Ultimate guide to $10 jugs in Wellington
This week we’re tucking into the grand finale $10 Jug review. It’s been a great journey, it’s been a trip. We here at $10 jugs support the idea of responsible drinking, with friends at a pub—supporting local businesses, especially those who still provide $10 jugs. We travelled far and wide. Here, we present our findings, with an auspicious presentation.
The Hunter Lounge
Our local, the old trustee, the student bar of Victoria University. With great music, a great location, and a great beer on tap. This is the perfect place to have your post-lecture beer. On a Friday, when the working week is done, they’ve got 2 for 1 margarita pizzas which are pretty bloody good. There are endless events happening here and they offer pool and chess. You can even get married here. One of us wonders why they don’t go here more often, and very sensibly answers that it’s because they drives to uni.
SaMick
Upon our return here, we discovered that the beer in their $10 jug can change. First time, it was a Hazy Pale Ale, and on our second trip it was another Boundary Road brew—The Chosen One Golden Lager. Weighing in at 5%, this is one of the best golden lagers that we’ve ever wrapped our lips around. With very, very tasty wedges, good music, and good vibes, this is the perfect location to go before crossing the road to Eyegum at San Fran on a Wednesday night.
Blend Bar
Underrated for sure. Before setting out on a $10 Jug expedition we had never heard of this place. Blend is often lacking the bustling atmosphere of other pubs thanks to it being relatively unheard of, but that doesn’t take away from its great beer offers. With a $10 Mac’s Gold jug during their 5-7 p.m. happy hour, and a jug of “Blends Own Strange Brew” at any time of the day or night, this is a valuable beer connoisseur’s dream. Tunes are varied between sadboi hours and classic bangers, but the nostalgia of all of their music is undeniable—the accompanying music videos that are always playing are great for conversation.
The Grand
With tall chairs, a nice brick walled interior, and Tui or Export Gold for $10, this is hard to pass. It’s right next to a bus stop on Courtney Place, which means you can pop in for a quick one when you have a mate visiting for lunch. With stone grills on offer for cooking your meat, it makes you feel like you’ve transported to getting lunch with Grandma in West Auckland, which us at $10 jugs can attest to being one of the best feelings ever.
D4 on Allen
Wooah woooah, evacuate the D4. It’s a decent $10 jug of Wild Buck. One of us has been on a date here and believes the chips are pretty decent too. Nice modern Irishy type of vibe. The jug is available Wednesday to Saturday according to their website, but we’ve sent peer reviewers down who have said it’s also been shut on a Wednesday night as well.
JJ Murphy’s
A Wellington classic. The reviews of here from our mates have been very mixed, but it’s impossible to deny the classic pub feel that this place gives off. It was the first location we reviewed; we liked it, we just go there a lot less now. We’d recommend Export Gold (with a dash of raspberry syrup if you’re feeling adventurous), but there’s also Tui if that’s more your thing.
Salient’s $10 Jug
In the build up to the Salient pizza being available at the Hunter Lounge this week, we were given an early taste of the Salient Lager. We’ll be firm and frank and quite honestly earnest with you, our fellow $10 jug consumer, this one tastes an awful lot like Castlepoint lager. It’s really really nice, and our favourite $10 jug of the year #AD #SPONSORED
We’ve imparted beer knowledge, but before we go there are a few facts we want to make sure you know:
The first woman to own a brewery in New Zealand was Mary Jane Innes at the Innes Family Waikato Brewery (original brewers of Waikato Draught)
James Speight of Speights was a salesman and not a brewer
Lion Brown was established as Wellington’s regional beer. Despite us being anti-crate day, this may be a helpful fact for those trying to do ‘crate of origin’ this year
The reason there is green and red on the Warriors rugby league jersey is because their original jersey sponsor was DB Bitter beer. The reason for the white and blue is because they are Auckland based.
Liquorland is owned by Foodstuffs (New World/PAK’nSAVE/Four Square) 293 million litres of beer were available for domestic consumption in New Zealand in 2020, according to Stats NZ