Tumut River Brewing Co should be stop number one on your pub hop. Photo: Visit NSW.
Tucked into the foothills of the Snowy Mountains, in the pretty riverside town of Tumut, the country pub is still very much alive, and the old saying of one on every corner isn’t far from the truth.
With five historic pubs lining the main street and a modern brewpub just out of town, Tumut makes a compelling case as a weekend pub hop destination with a few autumn leaves thrown in free of charge.
It’s the sort of town that rewards those who linger. And if lingering in a pub with good company sounds like your kind of weekend, here’s how to do it.
Tumut River Brewing Co is a lively eclectic space with a large pizza menu. Photo: Tenele Conway.
Tumut River Brewing Co
Located on the outskirts of town, this modern brewpub is the perfect place to kick off your Tumut pub hop.
The atmosphere is lively; day-drinking is not only acceptable but is encouraged, the craft brews are locally produced onsite and the menu will fuel you for what is to come.
These guys take their beer seriously and are always stretching themselves to create new flavours. Think blood orange sour, a vanilla brown coffee ale, a pumpkin brown ale and my favourite in recent years, their honeycomb ale, which is deeply fragrant and the perfect accompaniment to their extensive pizza menu.
The historic Star Hotel offers a good blend of history and modern comforts. Photo: The Star Hotel.
The Star Hotel
From the brewery it’s just under 2 km back into town to the logical next stop on your pub hop and that’s the Star Hotel. This will put you on the south-western end of the main street with all five pubs within an easy walk.
With its two-storey Victorian facade and wrought-iron verandahs, the Star blends heritage bones with a more contemporary feel inside. Outside, the seating along Russell Street is prime position to watch the town drift by and catch some of that famous mountain air.
Every good pub hop needs snacks, and the menu at the Star has snacks aplenty with prawn twisters, nachos, salt and pepper squid and the near-compulsory bowl of chips that will soak up your beverages.
For a break from the beer, the local gin distillery Pretty Parrot has a base here, and for a reasonable price you can explore a range of gins, including flavours such as Quandong and Davidson Plum and Lemon Myrtle.
The Commercial Hotel
Just a few steps around the corner and across the main road, your next stop is the Commercial Hotel, or “the Mersch”, as the locals call it.
The vibe here is an old-school kind of comfort where you can kick your boots up next to the fireplace and enjoy a yarn with the locals.
Originally built as a private home, the building carries a different character to the classic country pub, and that sense of evolution adds to its charm with its changing face proof that history is an evolution and buildings can live many lives.
The pub is also home to Kinnaree Thai, and a few chicken satay skewers and some curry puffs wouldn’t go astray at this point of your pub hop.
The Royal Hotel
You’ll be lucky to find a country town without a Royal Hotel in it, and Tumut is no exception. Opened in 1872, the Royal stands on the site of a former pub, The Rising Moon Hotel.
While renovations in the early 2000s have softened the historical edges inside, what remains is a comfortable, welcoming space that does exactly what it needs to do.
If you’re hitting the Royal at dinnertime the Harvest Kitchen hits all the country classics from beer battered Barrumundi and lamb cutlets to a hearty steak sandwich and a generous chicken parmi. If you’re saving your calories for the liquid variety, you can go the healthy route with a Thai beef salad, a nourish bowl packed full of veg or a grilled chicken poke bowl.
The Woolpack Hotel
Despite dating back to the mid-19th century, the Woolpack packs some serious mid-20th-century retro vibes. From the wood panelling to the classic bathrooms with design touches from the 50s, this is living history in action, and it’s exactly what you want from a country pub hop.
The Woolpack is a pub with heart. The service is warm, the meals are generous and the locals are more than happy to settle in for the long haul.
Time it right and you might land in the middle of live music, a pub choir or a meat raffle, the kind of events that remind you pubs are as much about community as they are about beer.
The Oriental Hotel is an ornate reminder of our gold rush history. Photo: Tenele Conway.
The Oriental Hotel
As you leave the Woolpack, you can pat yourself on the back for a pub hop well done; you’ve got one more stop now and it’s a doozy.
Standing proud on the adjacent corner is the Oriental Hotel. An imposing and ornate pub from 1876, she’s a fine reminder of the wealth of the gold rush era and what a pub can be if we care for our heritage.
Like all country pubs, she has a nickname, in this case ‘The Ori’, and here the atmosphere is relaxed and, most importantly, friendly.
If you’ve saved dinner for the final stop, you can’t go wrong at The Ori. These guys work with local producers to source high-quality meats and local Snowy River trout.
The extensive menu has flavours to suit all tastes, including decadent salads, as well as Mexican dishes, Asian fusion options and a chargrill menu which includes a huge rack of pork ribs that will be more than welcome after the legwork you’ve put into this excursion.
What makes Tumut such a perfect pub crawl isn’t just the number of venues but the way they flow together. It’s not about rushing from one drink to the next. It’s about settling in, moving on when it feels right, and letting the town reveal itself one pub at a time.
