Royal Hotel Seymour

After finishing our schooners at the Royal Hotel Benalla we grabbed lunch at the highly recommended local bakery and were back on the road.  After a quick petrol stop in Violet Town (home of Killing Heidi for all of you Australian rock aficionados) we were on our way to the next stop on the Royal Tour: the Royal Hotel Seymour.

While not quite as big as Benalla, Seymour is another town that was significantly bigger than I expected. The Royal in Seymour, however, is a completely different pub from its Benalla counterpart.

 This pub is one of those classic, primarily front bar types.  There was also a heavily local vibe with the clientele (which isn’t particularly unusual for the pubs we visit).  We were greeted by the stares of half a dozen patrons pivoting in their bar stools to assess us as we entered. But it was definitely a ‘hmm, new people, cool’ type of stare rather than a ‘this pub ain’t for the likes of you’ type of stare. 

After a moment of regarding us with something between mild curiosity and general indifference, they all went back to their pots (middies for those of us from north of the border). For our part we grabbed some beers and set up shop in the pool table/juke box area in the back.

I let Anthony and John battle it out to see who was the second-best pool player on the Tour and relaxed with my schooner and perused the jukebox.  And this was one of the old school, flip-the-pages, actually-has-records-in-it type jukeboxes.  Or it might have been CD’s.  But point is it wasn’t one of those new-fangled ones with video screens you sometimes see hanging on the walls of some pubs.

And the track lists on offer were pretty much exactly what you’d expect to find in a country pub like this.

Just as we were about to leave, John discovered the hidden secret of this otherwise nice, but straightforward pub.  There’s a huge banquet/dining area out the back with vaulted ceilings, balconies, the works.  Not the kind of thing I would have expected in a pub like this.  But the fact this cool fancy bit of the pub was just out a couple of doors, while all of the patrons were hanging out in the front bar completely ignoring it, kind of endeared the whole place to me that much more.

The overall vibe of the pub was extremely genuine. It was a pub where you could probably walk in any day of the year and see a similar cast of characters at the bar.  There wasn’t anything flashy trying to drum up new business or change what it is.  The Royal Hotel Seymour is a classic, front bar pub and it’s completely happy with being just that.  And those are some of my absolute favourite royals.

Royal Stats

• Town/Suburb: Seymour, VIC
• Population: 6,569
• Date Visited: Friday, November 3, 2023
• Visited By: Cory, John, and Anthony
• Beer Sponsorship on Sign: Carlton Draught
• Beer Consumed at Pub: Balter XPA
• Price of Schooner of Said Beer: $8.50
• Unique Award: Best Royal Jukebox
• Tour Progress: 29.4% (40/136)