If you can’t stand that cliché “every hour is happy hour”, we feel you. We like our beer cold, affordable, and ideally presented to us within a specific timeframe at a great venue. So we’ve rounded up some of the best beer specials at the best spots in Adelaide – week in, week out.

The Elephant British Pub
Happy hour: Mon–Sat, 5pm–7pm

A quintessentially British pub, complete with red chesterfield lounges and iconic English pub food (think bangers and mash), lures in those seeking a post-work beverage in central Adelaide.

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Late afternoon is go-time at The Elephant for wallet-watchers. Get in the door by 5pm and you’ll have two hours to relish in $6 craft draught and wines, or $5 base spirits and local draught, including an extensive James Squire range.. And, on Tuesdays from 5pm, the weekly ‘Beer Line Cleanout’ sees schooners of selected ales available from $3 (or for free, if the tap runs out during your pour).

The Archer
Happy hour: Mon–Friday, 4pm–6.30pm

Come for the happy hour and stay for the enticing menu items. Following an afternoon spent people-watching from The Archer’s wide balcony, happy hour beverage in hand, sample dishes wood-fired over South Australian Red Gum.

Naturally, classic pub food is on offer too, but it’s the shared plates, plant-based options and wood-fired dishes that keep happy regulars returning. At 4pm, from Monday to Friday, happy hour kicks off – with discounts on selected taps and house wine.

Lady Burra Brewhouse
Happy hour: Tue to Thu, 4pm–6pm

It’s not every day you can sink a beer in the building it’s brewed – especially when that building is smack-bang in the middle of the CBD.

Adelaide’s first inner-city microbrewery, Lady Burra, has a starting four that are always on tap: pale ale, pilsner, IPA and red ale. Its Tuesday-to-Thursday happy hour is reason enough to try (and rank) them all. Seasonal, small-batch brews dip in and out.

Happy hour drinks kick off at 4pm; the kitchen fires up for its Portuguese-flavoured menu at 5pm. The one-hour layover often comes with complimentary beer nuts to tide you over. They’re roasted in-house and tossed through head chef Rosa Dantas’s spice mix. Lush.

The Crown and Anchor
Happy hour: Wed 8pm–11pm

As far as happy hours go, three of them bunched together is pretty much as good as it gets. Your choice at The Cranker is as simple as a pale or dark beer (unless you want to go between the two). Without fail, the Canker pulls a massive hump-day crowd, and it’s known to get rowdy. So if we’ve got one piece of advice: take orders and carry a couple at a time to minimise duck-and-weave trips to and from the bar.

Gilbert Street Hotel
Happy hour: Mon and Wed, Fri 5pm–6pm

Tucked in the city’s southwest pocket, the Gilbert Street Hotel has the heart (and prices) of a suburban pub. A fiver buys a Belgian bottle during happy hour, or chuck in an extra dollar for a pint with more of a local flavour. Think Pirate Life Brewing and Big Shed Brewing Concern.

Friday’s instalment of happy hour runs alongside on-the-house bar snacks to help ring in the weekend. Thursday is the only weeknight exempt from happy hour, but the few extra bucks you spend on beer level out with dirt-cheap Buffalo wings (plus your choice of flavour) for $10 a kilo. Pre-booking encouraged.

Explore more of this edition of the Craft Beer Quarterly

This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with James Squire.