A week on the Shitbox Rally through regional Australia revealed how deeply traditional beer culture still runs, where full-strength brews are a daily ritual and sobriety is often seen as a necessity, not a choice. Sharing non-alc options sparked honest, curious conversations, reminding us that real change starts off the beaten track, with connection, not conversion.
By Timothy Snape
I recently took part in the Shitbox Rally, a wild, dusty odyssey through some of the more remote corners of Eastern Australia, where the road is long, the fuel is 91 octane or less and the beer of choice is cold, crisp, and always full-strength. For a week, I joined hundreds of others driving $1,500-or-less beaters through the bush to raise money for cancer research and to test just how much punishment a 1997 Toyota Corolla can take before its ball joints file for divorce.
What I didn’t expect was a jarring glimpse into a version of Australia I hadn’t encountered for years. Not since the early days of Heaps Normal. Not since I stepped out of the world where everyone knows what a negroni sbagliato is. Each afternoon, as the convoy pulled into another small rural town, the ritual was the same: 300 or so pilgrims, sunburnt, dust-covered, and giddy from the road—descended on the nearest pub like a plague of polite, parched locusts. One schooner of Black Fish (Great Northern) per hand, sometimes two. No questions asked. No time wasted.
There was something primal about it. A collective exhale, a daily sacrament. Everyone knew the drill. The bar staff certainly did. And always, always the same three beers. Cheap, cold, dependable. We had a few cases of Heaps Normal in our boot, of course. When I cracked one open around the wood, inevitably someone would clock the big secret and ask the same question we used to hear every day: “Non-alc? What’s the f***ing point?”. There it was again. That same tone. Half curiosity, half ridicule. Said with a smirk, but still laced with the cultural weight of what beer means out here. To them, a beer is a release valve. A reward. A declaration. And for it to work, to matter, it has to contain alcohol. Otherwise, what is it?
It wasn’t malicious. Just honest. Earnest, even. I had a few good conversations with guys who’d lost mates to drinking-related accidents or had taken stints off the booze themselves. But the prevailing culture was still loud and clear: in these towns, in these pubs, drinking is still closely tied to identity. It’s what you do after. After work. After driving. After grief. After anything, really. And if your beer doesn’t help you feel that shift, doesn’t tip the scales, then it’s just weird. A decaf espresso. A hug with no squeeze.
Back in the cities, it’s easy to forget that this version of Australia still exists. In the bubble of inner-city bottle shops and boutique bars, where non-alc beers sit comfortably next to hard lemonades and aged saisons, it’s easy to believe that things have shifted for good. That we’ve turned some cultural corner. And to some extent, we have. But the Shitbox Rally reminded me just how deeply ingrained our drinking culture still is across much of regional Australia. In these towns, “going to the pub” doesn’t mean choosing between a farmhouse kombucha and a pre-batched martini. It means getting a schooner of the local lager. Full strength. No fuss. No questions.
You might call it a kind of Wake in Fright hangover, a legacy of the sunburnt masculine mythology that shaped this country. The laconic bloke. The esky in the back. The hard-earned thirst. And the sense that beer—real beer—comes with a buzz and a burp.
I’m not here to sneer at it. Honestly, it was kind of beautiful. There was community in it. Rhythm. Even generosity. One night in a pub in Western Queensland, we shouted a round of Heaps Normals for some of the guys we’d been travelling with. They tried it. “Actually not bad”, one admitted, grudgingly. “Still don’t get it, though.”
And fair enough. For them, more mindful drinking and sobriety is something you do because you have to. Not because you want to. Not because it’s cool. Not because it tastes good. And definitely not because some weird guy from the city told you it’s normal now.
But maybe that’s the point.
Movements don’t spread by staying in the cities. They spread when you take the back roads. When you get dust in your ears and sweat in your eyes and hand someone a can of non-alc beer while they’re waiting for their turn on the pool table. They spread when you listen, not preach. When you acknowledge that their version of normal is still real—and still strong.
In some ways, it was kind of comforting. A reminder of where we started. Of what we were and still are pushing up against. That simple, four-word question: “What’s the f***ing point?”
Because in that question is the whole challenge (and the whole opportunity).
If we can answer it out there—where the Black Fish flows like water and sobriety still feels like a punishment—then we’re getting somewhere. If we can show that there’s more than one way to knock off, more than one way to belong, more than one version of the pub ritual, that’s when things really start to shift.
The Shitbox Rally wasn’t just a charity drive. It was a mirror. It showed me that outside the Red Rooster line, drinking culture in Australia hasn’t changed as much as we’d like to think. But it also showed me that people are still open. Curious. Sometimes skeptical, sure. But not closed off.
And maybe that’s all we need. A crack in the door. A conversation around the campfire. A shared laugh over a can that doesn’t hit like it used to, but still satisfies. We’ve still got work to do. But I reckon if you can make it through 3,500km of potholes, under-tarp swagging and pub meals where the only salad is deep fried, then you can probably handle a few skeptical blokes asking “What’s the point?”.
And maybe, if you hang around long enough, you can help them see that this is the point.
To still be part of it. To still belong. To still raise a glass, just without the hangover (I still had one or two mild ones from those Black Fish).
Out there, that’s still a radical idea.
But like every good rally, it starts with showing up. And cracking a cold one, whatever’s in it.
Our very own Editorial Manager, Carolina, is in the spotlight for this edition of Sketchy Business — the highly unofficial interview series packed with spicy questions, hidden skills and things that are too good to be wasted
In the Aussie outback, beer still means full-strength but, even out here, a quiet shift is brewing.
We kicked off our first U.S. event at Shuggie's with A Heavenly Duo—a pizza party in the Bay Area featuring free Heaps, a brain dish and serious funhouse vibes.
Your cart is currently empty.