Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. beer.

1880		D.W. Barrett Life and Work among The Navvies 40: Now, Jack, I’m goin’ to get a tiddley wink of pig’s ear.
1910		Eve. Teleg. (Dundee) 3 Aug. 4/1: Asked about supper he will suggest an 'Aristotle' of 'pig's ear'.
1912		Sport (Adelaide) 17 Aug. 14/3: They Say [...] Ted H. has turned up ‘pig’s ear’, and now takes on O.T. and lemonade.
1916		Yorks Eve. Post 16 Oct. 5/4: The jargon of the ‘Tommy’ [...] is a never-ending source of wonder to canteen workers and barmaids, with orders for a ‘drop o’ pigs’ or a laugh and titter.’.
1918		Kia Ora Coo-ee 15 May 19/2: A Queenslander, who had come from the Desert with a thirst that he valued far above rubies, came in one day, and leaning across the counter, whispered confidentially. ‘No,’ said the orderly, ‘We haven’t any “pig’s ear”, but we can do you a good line of pork and beans.’ Nothing doing.
1923		Eve. Teleg. (Dundee) 11 July 11/4: Pig's ear, beer.
1929		(con. WWI) R. Graves Goodbye to All That (1960) 72: ‘Pig’s ear’, which is rhyming-slang for beer.
1936		(con. 1900s) F. Richards Old Soldier Sahib (1965) 41: A good deal of rhyming slang was used in those days [...] Beer was ‘pig’s-ear.’.
1937		L. Lane Me and My Girl I iii: porchester: Why, only this morning I found myself asking my man for a bottle of pig’s ear.
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 129: Let’s jump in the jam-jar (car), and get a pig’s ear (beer) at Ella’s club.
1948		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 25 Dec. 6/4: [T]wo other characters choked over their pig’s ear.
1952		Argus (Melbourne) 13 June 4s/2: If, however, he consumes too much ‘pig’s ear ’ or ‘thick and thin’, he may finish up mollies [...] contracted from ‘mollie the monk’.
1957		G. Kersh Fowlers End (2001) 268: My daisies I bullock’d for two pig’s ears / To warm my Auntie Nelly.
1960		N. Hilliard Maori Girl 116: Here, have a pig’s ear, that’ll straighten you up. Larry, cork the bottle.
1967		‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxviii 10/2: pigs ear: Beer.
1970		R. Fabian Anatomy of Crime 192: I bunged down a tosheroon (half-crown) for two pigs’ ears (beers).
1983		R. Aven-Bray Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 7: ‘Twenty Oxford Scholars is a lot of cabbage for one fluffy duck,’ he said as he mentally calculated how may pig’s ears he could buy with that amount of pelf.
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 9: ‘Time for you to sit in, Journo Johnny [...] ‘Five lilies of pigs and a vodka’’.
2001		M. Coles Bible in Cockney 51: They promised not to drink any rise-and-shine or pig’s ear.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 140/2: pig’s ear n. 1 beer.

2. (Aus.) a year.

1968		J. Alard He who Shoots Last 72: Me an’ Pickalock Pete done a bust an’ got a pigs.
1977		D. Powis Signs of Crime 196: Pig’s ear, never in a Never (rhyming ‘year’).
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 140/2: pig’s ear n. 2 a year.