‘It’ll be a sad day’: Why Ballarat publicans have put Millers Arms Hotel on the market

The Stewarts have manned the taps inside the Millers Arms Hotel in Ballarat for nearly 20 years. Now they’ve put the pub up for lease or sale. Watch the video.

Tradition takes precedence at The Millers Arms Hotel, where sevens remain the choice glass size, ashtrays line the bar underfoot and patrons consider the modest establishment more a hub than a pub.

Frequented for the “best beer in Ballarat” — maintained, they say, at a consistent and crisp temperature by publicans Darryl and Sue Stewart — the Soldiers Hill hotel has stood on the corner of Doveton St for more than 100 years.

Built in the stead of the original 1860s building, which burnt down early in the following century, the watering hole’s 156-year alcohol licence boasts a longer lineage than the structure itself.

For some time too the Stewarts have manned the taps inside, but after a two-decade tenure, they’ve put the pub up for lease or sale.

Millers Arms Hotel publicans Darryl and Sue Stewart.

Mr Stewart, who moved to Ballarat when he was four, got his start in the business when he bought a different pub, the old North City Hotel, in 1990.

“I was just driving past the North City and they had it up for auction,” he said.

“I’d never had a pub before in my life.

“I was a painter, always wanted to pour a beer, never knew how to.

“I bought the lease for $80 grand, and that was it. That’s where I started.”

The Millers Arms he bought off the previous owner of 50 years.

But the sale of the “quiet achiever” was always on the books: it would give Mr Stewart, now in his mid-60s, and his wife Sue time to travel around the country — a particularly enticing prospect for the pair given the restraints of Covid in the past few years.

“All through my life when I was working, you used to be told you retire at 65,” Mr Stewart said.

“And that’s what I stuck to.

“The day I turned 65, I rang the real estate up and said, ‘all right, time to get out of here’.”

The front of the Soldiers Hill pub.

Nevertheless, the Stewarts won’t be far away.

In fact, they’re moving next door.

“The lady next door came in and said, ‘Oh, Darryl, you’re not selling,’” Mr Stewart said.

“I said, ‘Yes, it’s time to go, but I’m moving around there, so if you go on holidays I’ll still look after your place, and if your fence falls down I’ll still fix it for you.

“They’d hate me if I left them.”

It’s clear, for the time being, froth and friendship will keep the Millers Arms occupied.

One Wednesday aftenoon barfly said he discovered the “neat little pub” when he moved to Ballarat in 1966 and had returned again and again for the great brews.

“If you tell him, ‘Oh, it’s a little bit warm, Darryl’, he'll be down on his knees under the counter fixing up temperatures and god knows what until it’s dead right,” he said.

Another added with a wink that Mr Stewart was “not a bad barman” and a “good mate”.

“It’s been a great place to socialise and have a cold beer, and [there are] good people behind the bar,” another said.

Regular patrons at Ballarat's Millers Arms Hotel.

All present hoped little would change when someone else was in charge.

“People will change it and maybe put meals on, but we don’t have meals,” Mr Stewart said.

“It’s just the way it is. This is a community hub.”

Mr Stewart said a handful of interested people had already come through looking to rent or purchase the pub, which has an asking price of $925,000.

He said once the deal was done, what he would most miss was the connection made with patrons, always to be counted on for a good chat.

“You know everybody and if they’re not going to be there the next day, they make sure to tell me,” Mr Stewart said.

“It’ll be a sad day.

“But if I live next door and they keep it as a pub, I’ll be able to still meet everyone.”