Top 50 Pubs in Melbourne (2018)
We've scoured Melbourne to find the best 50 pubs in town, based on a myriad of subjective factors such as historic standing, live bands, craft beers, tasty food and of course... great specials.
This is how we judge them:
Longevity
Found a new place that serves dude food and craft beer from Kenya? That's all well and good, but let's see if they're still open in a year, and then we'll decide. We like to reward venues that have stood the test of time in Melbourne's very fickle hospitality scene, by not adopting every fad seen in blogasphere. We also highly rate places that are family owned and operated and of course those with excellent service, no matter the time or customer.
Food
Gone are the days where we would be satisfied with a heart-shaped processed chicken schnitzel from Coles. Now it's all about quality, and more importantly, a quality feed that might just appear in a few happy hour specials.
Craft Beer
We've been big fans of craft beer since 2006, and we really appreciate venues who offer something different to the usual CUB/LION offering by supporting local brewers. It tastes better and due to no preservatives, hangovers are far and few between. Put them in a happy hour and you've got a win
Bands
While we think the death of Melbourne's band venues has been exaggerated somewhat, we do believe having live tunes out the back, or some acoustic in the front bar should be compulsory in this city. If venue managers make an effort in supporting local music, then they're OK by us.
Specials
You'd think that all our picks have great specials but that isn't so. 2013's winner, The Napier Hotel, doesn't have any food or drink specials, however their servings are absolutely huge - The Bogan Burger can feed two ($24), so in effect a main is $12. We also reward consistency, so if a venue has had a great special going for a year, they'll be in our good books. If that special includes craft beer, you'll be rewarded further.
What about BARS? What about outer Melbourne?
While we say this is a PUB countdown, we do include bars in our list that do resemble a pub type atmosphere. We've added a few outer suburban pubs to our list, because they are worthy and kicking goals, though there are not many in comparison to inner-suburban.
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Top 50 Pubs in Melbourne (2018)
