Royal Hotel Kerang
After dragging ourselves away from the Royal Hotel Koondrook beer garden, piled back in the car, and headed for our final Royal of the day: the Royal Hotel Kerang.
Kerang is a decent sized town so we were optimistic there might be a bit happening on a Saturday night. Unfortunately that didn’t quite end up being the case. But what we did get was a solid feed in a good solid pub.
We arrived at the Royal Hotel Kerang right about dinner time. As we rocked up, it certainly looked the part of a classic country Royal. Our suspicions were confirmed when we walked inside. This was indeed a classic country Royal. There was a lot of wood paneling around and the primary seating options were ‘at the bar’ and ‘barrels’. We opted for ‘barrels’ and went to get ourselves some schooners.
The food was actually quite good and there was a good variety of it. That’s not something we necessarily expected but were definitely pleasantly surprised by. The bistro area was packed as well. As was the upstairs which was unfortunately cordoned off for a private function. We had most of the front bar to ourselves, though, with a couple of locals mainly congregated at the bar.
So as we tucked into our meals we sent Jordy to the bar for another round. He was there for a while and came back with three beers despite the fact there were pretty clearly four of us. Even more confounding was that the price he claimed to have paid was pretty clearly not divisible by three. He claimed some cryptic calculus-based happy hour. But our leading two theories were 1) Jordy sneakily skulled a schooner at the bar and just didn’t want to admit it or 2) he is easily confused. And those aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.
Leaving us with this puzzle (and to be fair it was pretty mild and low stakes one as far as puzzles go) Jordy headed off to find the courtyard to have a smoke. He was once again gone a while. When he returned, he claimed the path to and from the smoking area was such a maze that he accidentally ended up somewhere behind the bar. We began to suspect theory 2 from the above puzzle was the more likely. Although to be fair, he did show us a picture of it and there was a skeleton in the corner of the courtyard. So maybe he wasn’t the first to get lost on that particular journey.
The Royal Hotel Kerang isn’t a fancy or unique as some of the Royals we’ve hit on the Tour. But it isn’t trying to be either. We’ve hit plenty of Royals that are trying to be something they’re not. But the Royal Hotel Kerang, is a good solid local pub where locals love to meet. It might not be one we go out of our way to go back to, but it knows what it is and that’s just fine.
Royal Stats
- Town/Suburb: Kerang, VIC
- Population: 3,960
- Date Visited: Saturday, October 19, 2024
- Visited By: Cory, John, Jordy and Anthony
- Beer Sponsorship on Sign: Carlton
- Beer Consumed at Pub: Carlton Draught
- Price of Schooner of Said Beer: $9.00
- Unique Award: Most Confusing Happy Hour Pricing (at least for Jordy)
- Tour Progress: 51.8% (72/139)