RAISING THE BAR
A celebration of our great pubs far and wide that continue to be a central pillar of Australian life.
IT HAS BEEN MORE than 200 years since pubs were introduced to Australia and they were SWIFTLY ESTABLISHED as an integral COMMUNITY resource offering much more than just BEER. And while various INCARNATIONS have come and gone, the LOCAL PUB remains an INTOXICATING symbol of Australia’s CULTURAL IDENTITY.
IT WAS TO BE HIS FIRST AND ONLY senior football premiership, but unfortunately Ron Trimble doesn’t remember a lot of it. The young utility fell victim to a cheap shot behind play in the second quarter, the catalyst for a melee in the 1978 Loddon Valley Football League grand final between Trimble’s Newbridge and Mitiamo. A good whiff of smelling salts did the trick, as it was often called upon to do in those days, and Trimble was back up and running.
Thanks to the concussion, the now 64-year-old is sketchy on the finer details, but he does remember this: victory was sweet and the beer at the Newbridge Hotel after the game was even sweeter.
The only pub left standing in the small central Victorian town, about 40 kilometres west of Bendigo, the Newbridge Hotel has a long and proud history with the Newbridge Football/Netball Club (NFNC). And post-match drinks are just the beginning. The pub was a long-standing sponsor of the ‘Maroons’ until the tables turned in 2015 and the NFNC took on the hotel lease.
“Because it’s run on a volunteer basis, apart from a couple of paid employees, [customers] could be served by the senior coach or the president or the guy that kicked 10 [goals] or the guy that had 10 kicked on him,” explains club president Kristian Shelvin. “The community engagement has been massive.”
Although Newbridge benefits from a unique scenario, community engagement is a hallmark of the great Australian pub. Whether a grand colonial centrepiece or a sticky-carpeted boozer, a rickety shed off the beaten track or a spectacularly renovated classic, the pub is a meeting place where chins wag, glasses clink and sorrows drown.
And they are a fundamental part of Australia’s story – a story that has, no doubt, been told, exaggerated and reinvented over a beer or
two (or three) at many of the 6000-plus pubs that pepper our great southern land today.
It has been 223 years since the country’s first legal pubs opened their doors. They proliferated in the 19th century and, in many cases, were the first structures to be built in newly colonised areas. In fact, many towns were quite literally built around the pub, which typically fulfilled numerous roles – post office, general store, restaurant, morgue. That’s right, some pub cellars doubled as the local morgue.
Much changed over the following decades, not least the fact you’ll no longer be drinking alongside the dearly departed. While a number of pubs have fallen victim to social change and economic hardship, the likes of the Newbridge Hotel hold firm as community icons. Meanwhile, well-considered renovations are lifting many city boozers to new heights.
“The pub keeps reinventing itself, it never stands still,” says Tanja Luckins, La Trobe University historian and co-author of The Australian Pub. “Pubs are businesses, they change as our society changes, with migration, with gender issues – society changes a lot and the savvy ones adapt.”
If the size of his Merivale portfolio is anything to go by, Justin Hemmes is one of the savviest of all. Hemmes’ empire comprises more than 70 venues across Sydney and the crowds give the game away: a Merivale revamp is a success story in progress.
With the hospitality trifecta of restaurants, pubs and bars already entrenched as his trademark, Hemmes made a major splash in 2014 with the head-to-toe transformation of notorious dive, Coogee’s Beach Palace Hotel. Now the Coogee Pavilion, the three-level beachside venue is a hub of activity and one of its major drawcards is accessibility.
“The underlying principles [of Merivale venues] are the same, which is really about inclusiveness,” says interior designer Kelvin Ho, founder of Akin Atelier and regular Merivale collaborator. “It’s about celebrating the Australian lifestyle, it’s about creating a space where you could go on a date, you could take your grandparents, you could go there with family or for a boys’ lunch – just creating a really super-egalitarian space for people.” Renowned for his unique vision, Ho has worked with Hemmes on numerous Merivale assignments including the Pavilion and subsequent pub projects The Newport, The Collaroy and Queens Hotel in Enmore. He even had the opportunity to work on his own local, The Royal in Bondi.
“It is so satisfying to go there now and feel like it still has the same spirit, the same energy, but in a much more modern way,” he says. “I feel that’s what people are often sceptical about with a pub changing hands and getting renovated – losing the heritage and the character. That’s probably the biggest part that plays on my mind, making sure that we do a good job for the future patrons.”
Although it’s easy to romanticise the bygone era of well-worn and much-loved pubs, there are a number of reasons many have not survived the test of time. Andy Mullins, one fifth of hospitality group Sand Hill Road, highlights the disregard for female clientele as one of the major drawbacks of long-standing pub traditions – something his team has attempted to address since its first refurbishment, the Commercial Club Hotel in Melbourne’s Fitzroy in 2000.
“Everything [we did at the Commercial] was designed to challenge the convention of what we understood an Australian pub to represent, which was still pretty ‘blokey’, filled with cigarette smoke, filled with TVs and sweat,” he says. “Our point wasn’t to … disrespect that, it just felt like there was an entire half of Melbourne’s potential pub-going market that wasn’t even considered in design.”
