16 dated days · 16 dates in the month
April in pub history
16 days in April that somebody wrote down, spread across 16 dates of the month and 494 years — the earliest 23 April 1516, when the Bavarian purity order, and the most recent 22 April 2010. 14 of them name a house with a page on this site.
1 April
1889
A verse from the Mülln tap room
Gambrinus, a brewing and hops journal, printed on 1 April 1889 a verse it said hung in the Braustübchen of the Klosterbräu at Mülln in Salzburg, written by the prior. It is the earliest notice of a tap room at this brewery traced outside the house's own account; the monks began brewing in 1621.
2 April
1999
The Lord Nelson joins the state register
New South Wales entered the Lord Nelson at Millers Point on its State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999, as item 00509. The register describes a sandstone house of about 1836, its stone believed to have been quarried at the foot of Observatory Hill; the hotel dates its licence to 1841.
3 April
1868
The Mitre is licensed
A publican's licence was granted on 3 April 1868 for an existing house in Bank Place, Melbourne. The 1837 on the Mitre Tavern's sign is the year Charles Ebden bought the land, not the year anyone was served in it.
7 April
1952
The King's Head is listed
The King's Head at Aylesbury was listed at Grade II* on 7 April 1952. Its 1455 rests on documents rather than tradition: the great hall is dated to the 1470s, and a window of fifteenth-century glass carries royal arms.
8 April
1934
The Ginza Lion's building is finished
Dai-Nippon Beer's head office in Ginza was finished on 8 April 1934, on the site of the beer hall burnt in the Kantō earthquake, and the Beer Hall Lion reopened as a tenant on its ground floor. The hall has been in the same room since.
9 April
1952
The Barley Mow is listed
The thatched Barley Mow at Clifton Hampden, south of the Thames bridge, was listed at Grade II on 9 April 1952. Jerome K. Jerome called it the quaintest, most old-world inn up the river; its 1352 is repeated more often than it is documented.
10 April
1912
Kamiya Bar takes its name
The Asakusa liquor shop that Kamiya Denbei had kept since 1880 was remodelled in the Western manner and renamed Kamiya Bar on 10 April 1912. Selling liquor is not serving it over a bar, which is why that is the date we count.
15 April
1552
England licenses the alehouse
The Ale Houses Act received royal assent on 15 April 1552. Nobody could keep a common alehouse without a licence from the justices at quarter sessions, which is the reason English pubs can be traced through court records at all.
17 April
1973
In de Blaauwe Hand is registered
Café In de Blaauwe Hand at Nijmegen was entered in the Dutch national monuments register on 17 April 1973, as monument 31115. The register records the building's original function as a dwelling house.
19 April
1775
The landlord marches to Concord
Ezekial Howe, who had kept the house at Sudbury since 1746 and renamed it the Red Horse, led two companies of Sudbury militia to Concord on 19 April 1775. The inn carries Longfellow's name now, and the licence it is famous for is older than either.
21 April
1983
The Buckhorn goes on the register
Denver's Buckhorn Exchange was entered on the National Register of Historic Places on 21 April 1983. The nomination dates the painted brick building to 1893 and records the original double doors, the pressed metal ceiling and the hardwood floors as still there.
22 April
2010
Brussels protects the Spijtigen Duivel
The house at chaussée d'Alsemberg 621 in Uccle, where Au Vieux Spijtigen Duivel trades, has been legally protected since 22 April 2010. The regional register dates the fabric to the eighteenth century and types the building as an auberge, three hundred years after the year on the sign.
23 April
1516
The Bavarian purity order
Bavaria adopted its brewing order on 23 April 1516: barley, hops and water, and a fixed price for a Mass of beer. Brewers still print the word Reinheitsgebot on the label.
25 April
1952
Two Birmingham timber frames listed
The Old Crown in Deritend was listed at Grade II* on 25 April 1952, and the Lad in the Lane at Erdington at Grade II the same day. Both are timber-framed houses on old roads out of the town, and the Old Crown's 1368 sits a century before its dated fabric.
26 April
1979
A centenary in Santiago
El Cronista of Santiago reported on 26 April 1979 that the Confitería Torres was preparing to keep the centenary of its opening that Saturday, with the old eleven o'clock service revived and a small room set aside for daily tertulias. That puts the opening in the last days of April 1879.
29 April
1977
The Golf Tavern is listed
The Golf Tavern, facing Bruntsfield Links in Edinburgh, was added to the list at category B on 29 April 1977. The house dates itself to 1456, which is golfing lore rather than a record of an alehouse, and the age of the building is not settled in the records traced.
Every entry above cites the record that carries the day and the month, because a founding year is not an anniversary: a house may have been pouring since 1189 and still appear here only on the day a clerk wrote something down. The whole archive holds 204 such days across 12 months — on this day in pub history opens on whichever date the site was last built for. How a date is weighed is on how we date a pub; the ones that do not survive checking are in myths, checked.
Updated 11 October 2026.