🟡 Where's the Pub With No Beer?
Including: a tour of Kempsey's Akubra hat factory, the search for Slim Dusty's Pub With No Beer, and what makes this Bellingen bookstore alternative.
Ellie Chamberlain
November 12, 2025
⏱️ The 75th edition of our newsletter is a seven-minute read.
🙋♀️ Hi everyone, Ellie here – your reporter for the Mid North Coaster.
🍾 We’ve now got 15,740+ subscribers!! Thank you to all of you for following along.
👋 I’m back from my week of packing boxes, sneaking in surfs, and creating Op-Shop piles that may or may not remain in the boot of my car until the new year. Gosh, moving house is a mission.
It doesn’t help when my need to find items a new home that’s not the bin includes one unsharpened pencil and a half-used tea-light candle. Anyhoo, we’ll get there.
I do, however, need one more day away from the laptop on Friday to scrub the house.
But there’s plenty of content to keep you entertained and informed, I promise.
👀 Today, let’s catch up on two Bellingen business features: we’ll meet the owner of Alternative Bookshop, as well as the Manager of Macleay’s Machines of Distinction vintage motorcycle museum.
We’ll also check in on two Kempsey icons: Lou Kesby, of Lou’s cafe, and take a tour of the Akubra factory to see how the hats are made.
🤔 Inspired by my visit to the workshop, I started thinking about Kempsey’s other claim to fame – country music legend Slim Dusty.
South Kempsey is home to both the Akubra factory and the Slim Dusty Centre. But where’s the Pub With No Beer Slim sings about? Surely that’s on the MNC, too? I reached out to the centre to find out more.
Here’s the story…
📍Where exactly is the pub with no beer Slim Dusty sings about?
(L) Taylors Arm Pub with No Beer (R) Lees Hotel in Ingham. Credits: https://www.gdaypubs.com.au/ and https://www.leeshotelingham.com.au/the-blog/august-2025/from-poem-to-pub-legend/
Slim Dusty’s song “Pub With No Beer” gives a new meaning to the State of Origin, with both NSW and QLD claiming to be the inspiration behind the award-winning hit.
But is there any evidence to tell us who’s right?
A local icon: The late country music legend Slim Dusty, known around the world for his prolific song-writing, is a Mid North Coast icon – having grown up at Nulla Nulla Creek in Kempsey Shire.
During his lifetime, Dusty recorded more than100 albums, won 32 Tamworth Country Music Festival Golden Guitar awards, and collected more Gold and Platinum records than any other Australian artists, among many other accolades.
How it started: His song “The Pub With No Beer,” released in 1957, was Dusty’s international breakthrough hit and was awarded Australia’s first gold record. The song remains popular today with Spotify listens reaching the multi-millions.
What pub is Slim Dusty signing about? The Mid North Coaster reached out to the Slim Dusty Centre in Kempsey to find out exactly where the pub might’ve been.
🗣️ Venue Support Officer, Trudy Crabtree, told the Mid North Coaster the version Dusty recorded in 1957 was adapted by Gordon Parsons, inspired by his local pub the Cosmopolitan Hotel at Taylors Arm, NSW, after floods cut off beer deliveries in the 1950s.
“Here at the Slim Dusty Centre, we refer to the Pub With No Beer Hotel, at Taylors Arm, which is not far from where Slim grew up at Nulla Nulla Creek in the Macleay,” Crabtree said.
The hotel has since been renamed The Pub With No Beer.
Battle of the states: But Queensland also claims to have the Pub With No Beer.
A poem by Dan Sheahan about the Day Dawn Hotel in Ingham, now named Lees Hotel, is said to have been written after the pub ran out of beer when U.S. troops drank it dry during WWII.
The hotel now claims to be the original Pub With No Beer.
The whole truth: Really, it all becomes a matter of who you want to believe: the managers of Slim Dusty’s museum, or the local watering hole in Ingham. Chances are, they’re not the only one claiming the title, either.
📢 EVENTS HAPPENING THIS WEEK
🎤 Healthy Harold’s Festival of Health
🗓️ Wednesday 12, 3.30pm - 5.30pm
📍 Service Clubs Park, Kempsey
The festival brings together families, schools and community organisations for a colour run, a meet and greet with Health Harold himself and interactive stalls from local health and community services.
➡️ Check out your local council website to find out more about the Australia-wide Garage Sale Trail happening this weekend.
👤 Meet these local legends
🟡 Chemo “knocked the crap” out Lou Kesby of Lou’s Cafe in Kempsey’s CBD, but he remains optimistic and passioning about running the successful business. Mel Mantle met with Lou to reflect on the past 42 years at the helm.
Read the article on our website.
🟡 Bellingen’s Alternative Bookshop owner, Alex, tells us about what his store offers and why he took on the challenge.
🟡 Stephen Keir V, fifth-generation “master hatter” and Production Manager takes us on a tour through the Akubra Factory to see each step of how the iconic hat is made.
🟡 With 25 years experience in the motorcycle Industry, Manager Scott Fitzgerald shows us some of the rare items in Macleay’s collection of vintage triumphs on display in Bellingen.
📍 Where’s this on the MNC?
Have you guessed yet?
@midnorthcoaster Where is this on the Mid North Coast? #trivia #australia #nature #travel
That’s all for now
I hope you enjoyed this week’s newsletter.
If you don’t already, follow the Mid North Coaster on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, or check the website to keep up to date with local news.
👋 Ellie
