known as Candleriggs - with a healthy contrast. With bars like Arta, Corinthian, The Brunswick, Moda, Metropolitan, Cuba Norte and Tiger Tiger all jockeying for position within one square mile of each other, a newcomer to the city could be forgiven for thinking the G1 postcode was always the place for the fashion conscious - with style police on the doors.
For the record, Glasgow artist Stuart Murray brilliantly chronicled these changes a couple of years ago in his scratchy lithograph drawings of disillusioned Merchant City drinkers.
These days, ask anyone who goes to Sub Club and shops in Dr Jives where the action is and they'll likely tell you Bar 91.
When city planners razed the old bars to the ground, Bar 91 inherited the mantle as a Merchant City veteran. On the night we visited, it was difficult to gauge the punters as most were wearing Scotland strips, some with wigs, to celebrate the 1-1 tie with Germany.
Any other time, it's full of confidently trendy types - shunning the freshly- ironed-shirt look of neighbouring punters - relaxing under the dark wood mirrors and stripped brick walls.
A rocket booster arrangement behind the bar is always a talking point while waiting for a pint.
And on a summer's evening, Bar 91 indulges its patrons with a wee bit of al fresco drinking by opening the big partitioned windows - allowing them a view of the ever- changing Merchant City.
Open: 11am-midnight, Monday-Saturday; 12.30pm-midnight, Sunday
