Best pubs in Australia, from outback icons to city classics

The pub occupies a strange, central place in Australian life. It is the town hall, the sports bar, the meeting point and, in a lot of outback towns, the only business still open. Some of the pubs on this list are architectural icons. Others are just a tin shed with cold beer in the middle of nowhere, which is exactly the point.

I have tried to balance history with atmosphere here, because a pub with a fascinating backstory and terrible service is not actually worth the detour. Every pub below earns its spot on both counts.

A quick note on etiquette: shout your round when it is your turn, tipping is not expected but rounding up is appreciated, and if you are at a genuinely remote outback pub, buy something even if you are just there for the photo. These places run on thin margins and long distances.

📋 TL;DR — the quick version

• 🏜️ Best outback pub: The Birdsville Hotel, Queensland, at the edge of the Simpson Desert.
• 🏛️ Best historic city pub: The Marble Bar, Sydney, inside a heritage-listed 1890s building.
• 🍺 Best brewery pub: Young Henrys, Sydney, for beer brewed on-site.
• 🌊 Best beer garden: The Prince of Wales, Melbourne’s beachside St Kilda.
• 🐊 Most remote: The Daly Waters Pub, Northern Territory, on the old overland telegraph route.
• 🍻 Etiquette: Take turns shouting rounds — it is a genuine local custom.
• 📍 Book ahead: Popular heritage pubs fill fast on weekends.

🏜️ Outback icons

These pubs exist because someone had to build one, hundreds of kilometres from the next town. Most have become genuine tourist destinations in their own right.

1. The Birdsville Hotel, Queensland. Standing at the edge of the Simpson Desert since 1884, this is the beating heart of the famous Birdsville Races each September.
2. Daly Waters Pub, Northern Territory. Covered wall to wall with hats, bras and travellers’ business cards left by decades of passing road-trippers.
3. The Prairie Hotel, Parachilna, South Australia. Known for its native game menu in the remote Flinders Ranges, including kangaroo and emu.
4. Grand Central Hotel, Coolgardie, Western Australia. A gold rush-era pub in a near-ghost town on the way to the Nullarbor.
5. The Innamincka Hotel, South Australia. One of the most isolated pubs in the country, close to the Strzelecki Track.

🚙 Planning an outback pub crawl

These pubs are usually hundreds of kilometres apart, so treat visiting them as a road trip in its own right rather than a single day out. Carry extra fuel and water between stops, and call ahead if you plan to eat, since remote kitchens often run limited hours.

🏛️ Historic city pubs

Australia’s cities hold some genuinely old pubs, several dating back to the colonial period and still trading under their original names.

1. The Lord Nelson Brewery Hotel, Sydney. One of the oldest continuously licensed pubs in the country, dating to the 1830s, with its own on-site brewery.
2. The Hero of Waterloo, Sydney. A sandstone pub from 1843 in The Rocks, complete with a tunnel once used to smuggle unwilling sailors onto ships.
3. Young and Jackson, Melbourne. A city institution opposite Flinders Street Station, famous for the Chloe painting hanging inside.
4. The Wentworth Hotel, Melbourne. A classic Victorian corner pub in the inner suburbs, largely unchanged in character for decades.
5. The Adelaide Oval Hotel precinct pubs. A cluster of traditional South Australian pubs within walking distance of one of the country’s most famous sporting grounds.

👉 Book a Sydney Historic Pub Crawl on GetYourGuide →

🍺 Best beer gardens and brewery pubs

Craft brewing has taken off across Australia over the past two decades, and plenty of pubs now brew what they pour.

1. Young Henrys, Newtown, Sydney. A working brewery with a taproom attached, popular for weekend tastings and tours.
2. The Prince of Wales, St Kilda, Melbourne. A beachside pub with live music and a beer garden a short walk from the sand.
3. Stone and Wood Brewing, Byron Bay. A relaxed taproom close to the beach, one of the region’s best-known craft breweries.
4. Little Creatures Brewery, Fremantle. Set in a converted boat shed on Fremantle’s waterfront, one of Western Australia’s most popular breweries.
5. The Winery, Brisbane. A large outdoor beer garden built into an old warehouse, popular for weekend afternoons.

🐊 Quirky and unforgettable pubs

These pubs are less about the beer list and more about the story attached to the building, the location, or both.

1. The Purple Pub, Normanton, Queensland. Painted bright purple, this outback pub has become a landmark stop on the Gulf Savannah route.
2. The Walkabout Creek Hotel, McKinlay, Queensland. Made famous as a filming location in Crocodile Dundee, largely unchanged since.
3. The Pink Roadhouse, Oodnadatta, South Australia. Painted entirely pink, a quirky landmark on one of the outback’s most remote tracks.
4. The Larrimah Hotel, Northern Territory. One of the smallest and most remote pubs in the country, in a town with a population you can count on two hands.

👉 Book a Queensland Outback Road Trip Experience on GetYourGuide →

🍻 A few pub etiquette basics

Australian pub culture has a few unwritten rules that make the experience smoother if you know them ahead of time.

