Start at Boag’s Brewhouse at 39 William Street with a beer-tasting paddle from the entire range. Walk to the haunted Royal Oak which has a local favourite Boags on tap. Continue to The Northern Public House. Then, The Sportsman’s Hotel (Sporties) which also sports a ghost – for dinner and yes, even more Boags. Your walk starts and ends with two Australian Prime Ministers.
Start at Boags Brewhouse
Boag’s Brewhouse is the beer museum + bar which starts your walk. Be there from 4.00pm as it shuts before dinner (and check the website for varying hours and days). You’ll be on the river where it all started, a few minutes from the centre of town, at 39 William Street.
The idea on this half-hour walk is to drink Launceston’s famous and fast-vanishing Boags, possibly see a ghost at The Royal Oak – and be at the other end, at The Sportsman’s Hall (Sporties) in time for dinner. Try Barramundi fish and chips or Confit Duck Leg. A Sweet Potato and Cranberry Salad? The menu changes with the Tasmanian produce seasons.
A Paddle of Beers
You can take a full visitor tour at Boag’s Brewhouse or just skip that and try a paddle of four beers – served on a wooden plank. There’s a big beer garden with an even bigger beer can on display, as well as photographs of various Boag’s brewery cats (all named Oscar and listed in the books as ‘vermin eradication equipment’) and merchandise to buy. The 1960s beer coasters are in a glass display case along with Sydney-Hobart yacht cans of the past.
The fireplace with its original wallpaper is head-turning, as you enter, and a reminder of 1920’s Launceston. This pub has had a long history. It used to be The Tamar, run by a woman of some renown.
Tasmanian Malt and Hops
The Queen Anne architecture building here at the riverside end of Launceston, began way back in 1881.
Old advertising for Boags claims “From Tasmanian malt and hops with water from mountain streams.” The good old days are disappearing, though, as Boags will no longer be made in Tasmania from November 2026, unless somebody can buy the business and keep it on the island.
The water in Boags beer used to come from Tasmania’s pristine South Esk River and the hops from Gunns Plains in North-West Tasmania. From November 2026 that may be ancient history as the Launceston brewery will be shut down.
The Half Hour Boags Walk
This half-hour Launceston walk (with four necessary stops) will take you from one Prime Minister to another. Anthony Albanese famously visited Boag’s Brewhouse, pulling a Boags Red and at the other end, at The Sportman’s Hall (Sporties) former PM Scott Morrison played pool for the cameras.
More Than A Beer
Boags is much more than a beer to Tasmanians.
In the 1967 bushfires in Hobart which nearly destroyed its brewing rival, Cascade, Boags stepped in for emergency supplies to the south of the state. Beer was put into milk tankers. Throughout the crisis, firefighters, doctors and survivors could repair to the pub after work, no matter what.
Some people in Launceston still call Boags ‘Jimmy’ after the three men all called James in the family business. It was a Scottish family.
There is still friendly rivalry between Cascade (Hobart) and Boags (Launceston) beer. The used to play Australian Rules football against each other in front of big crowds. The Boags Brewery Boys versus The Cascade Wags at York Park in 1947 was apparently a sight to see. Picnics and cricket matches, families and friends, have woven Boags and Cascade into Tasmanian life for decades.
Captain J. Boag (one of the many Jimmys in the company) even boomed out a 21-gun royal salute for Federation in 1901 from the Launceston Artillery at midnight.
Keep Money In Tasmania
The old 20th century Boags advertising urged ‘Keep money in Tasmania’ and ‘Support local industry’ which is why in the 21st century a petition has been launched to find a new buyer for the beer, since the decision by its Japanese owners Lion to shut the Launceston brewery. It’s hard to think of another brand that would attract so much passion, but then Boags has kept Launceston afloat for two centuries.
Boags Over the Water
From posters lining the door at The Elephant and Wheelbarrow in central Melbourne to archived cans at The Labour In Vain in Fitzroy, the Launceston legend has travelled to Victoria and stayed. The posters are now collectors’ items as are the cans and bottles.
Even further across the water, Boags beer has won international medals for its taste and quality over the years. The Medaille D’Or (France) trophies are displayed near the bar. In Brussels, Boags carried off the Grand Gold Medal.
Once you’re ready to leave the Brewhouse at closing time, and farewell the river where it began, as well as the 1850’s walnut tree in the garden, it’s a short stroll to The Northern, as locals call it, then onto Launceston’s most intriguing pub. The Royal Oak.
The Northern Public House
Here’s another historic Boags pub in Launceston. Over at 124 George Street you’ll find what used to be O’Keefe’s Hotel (the magnificent retro signage is still on the side of the pub) and before that, the Union Club Hotel. Today The Northern Public House has Boags umbrellas in the beer garden and you can take your glass up the stairs onto the rooftop to get away from it all.
