Mad Hog Tavern (Mad Hog Phuket)

Skip Patong's beach bars and their beach-bar prices. This is a pub on Yaowarad Road in Phuket Old Town, the sort of place where nobody's working the door or shouting a happy hour at you, and the crowd is a mix of locals and people staying in town rather than by the sand. Mid-range prices, casual to the point of shabby-comfortable, and it suits a solo drinker at the bar as well as it does four people settling in for the evening.

The 10am opening is the useful bit. Old Town is a walking place, and after a couple of hours of heat and Sino-Portuguese shophouses you'll want somewhere to sit down with a cold one that isn't a café. Come back after dark and it turns into an evening spot without changing character much. My advice is to treat it as one stop in a Phuket Town night out rather than the whole plan. The heritage streets and the street food around Thalang Road are five minutes away.