Two Pubs Down, Twenty Three To Go

Thursdays are now my favorite day of the week!

“A good local pub has much in common with a church, except that a pub is warmer, and there’s more conversation. “
— William Blake

“I like reading in a pub rather than a library or study, as it’s generally much easier to get a drink.”
— Pete McCarthy (McCarthy’s Bar: A Journey of Discovery In Ireland)

“Truth is, I always do that. I visit a different city and I think ‘where is this street where the fun, the swordfighting, the brawling, the seduction and the drinking takes place?’ And I have a look at it, then I get a bit miserable and I end up in a proper pub because I just prefer it.”
— James May (Oz & James Drink to Britain)

Best sunrise of June by a mile.

Our new Thursday tradition is FUN! Continue reading for a Tale of Two Pubs (Apologies to Mr. Dickens for stealing his title. But pretty sure they didn’t have copyrights back in the day. Hopefully.)

We’ve decided to spend Thursdays driving to different pubs off the Delicious Australia magazine’s Tasmania’s Best Pubs with a Fireplace list. (You might have clicked the link from my last substack. Apparently, there were a few complaints and late contenders, because Delicious revamped the list, which has grown from fifteen to twenty five. Challenge accepted!)

Our first pub didn’t have a fireplace. BUT the new Bierhalle’s German menu and on tap beers meant I could ignore the fireplace rule. Germany Uber Alles, baby.

We parked a block away and hiked back, the white brick building looming large on the corner. Okay, there IS a fireplace, albeit a gas one. The booths are lovely, curved, set in the windows and covered in burgundy leather. Unfortunately, all were occupied. I guess a lot of Hobartians have been waiting for the grand opening as well. (Not sure if Hobartian is actually correct, but I like it.)

Deprived of easy leg room and classy leather, I squirmed up onto a tall bar stool with a little wooden table behind a column. Herr Zen grabbed the menus - all the places are using these tiny clipboard things - while I got a water bottle and glasses from the bar.

The wooden bar is large and wide, with lots of German biers on tap, as well as six packs for sale in a wall refrigerator unit. Pale and golden pine, the top gleams like the best ones in Bavaria. Or maybe it’s just my rose colored memories.

I asked the bartendress for a glass of Gewurztraminer. She looked at me with a frozen smile and I realized she had no idea what I meant. I pointed at Gewurztraminer on the drinks menu. She sighed, rolled her eyes and thanked me.

“I just started and I have NO IDEA how these German things are pronounced. Say it again. I need to learn!” I obliged and even hung around while she worked it through her Australian accent a few times to a pretty close facsimile. (Geez, who orders Gewurztraminer when there’s beer on tap? A clueless, over-excited American, that’s for sure. Typical. Pretty sure this is one German word she won’t have to use a lot. But she’s ready, just in case.)

ANYWAY. I ordered some food that was definitely not German, but nevertheless delicious. I had pork belly in a five spice sauce BUT they saved the day by serving it with homemade applesauce and red cabbage garnish. Pig, applesauce and cabbage. Close enough.

Herr Zen went classic, if small, (We’re still getting over the stomach flu from hell. Or, as they call it here, the Gastro. And it’s not a nice gastro, like a gastropub.) He ordered a currywurst with fries. Also delicious! The Australian twist on this one was they served the currywurst in a hoagie bun.

Good food, great atmosphere, fun location. We’re going back. We HAVE to - they’ve just added schweinehax’n to the menu. Trying the schweinehax’n is compulsory.

When I lived in Germany, I brought over my nieces and nephews for a week when they were ten years old. My oldest nephew fell in love with wiener schnitzel his first meal and ate it every meal thereafter, excepting breakfast, making notes on each version in a little travel diary to remember which one was best. What can I say, it runs in the family. Hence, my Pub substacks over the next couple of months.

This Thursday, we drove to Hobart and ran some errands before picking our next pub. While Herr Zen hit the barber shop, I wandered into town for two Clinique eyeliner pencils - and wandered back to the car with a kilo of fresh okra, bags of organic green tea and hawthorne tea, jars of cherry preserves and beetroot relish, a kitchen towel and homemade foot cream.

The Clinique shop was closed - so I improvised. It’s a gift, I tell you! I would have been okay, except I strolled by the CWA shop by accident - the Country Women’s Association - and they lured me in with the hand knitted Tasmanian Devil tea cosy in the window. (I would have bought that as well, but I couldn’t remember the size of my teapot. I am pleased to say that my wiser self prevailed at this point- I left it on the shelf. Hey, I know where they’re located. Next time. )

After Herr Zen finished ‘admiring’ (sarcasm off) my purchases, we hit the road for our next Thursday pub. We headed out of town to the Fern Tree Tavern, a short 7 kilometers away, but it could have been 100 - you drive from the big city into the hills on the way to Mount Wellington, passing roadside waterfalls and huge man fern trees.

Hmmm. I guess I have just figured out the source of the name.

We passed a parking area on the right and I had a flashback to my walk to the serial killer’s memorial lair. I pointed excitedly to the site of my initial foray into Tasmanian hikes, but Herr Zen was hungry so we zoomed past. And right around the corner - the Fern Tree Tavern squatted on the edge of the road, little disco lights twinkling through the windows and wall to wall carpet from the restaurant to the jauntily red-tiled bar. Very retro. Liking it.

I managed to walk right by the sign that said “Stop! Wait to be seated!” and into the main eating room. Unfortunately, the fireplace is only in the entry. Such is life. The nice waitress caught up with me and pretended that she was fine with the table I’d chosen.

Again, the menu came on a tiny clipboard. Specials of the day. I chose the small roast dinner - roast lamb with mint sauce, roasted potatoes, pumpkin and other vegetables and gravy over it all. Herr Zen opted for the Black and Blue Burger.

We had time to look around at the other diners - a long table of friends, smaller tables with families and their cute kids, and tables for two with couples toasting with very pretty glasses of wine and beer backlit by the picture windows. Full house, people.

We must have all read the same Delicious Australia article.

Who knows when we’ll get our food? I just hope the waitress ran our order into the kitchen before tackling that huge group in the back.

Looks like she did. because we are eating before the big table gets their drink order. I enjoyed every bite. If this was a small, I think a large would have fed me for two days. And mint sauce - delicious!

I thought it was going to be that claggy bright green jelly we have in the US, but they served the sauce in a little white bowl shaped like a shot glass, pieces of mint floating in a clear liquid. I tasted it - not sweet! It’s mint in malt vinegar. Okay, I must have some.

The Fern Tree Tavern has been around for a WHILE. Here’s what it looked like originally, next to the Fern Tree Hotel. I think both burned down. Compare to the current photo above - sort of liking that they went back to something close to the original.

Pleasantly full and a little sleepy, we drove the back roads home. We stopped on the way through Huonville so I could run into the grocery store and buy my own bottle of mint sauce. The first pub comparisons are finished! Except I can’t pick a winner. I’m leaning towards the Bierhalle - that Gewurztraminer was WUNDERBAR!

P.S. Sorry I don’t have a Tasmanian creature for you this time, but head over to my friend Julia’s substack, Apples and Elderflower. She spotted a platypus in the river near her house and even managed to get video! Click here.