Great Britain Hotel

My new favourite after work bar in Richmond. Beer garden is spacious and relaxed. Happy hour is awesome. From 5−7pm on Thursday and Friday they have $ 6 pints and they even have my favourite tequila which is hard to find in Melbourne. Tonight I’m also enjoying some smooth blues so thanks for that bonus :)

The Great Britain Hotel is a little bit scary and dingy. Looking around all I see is police searching the place, I hear screams and I feel a little bit out of place.
Definitely come here if you consider «beanie, rolled up socks and board shorts» an acceptable outfit to wear out.

The GB has never done anything that wows me. They have their own beer called «Piss» which tastes like it, and isn’t particularly cheap, but tis all good. Some of my friends absolutely love this place. I don’t get it?

Richmond’s a weird place. I put it down mostly to the fact that people that live there can’t make up their minds which side of the fucking river they want to be. It’s a place for ditherers and I feel the Great Britain Hotel is a bit of a fence sitter of a pub. Sure, it’s got heaps of charm and a nice dark griminess to it that I can appreciate, they serve beer and pizza and stuff, but what’s so great about it, I’m not really sure. Actually I’m pretty sure it’s just not that great.
They sometimes show music here and must have had a semi decent booker at some stage because they showed some good bands for a while (Ooga Boogas a special treat). Nowadays, they show the odd bit of live music but the calibre is invariably poor and I can’t help thinking they’d be better to either make a real commitment to the stuff, or can it altogether.

The first question everyone asks when visiting the GB is, «why is there a really bad picture of Mao Tse Tung over a hotel called the Great Britain?» When you explain that it’s actually an Indian but that you can’t really tell them anything more about him, it doesn’t really help clarify the situation.
Seriously, I love the GB. It’s like a uni bar, only without the pesky undergraduate uni students. It’s cheap beer and trivia nights and a dodgy nightclub next door. It’s bartender’s playing whatever they want on the stereo. They’re happy ordering you a pizza from across the road.
Nice backyard, too.

There’s really nothing like the Great Britain — it’s such a fantastic place to hang out, get drunk, party with friends. It’s the epitome of the Melbourne pub and I will forever love it. The thing that perhaps solidified this eternal love affair was, however, their trivia night.
Monday night, drink in hand, and always a great host with a good crowd. I’ll warn you now, the competition is fierce. You’ve got your loyal weekly competitors, the drunk ones that shout their answers to confuse you, and then you’ve got the newbies who are too nervous to contribute.
If you’re not into trivia, the GBH is just a great place to have a casual drink. It’s pretty cheap as far as drinking goes and the atmosphere is so laid back it could be Jamaican.

When I was a child sitting in the passenger seat in the back of the car I would stare out of the window. The one building that never made any sense to me was this one. Who was this dictator that was putting his face on a building looking at everyone? It used to scare me. I was actually afraid to go inside thinking that it was the head of a cult of some sort.
How stupid was I. Now that I am a little older and a little wiser I know that this is where people come to get drunk, and drunk I shall get. I still have no idea who the man in the painting is but who cares.
I will never be able to get a song out of me head from a one man band that I saw here when I came for a friend’s birthday. Tim Scanlan was his name and Celtic gypsy music is his game.

This is my favourite pub in Richmond, if not Melbourne.
Always in a relaxed state of affairs, the GB has been filling its overstuffed couches with knowing punters for years. With THE BEST beer selection on tap, including pretty much every Coopers variety, plus a bunch of the Little Creatures family and a few staples, it’s always exciting to finish your beer at the GB, just so you can decide what to have next.
With bands hitting the stage on Thurs, Sat & Sunday evenings, and an open mic night every Wednesday night the GB manages to be a pub that host music, instead of a live music venue that host punters. The bands don’t play all night, so even if you don’t like the tunes on offer, you can safely stay and drink whilst they play, and resume your conversation after they’re done,
Another great thing at the GB is their deal with Fruscolino’s Pizza across the road. As the pub has no kitchen, you can order yourself a takeaway pizza and have it delivered right to your couch/​bar stool to enjoy whilst you drink. Gold.
Whether it’s fate, or my own vices, I’ve managed to leave the GB happy and tipsy at best every time I’ve been here.

Above East Richmond station stands a corner bar. On one side stands a large ref billboard, compiling symbols and letters.
I have no idea what it means — I’m sure in means something — but inside is the more than inviting establishment the Great Britain, or GB to the locals. Pool table and couches aplenty, the two level beer garden and decking suits warmer months. Wednesday night is the GB’s open mic, some of which have been coming on a weekly basis for two years or more! Good beers and ciders on tap, and the bar does good spirits. Bands play weekends though a wicked PA that usually has the place pumping, and every now and again downstairs is opened up. The last time I was down there was Halloween — all concrete and spiderwebs and amazingness.