The Lion Hotel

The Lion Hotel began as a brewery. The Lion Brewing and Malting Company had been operating on Jerningham Street since 1871, and in 1880 owners William Beaglehole and James Johnston commissioned architect James Cumming to build a hotel on the Melbourne Street corner. The complex reached its present form by 1883 and is now state heritage listed. Brewing stopped in the 1920s and the brewery buildings became apartments in the eighties. The hotel took a rather different path: bought in 1972 and renamed the Old Lion, it spent two decades as a revolving door for rock and roll before reverting to The Lion under new owners in the nineties. These days it runs as a restaurant, bar and function venue with six flexible spaces, and dance music arrives through them. Beats on Parade have brought their free late night sessions here with G-Motion, Conspirosy and Jerry Tee, and nineties nights fill out the rest.