Country pubs are changing.

The traditional country pub in the smaller town that just served beer is no more.

The country boozer has to change the way it does business because it’s now getting to make a living selling alcohol.

It’s a change brought on by all sorts of factors, from an ageing population to declining populations in rural areas to people choosing to drink at home.

It basically means country pubs have to change the way they do business.

What they are now doing is adding new strings to the business. Everything from art galleries, laundromats, gourmet pie shops, hosting festivals and markets, or focussing on serving high-end restaurant meals, breakfast, coffee and cake.

One such publican is Sally Gebert. She and her husband bought a pub in the regional Victorian town of Warracknabeal in 2011.

It was a big challenge because Warracknabeal has a population of just 2,500 and it’s not on a major highway or tourist route.

So the pub started hosting food festivals.

Then she approached the Australian Barbecue Alliance to stage a barbecue competition to tap into the craze of American style slow-cooked meats.

"They (the barbecue alliance) said 'look, you're really in the middle of nowhere, you're not in a city, we don't even know where Warracknabeal is. We're happy to sanction it, we're happy to promote it, but I don't think it's going to be a really big comp'," Mrs Gebert told the ABC.

And it’s changed the pub. It has gone from serving 15 lunch meals on a weekend to around 150 regularly nowadays.

Food is now core to the business.

"The whole drink driving thing means the pub culture has really shifted," Mrs Gebert told the ABC.

Another example is the Willow Tree Inn in the small town of Willow Tree and a population of less than 500 on the Liverpool Plains.

Sydney businessman Charless Hanna bought it in 2009 with plans to take it beyond just serving beer.

He established a fine dining restaurant that serves beef from the cattle raised on his property just down the road. He also built built boutique accommodation on-site.

He says country pubs have to go beyond beer to survive. The focus needs to be less on alcohol and more on food. And they have to start attracting women.

"Beer is beer. You can buy beer from Dan Murphy's. You can buy beer from anywhere and beer is beer," Hanna told the ABC.

"It's what you give the customers apart from that. You have to give them an experience and a reason to come to your hotel."

"We made a place that was attractive to women and particularly families to come to.

"When I bought it (the pub) you wouldn't have seen a woman there on a Saturday night in a million years.”