Gatton is a town of 6001 people located a few hours drive west of Brisbane. It is located in South East Queensland’s fertile Lockyer Valley. It is well known for its University campus and its good pubs. Intrepid AustralianBeers.com reviewers were set the task of discovering its hidden gems.
On the drive into town we passed many fruit shops which sell local fresh fruit and vegetables at bargain basement prices. For example, lettuce at 5 cents a head, mangos at 9 cents each or eggs at 49 cents a dozen. By comparison you’ll pay 99 cents for a head of lettuce in any shopping centre in Brisbane. We noticed that every fruit shop had its own “big” gimmick such as the Big Orange or the Big Red Elephant. One even has an old army tank parked outside which you are allowed to climb into or over – basically the game is to catch your attention and get you to stop.
After checking out the tank and stocking up on fruit, we headed past the University of Queensland Campus and the omnipresent McDonalds drive-through which seems to feed the entire local student population. The University of Queensland acquired the Gatton Campus a number of years ago and offers many agriculture related courses there. It is regarded as the best institution of this sort in Australia. The presence of this uni and its attendant students gives Gatton a university town flavour reminiscent of Oxford. It may not have old buildings, famous academics, prestige, tourists, shops, traffic, rain and freezing weather but it certainly does have PUBS.
The town centre is organised in the same way as in most Australian towns. Almost all commerce focuses on the main drag (street). Every one of the town’s five pubs is located on the main street. Three are exceptionally close together: the Commercial is across the road from the Royal which is next door to the Federal. The Imperial is about a further 100 meters up the road and if you go another 500 meters, you’ll hit the Gatton View. It must be pretty competitive for these pubs but each has a particular loyal clientele – eg. the Federal is the older local’s pub whereas the Imperial is popular with the younger student crowd. Their close proximity makes Gatton an excellent venue for a pub crawl for those who do not like to do much walking between their pubs.
By the time we arrived in town, it was lunchtime so we decided to grab some food. “Counter lunches” (which is the technical name for midday meals served at pubs) were being served in at least two of the pubs.
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| The Royal Hotel built in 1914 |
The pink Royal Hotel looked like an inviting place so we headed into the food area on the other side of the public bar. It was a nice cleanly presented bistro with a family feel. We ordered our meals. Not many locals were about so we played some pool on the awkwardly positioned pool table (a number of shots needed to be played by sticking the back of the pool que through the wooden lattice that surrounded the table) and tried our luck on the pokies which were of the older type which only accepts 10 cent coins. After we’d eaten our filling meals and having drank a few schooners, we moved off up the road.
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| The Federal Hotel |
We walked about 15 meters to the Federal Hotel. A number of men had already gathered for the 1.00pm drink. We sat down next to them and ordered our pots of
XXXX (the preferred drink of the older generation in these parts). “Are you locals?” I asked. “We’re part of the furniture!” was the unanimous reply. After a bit of chat about this year’s potato crop, we discovered that these weatherworn
true blue Aussies were indeed the older locals and this was clearly their pub.
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| “We’re part of the furniture!” |
The pub had a quaint rustic feel and a fair bit of character. There was a great assortment of farm tools and other memorabilia on the walls, covering them from floor to ceiling. We noted that the pub seemed to have the complete series of prints of gambling dogs (the sine quo non of any Aussie home bar!). The tool collection included an interesting one labelled “Irish Chainsaw” which can be seen in the picture below:
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But the most interesting feature was the tattered hats which the friendly barman told us once belonged to locals and which had been donated to the pub to serve as wall decorations. There were many hats of all shapes and sizes with names and dates of donation written across them. Not having a hat to donate (nor the decades it would take to become a local), we headed off to our next destination.
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| The Imperial Hotel (“The Impy”) |
We then came to the Imperial Hotel. A pub which no doubt will be soon visited by Jenny as part of her Imperial Quest. We wandered up to the “Sports Bar” where we were greeted by Thomas. We quizzed him about the history of the place and were told that the pub is most famous for the fact that is connected with the “Gatton Murders”. About 130 years ago some murders were committed in town. These went down in local folklore as the “Gatton Murders” and no doubt fuelled many yarns around a campfire. The pubs connection was that after the bodies were found, they were stored in its upstairs rooms until an autopsy could be performed in Room 5. The rooms are no longer used as hotel accommodation.
We soon found out that Thomas had become the owner and manager of this pub only about seven months previously (having previously managed a number of the big Brisbane pubs) and that it was currently in a state of extensive refurbishment. The Sports Bar was going to be completely redone in a new theme (we will post “before” and “after” photos when it is finished). Thomas said that the pub was quite run down when he first took over but we could see that the renovations were already progressing well. We checked out the new bar in the nightclub/dance area which is becoming very popular among the student population. The Screaming Jets had played there only a week before we arrived.
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| The nightclub bar at the Impy |
We were also shown the inviting beer garden area at the back of the pub which will soon be serviced by a great bistro. Meals in an Italian style will be served there – including focaccias, pasta and wood fired pizzas. We were tempted to have another Carlton Midstrength in the beer garden but time did not allow us.
We were now running late and our intrepid travels had to continue. Unfortunately, we could only snap pictures of Gatton’s remaining two pubs which we vowed to visit another day.
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| The Commercial |
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| The Gatton View |
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