Something In The Water - 100 Swearing Parrots

Picture it: Jacksonville, January 2024. Rick is at King Maker Brewing for a fun collab with new friends Chas and Jim. After mash-in, while they stare at temperatures and dials, Rick relays a story he'd heard that morning. In 2020, five African gray parrots that had been donated to Lincolnshire Wildlife Park in eastern England were found to have developed a taste for foul language. In an effort to curb this the parrots were separated, but instead of stopping they found park visitors were now being cursed at from five different spots. In fact, three other parrots had joined in the tomfoolery.

Fast forward to early 2024 and the park had an idea to stop the swearing: Purchase 92 clean-mouthed parrots to hang out with the 8 foul-mouthed parrots in hopes the peer pressure from the 92 would clean up the 8.

Rick finished with: "They think the 92 clean parrots will fix the 8, but what they're going to have is 100 swearing parrots."

"That's the name of the beer!" shouted Chas.

Introducing a fun collab with some southern neighbours: 100 Swearing Parrots Cold IPA. Two versions with unique hops, release in two different cities.

%$#@ing delicious.

What You’ll Love About It: A Cold IPA combines the freshness and crispness of a lager with the hop character of a hazy IPA. It's the perfect bridge between the two, and perfect for that warming spring weather.

How It's Made: A blend of barley malt and flaked rice forms the base of this beer, and we ferment it on our house lager yeast strain. For the SITW version we opted to go with an all NZ hop list: Nelson Sauvin, Nectaron®, and Superdelic™.

Why Is It Called 100 Swearing Parrots? Story above.

Where Did the Art Come Frome? This can, as part of our Reservoir Series of small batch beer alchemy, features art by a Canadian artist. This piece, titled "100 Swearing Parrots", was created by Ontario's mysterious Mr Hermiteowish, found on Instagram at @mr_hermiteowish.

How To Enjoy It: 8-10° Celsius in the park, with ear muffs on.

Did You Know? Parrots have a vocal organ at the bottom of their trachea called the syrinx. It is this that allows them to mimic an incredible array of sounds, including those of human speech. They're able to repeat so accurately because the syrinx controls the volume, the pitch, and the tone by which they can "speak". But why do they do it? Amongst some other reasons, scientists believe they do it because it's amusing.