The Sydney-Hobart Yachtie
Mike O’Keefe, a Sydney-Hobart yachtsman, was the governor here for many years.
It’s been Scottish and Irish in its time.
The Irish O’Neill family bought it as the Caledonian Hotel and renamed it the Belfast Hotel in 1915 then it became the Union Club Hotel in the 1930s as a compromise with the Scottish license holder.
From here, you may be switching to light beers, but you’re nearly at The Royal Oak.
The Royal Oak, Launceston
Originally The White Horse, The Royal Oak has Italian origins.
What you see today was originally the work of Antonio Martini, who died in 1867. The map for his original land grant on Tamar Street survives today.
Arthur Orton, a butcher, and one of the most famous swindlers and imposters of the 1800’s also stayed here. Arthur is notorious for having claimed the Tichborne baronetcy and fortune. Almost.
Arthur’s story has been made into a book (The Fraud by Zadie Smith) and inspired The Tichborne Claimant (with Stephen Fry, directed by Harry Potter’s David Yates) and the Australian film for TV, The Tichborne Affair).
The scoundrel Arthur, not only slept at The Royal Oak in Launceston, he also worked behind the bar.
Today Wendy Robbins owns The Royal Oak; one of a handpicked few women in Launceston to leave their names on the city’s pub history. She believes her pub is haunted as open doors are sometimes mysteriously closed.
Is Arthur Orton the Oak Ghost?
Is Arthur the imposter the ghost, though? Perhaps. Most people think he’s a fellow called Cyril who met with an awful end, thrown off his horse, nearby.
Unless you catch a glimpse or even end up with the Oak spook on camera, you won’t know. But Arthur might qualify.
Back on 12th April 1884, The Launceston Telegraph was reporting that he was a frequent guest at the Oak.
Arthur Orton, the conniving Englishman in the new town Launceston, famously pretended to be a very rich aristocrat who had gone missing at sea – Sir Roger Tichborne. He even convinced Roger’s mother, Lady Tichborne, despite being several stones heavier than her son.
His tattoo also gave him away. As a witness told The Launceston Telegraph, “He was tattooed AO, each nearly an inch long.” The witness had “seen the tattooed AO on Arthur Orton’s left arm, when he was leaning with his elbows resting on the counter of the bar talking to me one morning in the Royal Oak public house in Launceston.”
Arthur Orton, Launceston Sailor
He was a butcher, but they called him Arthur Orton The Sailor in Launceston at the time. “He was then residing at the Royal Oak public house at the corner of Brisbane Street and Tamar Street, Launceston, Van Diemen’s Land,” wrote another observer on 2nd April 1884. The witness said, “This public house was kept by, or was under the management of, a Mrs. Mary Ann Tredgett, said to be a widow and the sister of the said Arthur Orton. He ”even acted as barman for her in the house.”
Cyril or Arthur the Ghost?
The signage on the Royal Oak says COMMUNICATION and SPIRITS, possibly for a good reason.
Less spookily, The Oak has hosted Dragon, Dave Graney and Clare Moore and both Reg Mombassa and Peter O’Doherty (Dog Trumpet) from Mental As Anything, since Arthur was here. It’s been home to a lot of good music.
The next walk is a bit of a stretch so you may need an extra Boags to fortify you. The beer has been at The Royal Oak for a long time. See the old black and white photograph of the ale sign, taken last century by Douglas Grant Wherrett.
Boags signs from last century have not survived outside the pubs, but the brand continues at the bars.
The Sportsman’s Hall Hotel
The Sporties Bar manager Geoff Lindsay occasionally has limited edition Boags beer on tap – like the 1951 Stout. If you’re lucky, you may find a rare version of the beer behind the bar, before going to the menu.
The blue pool table in the corner is where former Prime Minister Scott Morrison posed for the cameras once, trying to win over Tasmanian voters. (And he won).
Like The Royal Oak, The Sportsman’s Hotel is haunted. “I never believed in ghosts until I went into the cellar,” publican Lindsay told The Examiner recently. Perhaps this dates from 1893 when the hotel had a four-stall stable and coach house.
Drama at Sporties
Three of the pubs – Boags Brewhouse, The Royal Oak and Sporties – have naturally seen drama in their long histories.
There was a near fatal poisoning at The Sportsman’s Hall back in June 1883 when a lodger, Mrs Mills, was mistakenly given poison instead of her medicine by a servant. “Dr Bingham Crowther was called in,” the local paper reported. Fortunately he saved her. The substance, croton liniment, nearly did for Mrs Mills, at the time.
Dinner at The Sportsman’s Hall
These days there are no servants, but still good rooms upstairs. There is a large beer garden and a full house for any sporting event, which they might have appreciated even two centuries ago.
If you need to work off the Boags, it’s probably a decent walk back to your hotel or Air BnB, but then, Launceston is one of the world’s great walkable cities.
