Picked Monkey's first brew up

The newly formed Pickled Monkey Brewing Co by NSW brewers Neale Cameron, Richard Adamson and Scotty Morgan will soon be brewing up some specialty beers and the first beer will be an Imperial Pilsner (has anyone else made up one of these in Oz?). Expect to see it tapped at at The Local Taphouses from the end of September.

Why “Pickled Monkey”? Here is the story they gave me. It fits perfect with the brewers.

The Pickled Monkey

Don McWorthy worked on the waterfront for 12 years:

‘Well it was never really called thieving but at the end of the day it was. I do remember a couple of incidents. There was a couple of wine barrels (in the ship’s hold) made out of oak and a few of the old wharfies were alcoholics, so they got a little nail and went in between one of the boards in this oak barrel and they got a paper cup and tasted it, and they said ‘Oh, that’s all right, that’ll do us.’ So no-one went to lunch and they were all down there, getting blind drunk and of course they wouldn’t send it up onto the wharf in the crane.

And then a couple of days later this guy comes down and put his head over the hatch and said, “Is there a couple of oak barrels down there?” They said, “Yeah, it’s beautiful – what is it?” And he said, “I hope you haven’t been drinking it.” They said “Yes, we have – why, what’s in it?” And he said, “Well I’m from Sydney University and there’s preserved monkey inside there, in white spirits”. So they finally put it out on the wharf but there was a lot of sick people after that.’
Housing NSW – Millers Point Oral History Project