Great Northern Hotel

644 Rathdowne St, Carlton Nth.

If you call yourself Great then you’d want to be great. At least pretty fucking good. Quinlan and Sidebottom used to sneak in to the Great Northern for a pre-game pot or three on the way to (and from) watching the Roys get flogged at Princes Park in the early 90s. We return to see if it’s still Great.

FIRST IMPRESSION

Great Danes – undoubtedly great. Great Wall of China – the greatest wall there is. The Great Outdoors – if the pub isn’t open, sure. Great Uncle – probably a dickhead but one of the great dickheads. To maintain the title of ‘Great’ you need to be prepared to earn that title. So, we took a deep breath before walking in, praying the Great Northern wouldn’t let us down.

It didn’t.

Walking into this pub is like being hugged by your alcoholic grandma. It smells a bit like old beer, it’s warm and friendly and you’re glad she’s still around – 135 years later. In summary, Great.

10 POTS

GENERAL PUBBERY

The Great Northern was built in 1883. Now, we weren’t there, but the Great Northern probably cruised along, selling pints to bigoted imperialists for 13 years, because there’s no way this pub hit its stride until the formation of the AFL in 1896. The sport is bloody everywhere. This thing’s more AFL than Alex Jesaulenko skulling Carlton Draught from the Premiership Cup while Peter Landy uses Bruce Doull’s headband to wipe Ted Whitten’s blood off John Nicholls’ fist. There’s a hell of a lot more than just AFL though. B’ball. Soccer. UFC. That’s why the Great Northern was crowned Time Out’s ‘Best Sports Pub’ in 2016.

While this place is well over a century old it actually looks like it was renovated in about 1978. Then they just left it at that. It’s well maintained though. The bar is solid, with beautiful vaulted wood panelling that hints at traces of its history without being pretentious. The bar stools are a highlight. Puffy leather with armrests in Burnt Aqua. They look like they’ve been ripped from a 1974 Holden Statesman Deville.

Above the bar has been decorated with old (and some new) beer taps. The staff give off a non-judgemental vibe to day drinkers. They still keep their party reservations in a binder that looks like they brought it over on the First Fleet. There’s a pool table that looks like it weighs 3 tonnes and plenty of old pub memorabilia including one of those blue Carlton Draught clocks.

Look, it’s all living up to its Great name so far.

10 POTS

THE FOOD

This menu is fantastically simple. A slight Mexican twang in the entrees and the mains are all pub classics and salads. The specials board looked great with a great looking pie of the week and bangers of the week.

The funniest thing on the menu is the Vegan Super Salad which, after listing all the ingredients it reminds the vegans that their Vegan Super Salad is vegan by writing ‘vegan’ again in brackets.

That’s so vegan.

So, there were 3 of us. Sidebottom ordered the burger. Quinlan and Hemingway both wanted parmas. No-one was budging. So, three of us are now reviewing just two dishes. Nice one dickheads.

To mix it up a bit we shared the spicy chicken wings with blue cheese dressing. They were good. Pretty hard to fuck spicy wings up.

Parmas were great – nice and moist, with a good cheese to ham ratio. Bit much salad. Great chips.

The burger was a cracker. A big tower of love.

Pretty sure these guys specialise in good burgers. Follow them on Instagram where chef Chris Eddy puts up his burger/s of the week each Thursday for burger night. They look super inventive. More Great.

9 POTS

THE DRINKS

Beer’s the big thing here. I mean you’re not there for a fucking haircut ARE YA? According to their website the beer philosophy is simple and magnificent,

21 taps and no contracts, supporting only the best local & international beers available

It was cold out, so Quinlan had a Moo Brew dark ale and then a pint of some milk chocolate stout that he wrote down now can’t find the book he wrote it in. Suffice to say they were both exceptional. Sidebottom had the ever-popular Balter IPA. Hemingway had Carlton Draught. Four pints. Very helpful he was.

The wine list looked like it had been 6 rounds with Jeff Horn. Wines looked good though. Lots of familiar and tried and trusted names. Quinlan enjoyed a Shaw Riesling. Nice and dry.

In a word? Great.

9 POTS

WANKFACTOR

None. The pub’s canine-only Instagram account could be wankfactor if it was done poorly for some gastropub in South Yarra, but this one is so fucking cute we wouldn’t dare label it.

Plus, ‘Dogs_of_GNH’ has more than twice as many followers than the actual pub’s Instagram. Hilarious.

OUTDOORS

Exactly what you want in an outdoor area. It’s bloody huge. Be great in summer. But this was winter. Even the eskimos were inside.

One of the true Greats.

10 POTS

COMFORT STATIONS

It’s all very Handmaid’s Tale in the gents. The great concreteness is no nonsense and designed to create pure focus on a quick and efficient extraction.

It’s not all Ofcartlon in here though. The flush button above the urinal is the greatest curiosity we’ve ever seen in a pub loo.

Look at it. We think it’s designed to save water – no-one in their right mind would stick even the sweatiest dickyfinger on this. Or would they?

One theory of the day is that it’s a button that triggers a trap door down to Melbourne’s hottest piss-themed sex dungeon.

Either way, no-one dares clean that fucking thing now. It’s too late man.

7 POTS

KIDS? HELL YEAH

So, they got a kids menu. Fairly standard stuff for a pub these days. Fairly standard fare too. Stuff kids love. The thing that really caught our eye though was the cracking little kids corner. A crate of 3-4 old, incomplete, low-tech toys that were rejected from Savers but scored a chance at disappointing little kids one final time.

We’ve said it before, if you MUST bring your kids to the pub, give them an iPad so they can just sit there and shut up.

Kids ‘catered’ for? Great job.

10 POTS

SENSE OF HUMOUR

Another thing we’ve mentioned before – a pub needs a sense of humour. Of course this place has one. We pulled some choice quotes off the website:

On the optimum music volume for a pub: “Our music varies according to time of day, but it is generally relaxed, and set at a background level.”

On parties and bringing cake: “We recommend you bring your own candles, as we often misplace the house supply”

On functions: “No booking fee or minimum spend required. Let’s keep it simple”

On the menu: “Beer is a food group” 

And the ultimate cracker, a nice quote from the owner Alistair how the pub has, ‘Probably the best beer list in the country’. Too fucking right.

The final say has to go to our bar tab card. Say no more.

Sense of humour? Great.

10 POTS

CONCLUSION

It can keep calling itself the Great Northern. And thank Christ because the OK Northern sounds a bit shit.

9.5 POTS OUT OF 10

GREAT NORTHERN HOTEL

644 Rathdowne St Carlton North

www.gnh.net.au