Royal Hotel Yeoval
After a longer than anticipated break, the blog is back! Apologies for the false promises of beer and brewery reviews in the interim. But now, not only is the blog back, but so is the Royal Tour! It’s been a fair while since the last Royal up in Mundubbera, but we’ve just returned from our latest trip. This one was up through central New South Wales. So, without further ado, our first Royal of this leg is the Royal Hotel Yeoval.
Before I get too far into recounting our storied visit to Yeoval, I should note that John and I were joined on this trip by Anthony and Tour debutant Ben.
The four of us set off early on a Thursday morning for the 3 ½ hour drive up to our first Royal, the Royal Hotel Yeoval. It was a big first leg, but it was the start of the trip and everyone was keen so it would doubtlessly pass quickly. However, after about an hour’s drive, I noticed 2 things: 1) we were still on the Hume Highway instead of back roads and 2) the navigator said we only had 45 minutes left to go.
After an urgent pull-over to the side of the highway, we quickly discovered we were not, in fact, heading towards our destination. We were instead heading in the wrong direction towards what appeared to be a property with a similar name to our destination. We were massively off course. Once we got the right destination programmed in, we figured out that after driving for an hour on our 3 ½ journey, we now had 4 more hours to go.
I wouldn’t throw John under the bus and say it was completely his fault. But we’re talking probably 97% his fault. That’s one percent each for myself, Anthony, and Ben for not catching John in his massive screw up.
Anyway, after a much longer drive than anticipated, we finally arrived at the Royal Hotel Yeoval. From the outside it ticked every box of a classic country Royal. It was one of those with a big balcony/veranda and just looked the part.
We headed in and the place was silent. Granted we were there early afternoon on a weekday. But the only people in the bartender, and one silent local at the bar. There wasn’t a TV or any music playing. The only sound was the quite crackle of the fireplace (which was a very nice touch in central NSW in June). But despite the eerie silence, it was still somehow welcoming. We grabbed four schooners, toasted Ben for his first Royal, and had a wander around.
If the outside shouted ‘classic country pub’, the interior doubled down on it. There was all sorts of cool stuff on the walls from caricatures of prominent patrons, to a full taxidermied wedge-tail eagle, to classic local pub awards. It had a very old-timey pressed metal ceiling and through the pool room was a really nice beer garden with a potbelly stove and a nice playground for the kids. It would have been a great place to hang out with a beer (we didn’t get a chance to for reasons I will go into shortly).
Unfortunately the kitchen was only open from Friday to Sunday so for lunch we wandered across to the chip shop to retrieve some food to bring back to the pub. This is a blog about Royal Hotel (and the occasional beer and brewery). But I have to spend a sentence or two talking up the Yeoval chip shop. It’s an absolutely classic chip shop where everything was cooked fresh, ‘minimum chips’ was on the menu, and anything more than minimum chips requires two people to lift.
So with mountains of food in hand we went back across to the Royal and set up in the pool room.
No sooner had we started a game than the heavens opened up and a torrential downpour swept through Yeoval. It was probably the biggest storm we’ve experienced on the Tour to date. But we had pool change, a ready supply of beer, and enough chips to last us 2 weeks so we weren’t overly concerned.
The downpour didn’t last long though. And as the sun came out we headed back to the car to continue on with the trip. The Royal Hotel Yeoval would definitely be pretty different on a weekend or an evening. But that’s the nature of the Tour. We see the pubs when we can. But even for a quiet weekday pub, it was still a good one that we thoroughly enjoyed. And it was a very solid first Royal for Ben. But we had plenty more Royals to visit on the trip. So, after triple checking Google maps, we headed off on our way to the next Royal in Gilgandra.
Royal Stats
- Town/Suburb: Yeoval, NSW
- Population: 292
- Date Visited: Thursday, June, 2026
- Visited By: Cory, John, Ben, and Anthony
- Beer Sponsorship on Sign: Toohey’s New
- Beer Consumed at Pub: Toohey’s New
- Price of Schooner of Said Beer: $7.00
- Unique Award: Best Royal Pub Weekly Dickhead Register
- Tour Progress: 80.0% (104/130)
- Editor’s Note: In preparing for this trip a further 4 Royals that were originally on the list were confirmed to have closed for good (Warren, Trangie, Boggabri, and Binnaway). The overall total has been adjusted to reflect this.