Royal Hotel Merriwa

Reluctantly we left the massive pub, absurdly sized TV’s, and morning happy hours of Denman behind, as the Tour continued on up the road to the pub that would mark the 1/4 of the way mark: the Royal Hotel Merriwa.

The Merriwa Royal was much more out of the traditional pub mold (as opposed to the beer mansion that was Denman). But it looked like just the kind of pub we had pictured when we set off on this Tour. So we parked the car at the rear of the pub and headed in. As we got out, we were met with a hard stare from a large patron in a heavy metal t-shirt. Hoping this didn’t portend a prickly welcome, we grabbed a beer and set up shop around the pool table.

The pub itself was very classic. You walk in through a door with a stained glass Royal window above it. And if you’ve read the blog, you know how much we love a Royal stained glass window (looking at you Woodstock).

Through there you walk into the front bar and on to the pool table/bistro area. Again all fairly nice and fairly standard. I was still feeling pretty rotten. And that can be the only reason that, for the first time on the entire Royal tour, on Royal #34, John finally defeated me in a game of pool.

Just as I was wallowing in my defeat, the large gentleman in the heavy metal t-shirt came in from the beer garden and made a beeline for us. As he approached, I started running through how this was going to go in my head. Hearing the words “So, are you guys the band?” was not among the top possibilities I had considered. Unfortunately we had to break it to him that we had no discernable musical talent of any kind.

Shortly thereafter, we finished our beers and, still chuffed with our apparent rock band aura and having now had a beer at 25% of all the Royal Hotels in Australia, we continued on up the road to the next stop on the Tour.

Overall, the Royal Hotel Merriwa was a good solid Royal. Nothing over the top, but definitely a place I would come for a beer if I found myself in Merriwa again.

Royal Stats

• Town/Suburb: Merriwa, NSW
• Population: 1,790
• Date Visited: Saturday, May 6, 2023
• Visited By: Cory, John
• Beer Sponsorship on Sign: Toohey’s New
• Beer Consumed at Pub: Hahn Super Dry (3.5)
• Price of Schooner of Said Beer: $6.00
• Unique Award: First Royal Where We Were Mistaken For The Band
• Tour Progress: 25.0% (34/136)