ONCE upon a time, if you wanted a beer you went to Queanbeyan, simple. Thanks to King O’Malley, the federal Minister for Home Affairs of the day, Canberra was a dry town from 1911 to 1929. King O’Malley… a fierce teetotaller, who called grog “stagger-juice”. O’Malley, a fierce teetotaller, who called grog “stagger-juice” and abstained from it, persuaded his cabinet colleagues to ban, in 1911, the granting of liquor licences in the Federal Capital Territory. Queanbeyan resident Phill Hawke, who is researching O’Malley’s “flamboyant” life, says that at the time it wasn’t illegal to possess or drink alcohol in the ACT, you just couldn’t sell it.