Rutherglen pub reopening breathes new life into a quirky Australian hotel tradition
From Rutherglen's wine country to Cobram's Murray Valley, these country pubs maintain naming traditions that would puzzle city folk but make perfect sense to locals.
Whether your pub crawl goes from top to bottom or you’re a casual drinker that likes to meet at the middle, there’s a quirky naming trifecta that only a handful of country towns can boast.
While they may be officially called the Royal Mail, Criterion, Railway, or the Victoria Hotel, locals have likely applied the top-middle-bottom naming tradition - sometimes seemingly at random.
Tatura still has all three — Top, Middle and Bottom pubs — as does Rutherglen and Cobram.
In Terang, the Middle is still operating, the Bottom has closed for nearly a decade and locals can’t decide on which is the designated ‘Top Pub’.
Casterton in the South West also lays claim to the treble act. Meanwhile Korumburra once boasted the tipple triple but lost its bottom pub — the Victoria — to demolition in the mid 1980s, while the top pub, the Austral Hotel and the Korumburra Middle Hotel still stand.
Veteran author Bill ‘Swampy’ Marsh, who has written several books on pubs and hotel heritage, says the ‘top/middle/bottom’ pub pattern is not just a Victorian phenomenon.
“Many places that are now one-pub towns used to have three or four pubs and they all used to do a roaring trade,” he said.
“I suppose the Top, Middle and Bottom names was an easy way to distinguish between each pub in town.
“It’s not just a Victorian thing — Normanton in The Gulf Country, up in Queensland, has featured in one of my books and it has a top, middle and bottom pub.”
Famed for sweet fortified wine styles including Muscat and Port, Rutherglen also has a proud tradition of amber ale flowing from its three long-established pubs.
A proud example of Victorian-era architecture, Rutherglen’s well-named Victoria Hotel aka- the Top Pub — is operated by Kate and Matt Halpin.
Kate was born in Albury and went to school in Corowa before moving away, whereas Matt hails from another proud pub town, Maryborough.
The couple closed the pub soon after purchasing the freehold in 2021 to complete a major makeover two years later.
In early 2024, they opened the first six accommodation rooms with the number boosted to 14.
“We did a lot of due diligence up and down the eastern seaboard,” Kate said.
“We wanted to make sure there was strong community support as well as visitors.
“We knew Rutherglen was under served from the tourism data we could get our hands on.
“Basically we wanted to get more people to come and stay for longer.”
Like Port Fairy in the southwest and Romsey in north-central Victoria, Rutherglen does not have the iridescent glow of poker machines with the controversial gambling machines banned in Indigo Shire.
Close by the Victoria Hotel are the Poachers Paradise (Bottom) and Star (Middle) hotels, both operated by Darren Simpson and his wife Sarah.
They bought the leasehold of Poachers Paradise in 2023 and only recently took over the Star Hotel with Melbourne born-and-bred Darren leaving his IT job to move into hospitality.
“A lot of that IT work was in hospitality,” he said.
“But I wasn’t prepared for how much of a public figure a small town publican really is.
“Country pubs are all about community and we knew coming into this that during Covid everyone learned to drink at home.
“But what you don’t get at home is the variety of people.
“You can kit out a man cave as well as you like, but you’re only seeing your circle of friends and not someone you haven’t seen in 10 years.”
Further west on the Murray Valley Highway, Cobram also has Top, Middle and Bottom pubs — Cobram, Central and Riverside.
The Cobram Hotel is operated by Adam and Kristy Rudd with the family taking over the pub from the Buzzo family in 2007, and survived a six-week shutdown early in 2019 following a fire.
The introduction of poker machines has helped the pub’s profitability, but Adam said “food was its biggest drawcard”.
“Food and beverage and being a family-friendly venue are our key,” he said.
“We pride ourselves of having the best meals in town and we do a lot of them.”
Having seen more than his fair share of pubs across Australia, Bill ‘Swampy’ Marsh said one of the reasons why the ‘top/middle/bottom’ pub pattern is under threat is the closure of one or more pubs in a three-hotel town.
“You’ve got a lot of supermarkets and liquor shops eating into the profits of the pubs,” he said.
“It’s an expensive business running a pub, but the names and people’s memories of the local pub linger on.”