Shouting rounds is common practice in a group — when it is your turn, you buy for the table, and the next round comes back to you eventually. Tipping is not expected the way it is in North America, though rounding up or leaving small change is appreciated for good service. Most pubs serve food until mid-afternoon and then again from around six, with a gap in between, so check the kitchen hours before you plan a late lunch.

And if you find yourself at a remote outback pub after a long stretch of driving, take a moment before you order. These places have survived on very little for a very long time, and the warm welcome you get is usually as genuine as the beer is cold.

🍔 What to actually order at an Australian pub

Pub food in Australia has come a long way from the frozen-and-fried reputation it once had, though the classics still hold their own on most menus. Knowing what to order, and what to skip, makes a real difference to a pub visit.

• 🥩 The parma. Short for chicken parmigiana, this crumbed chicken schnitzel topped with napoli sauce and cheese is close to a national pub dish, and Tuesday is often “parma night” with discounted prices.
• 🐟 Fish and chips. A pub classic worth ordering at coastal locations specifically, where the fish is more likely to be genuinely local.
• 🥧 The counter meal. Simple, hearty pub meals like steak, chips and salad remain a reliable order almost everywhere, particularly in regional and outback pubs.
• 🍺 A schooner or a middy. Beer sizes vary by state — a schooner is roughly 425ml, while a middy or pot is smaller, so ask locally if you are unsure what you are ordering.
• 🦘 Native game, where available. Some regional and outback pubs, particularly in South Australia, serve kangaroo, emu or crocodile as a genuine local specialty rather than a novelty.

🎯 Ordering and paying, Australian style

Most Australian pubs use table service for drinks in the bar area but expect you to order food at the counter, often with a numbered stand to bring to your table. Tipping is not expected, though rounding up is appreciated for good service. If in doubt, watch what the regulars are doing — pub etiquette varies slightly by state and by venue, and a quick glance at the room usually clears up any confusion.

🏗️ A short history of the Australian pub

Pubs arrived with the earliest colonial settlements and quickly became one of the only reliable gathering points in towns that otherwise had very little social infrastructure. In remote areas especially, the pub often doubled as the post office, the bank, and occasionally the only accommodation for travellers passing through.

That legacy still shapes how many outback pubs operate today. The Birdsville Hotel and Daly Waters Pub both continue to function as genuine community hubs rather than simply tourist stops, hosting everything from race day celebrations to funerals for locals who have lived in the district their whole lives. Visiting one of these pubs is as much a piece of social history as it is a place to get a drink.

🎸 Pubs with live music worth planning around

Australia has a strong pub rock tradition, and several venues on this list, along with others around the country, remain genuinely significant stops on the touring circuit for both emerging and established acts.

1. The Corner Hotel, Melbourne. A well-regarded mid-size venue that has hosted major Australian and international acts for decades.
2. The Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle. A long-running venue known for breaking new Australian bands.
3. The Caravan Club, Perth. A smaller, intimate venue with a loyal local following.
4. The Zoo, Brisbane. An inner-city venue with a strong reputation for live original music.

Checking a pub’s gig calendar before a visit, particularly on a weekend, can turn an ordinary pub stop into a genuinely memorable night, especially in cities with a strong live music scene like Melbourne.

🧭 Planning a themed pub trip

For travellers who want to build a trip specifically around pub culture, a couple of regions offer enough density and variety to justify it as a genuine theme rather than an afterthought.

An outback pub trail through western Queensland or the Northern Territory’s Explorer’s Way strings together several remote, character-filled pubs with genuinely long distances between them, making it a proper road trip in its own right rather than a single afternoon activity. Sydney and Melbourne, by contrast, both support a walkable inner-city pub crawl covering several historic venues within a compact area, better suited to travellers without a car who still want a sense of each city’s pub heritage.

Whichever version of this trip appeals, pace yourself. The best pub experiences in Australia tend to come from lingering at one or two good venues rather than rushing through a long checklist, and a slow afternoon with good company at a single great pub usually beats a hurried tour of five average ones.

🚙 Designated drivers and getting home safely

Drink driving laws in Australia are strictly enforced, with random breath testing common on both city and regional roads. If a pub crawl or an outback pub trip involves driving between venues, plan for a designated driver, or better yet, treat the pubs as a series of separate stops across different days rather than a single driving loop.

In remote areas, this matters even more, since distances between pubs are often significant and emergency services can be a long way off. Many outback pubs offer basic accommodation upstairs or nearby specifically for this reason, and booking a room rather than pushing on to the next town after a few drinks is both safer and, more often than not, the better travel experience anyway.

🍻 A pub is rarely just about the drink

What separates a memorable pub visit from a forgettable one in Australia usually has very little to do with the beer list. It is the conversation with a stranger at the next stool, the framed photo of a flood from fifty years ago on the wall, the publican who has run the place for three decades and knows every regular by name.

That is doubly true in the outback, where a pub might be the only business for a hundred kilometres in any direction. Treat these places with a bit of curiosity rather than rushing through for a photo and a quick beer. Ask about the building’s history, or what the town used to look like before the highway bypassed it. More often than not, you will walk away with a better story than anything you could have planned.

Whichever pub you end up at first, order something local, take your time, and let the room tell you what to do next. It usually will.