The Civic Pub

Your attitude to The Civic Pub in Braddon will largely be determined by your attitude towards Australian working class people and their culture. If you have limited sympathy or interest, you will probably think of it in similar terms to a couple of our friends who (on separate occasions) have described the place as full of "meatheads" and with a "Cronulla-like atmosphere". If this is likely to be the case, we recommend that you keep on walking up Lonsdale Street and join the self-admiring middle classes at Debacle, or turn around and go back to Cream.

In short, The Civic Pub is a quintessential contemporary Australian pub without pretension. In fact it barely even pretends to be a pub, with most of its space being turned over to pool tables, and recently, the self-grilling and eating of steaks. It is poorly lit and ventilated. There is a TV within almost any possible line-of-sight, and this TV will be showing either men playing sport, or wrything, under-dressed pop singers. The beer available on tap is generally served with a smile, although the products themselves are entirely unremarkable. The primary features of the decor are contemporary advertisements for brands of alcohol, and faux-antique posters for Asian brands of cigarettes.

If you like beer and playing pool, and your self-image doesn't rule out the possibility of choosing to be in close proximity to workers in the building trades, car salesmen, office administrators, and less precious students and public servants, The Civic Pub could be for you.

The Wig and Pen Assessed against the Haywood Framework

From Christchurch, the author David Haywood has recently put forth a five-point framework of the key characteristics of the all-too-infrequently found "good pub". The original piece is worth reading in its entirety, containing compelling insights including, "The only acceptable substitute for good beer, in my opinion, is very, very cheap beer" and, in setting an appropriate atmosphere, "A stuffed fish is a welcome addition to any pub".

In short, the five essential components of the good pub can be summarised as:

1. Good beer (i.e naturally fizzy, non-sweet, well-headed, hand pumped beer).
2. A total absence of recorded music, with live music allowable in very restricted circumstances.
3. The absence of activities requiring physical exertion. Darts and dominoes are fine, pool is out.
4. Bar staff with gravitas appropriate to serving good beer. Trivial bonhomie is dimly viewed.
5. Dark, sombre, yet comfortable decor.

With only minor qualifications, we are willing to accept Haywood's criteria as being of value. This of course leads to the further question of which pubs in one's own place of residence fulfil them. Haywood himself notes that no one venue in Christchurch meets all of his criteria, with various otherwise meritous establishments each having significant flaws. Drawing on our collective experience of drinking in Canberra, it is clear only one pub comes close to clearing the high bar set. This, of course, is the Wig and Pen, whose beer in taste and its service is well above the offerings of any and everywhere else, and lacks only for seating comfortable for extended visits.

Unlike Haywood, we are willing to entertain arguments for pubs other than those that tend towards his archetype clearly derived from a very particular understanding of the United Kingdom and Ireland. We are willing to acknowledge, for example, the pleasures of the Civic Pub, or the Phoenix as an occasional corrective. However, in most circumstances the discerning, reflective, adult Canberran cannot venture past the W and P.