“It’s about creating a space where you could go on a date, you could take your grandparents, you could go there with family or for a boys’ lunch.”
It’s not about pretty pubs – “that would be condescending”, says Mullins – it’s about sensitive design and improving the food and beverage offering. And it’s about toilets that don’t trigger the gag reflex. These considerations can be seen in the group’s latest revamp, too.
Launched last year, the five-level Hotel Esplanade, affectionately known as the Espy, in St Kilda boasts 12 bars, two kitchens and even a podcast studio. “You can’t just roll out the same ideas,” Mullins says. They were also determined to do the hotel’s celebrated music history justice, which is why the Gershwin room and its hallowed stage survived virtually untouched.
The colourful history and tradition of Australia’s pub scene deserves preservation so this type of affectionate nod is important. Interior designer Bianca Isgro, who cut her teeth on heritage pub refurbishments in Sydney including The Bank Hotel (Newtown), The Golden Sheaf (Double Bay), and Public House Petersham, says celebrating this character is her modus operandi.
“I suffer from nostalgia, so designing within a heritage pub is a dream for me. The layers of history, the stories, the conversations, the fights, the romance; they’re never perfect or beautiful spaces, there’s a bit of grit and stick.
“I think whatever you do in a pub should authentically reflect the community within which it sits. I am much more inspired by the old relics than anything new. They’re usually so wrong, they’re right.”
Although in smaller numbers than in days gone by, those old relics can still be found scattered across the country. The simple fact they’re still trading is part of the appeal, and many clever operators turn nostalgia and idiosyncrasy into a selling point.
Take the Grand Hotel in Kookynie, about 790 kilometres northeast of Perth, where a horse, quite literally, walks into a bar. Willie, a former pace-horse, has become a regular patron at the historic Grand, which also serves as Kookynie’s post office and general store.
Or the Prairie Hotel in Parachilna, a remote town in South Australia’s Flinders Ranges. With a population of just seven, there aren’t many locals to keep the Prairie heaving, but tourists are drawn to the warm hospitality and the famous Feral Mixed Grill, a roadkill fry-up including kangaroo, camel and emu.
But perhaps Australia’s most renowned country alehouse is the Birdsville Hotel, located deep in the harsh Queensland outback. The 1884-built pub emerges from the Simpson Desert like a mirage, but the cultural icon is no illusion and an ice-cold beer in the front bar will soon confirm as much.
“We all know that we’re part of something very special here,” says manager Ben Fullager. “It is such a welcoming watering hole for people.”
In the seaside village of Patonga, on the NSW Central Coast – a setting about as far removed from the Queensland outback as a thirsty Aussie could find – The Boathouse Group is attempting to instil a similar sense of spirit in its newest venue. The Boathouse Hotel Patonga is an extension of the group’s existing portfolio in both aesthetics and geography, but a shift from the cafe format synonymous with the Boathouse name. The Boathouse Group managing director Andrew Goldsmith says moving the brand into a small, established community is a delicate challenge.
“We want [The Boathouse] to hopefully, over time, become an iconic brand associated with the waterside Australian lifestyle, so for us Patonga was a bit of a no-brainer,” he says. “It’s like those memories you’ve got growing up in the country or beachside towns; there’s no kerb, the roads are all flat, there’s one caravan park, one playground, one cricket oval … it’s just that quintessential Australian fishing village.
“We aim for all our Boathouse venues to be the heart of their community. We really want The Boathouse Hotel Patonga to do that [and] it’s very much at the forefront of our conversations each week.”
Oliver Brown is on Goldsmith’s wavelength, although rather than bringing The Stag Public House into a new era, his Big Easy
Group wants to deliver the Adelaide stalwart to its former glory. Adelaide pubs have been under threat from the city’s burgeoning small-bar scene since 2013 when a new class of liquor licensing for small venues was introduced.
Brown, who boasts small-bar experience under The Big Easy banner, says The Stag needs to tap into what has made Adelaide’s small bars so successful.
“I think people associate good service and speciality service or great knowledge with small bars, but less so with the pubs,” he says. “We’re really trying to focus on that customer experience … so hopefully we’re going to start seeing a resurgence in pubs.”
In an effort to revisit The Stag’s halcyon days, Brown says a “sense of community needs to pass through everything”. The first change was to make way for a longer bar, which invites patrons, especially those flying solo, to “have a bit of a chinwag” if they’re so inclined. The Big Easy Group has also introduced flexible furniture arrangements, ensuring that a victorious footy team can be just as easily accommodated as a date night.
It’s a strategy Trimble would certainly approve of. Win or lose, you’ll find the sexagenarian at the Newbridge Hotel following the Maroons’ next home game, where his club is always accommodated, the beer is always sweet and the community spirit even sweeter.
“I think whatever you do in a pub should authentically reflect the community within which it sits. I am much more inspired by the old relics than anything new. They’re usually so wrong, they’re right.”