Everywhere throughout Australia one finds the Aussie Pub.
A town with a population as small as a few hundred will generally support at least one pub.
Probably derived from the original English “Public House”, the word can be replaced by Hotel, but in doing so seems to lose some element of the “togetherness” that a Pub depicts.
Pubs can come in all shapes and sizes but commonly have a few bars (front bar, saloon bar, public bar, lounge bar), a restaurant, a number of accommodation rooms upstairs for overnighters and a range of themes.
During our recent visit to Albany, we chose the Premier Hotel, a pub in the center of town on the main street (York Street) and proudly displaying above the main entrance in bas relief “1891”, the year of its origin.
The Premier is typical of many country pubs with its marketing style. On certain nights there is a “Special” on certain items of food and/or beverage to attract clientele. On Friday night it was the weekly “Chook Raffle” night. It was combined with a “happy hour” which surprisingly went for two hours from 5.00pm to 7.00pmwith a team of attractive young lady bar staff in black outfits encouraging clients to purchase tonight’s special-a pint of any beer on tap for $5.00, a saving of 50% on the normal tariff. An added incentive to purchasing more drinks was that with each purchase of a beer, the client received two chances to win chooks in a raffle conducted at 7.30 pm after the happy hour had ended
At 7.30, when the raffle began the entire client group gathered around to a corner of the bar was littered with raffle tickets as the lucky winners were called out. The bar staff began drawing tickets randomly and when a patron realized that he was holding a lucky ticket which would win him a cooked chook or a meat pack a loud “whoopee” filled the bar and when identified, the lucky patron was handed a steaming roast chicken. In most cases, since the lucky patron was drinking in a “school” of mates, the tickets from all their purchases were pooled so it was seen that the chicken was really won by the “School” and was immediately opened, ripped into bite-sized pieces and devoured by the group.
There were 8 men and women in our school therefore many tickets were held by our group and the volume of tickets allowed us to win 4 chooks with the 4 appropriate “You Beauty” from most members and the devouring of the hot succulent flesh as the night wound down.
The happy hours tend to be staggered from pub to pub in the town, so the schools often move through town to extend the discounted drinking opportunities to more than just one or two hours at one pub. The end of the night is heralded when the last pub calls “last drinks ladies and gentlemen” and it’s closing time.
The night ends with a happy, well-fed and satisfied town of drinkers making their way home by various means as the pubs close-only to look forward to the inevitable “hangover” the next day!! But they say that it’s worth it!
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