Ballantine Burton Ale in NYC?

On this site it's listed as a one time brew.
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/447/201186/

 

Looks like that would've steered you wrong, then. Hope you can find it if you're interested.

I'm hoping to get more for aging; somehow I didn’t think of that last year.

 

I'll have no problem getting it. It flew out of the stores here last year so the retailers will order it again. By the way the Ballantine IPA is sitting in the stores now.

 

Too bad about that , but it could be a function of age. Any time I want to pick some up its too old.

 

It seems like there is a new IPA to try every week and that they all are at least good. That makes is hard to get repeat sales.

 

Sorry to bring up an old thread, but is anyone seeing this anywhere this year?

The official website has me confused. This year it talks about releasing a limited supply of cellared cases. So, does that mean that the cellared batch is ALL that there is, there's no new batch this year?

An email to their contact address last week has not been returned yet.

 

It appears that the revived Ballantine-branded ales (IPA, Burton & Brewers Gold) are all dead and are no longer being brewed. I write "appears" because even when a Pabst contact does return an email (in my case, two different Pabst employees), the answers are so vague and then they don't follow up to other questions.

Asked about the 3 beers above in July '17, I was told only that:

So, I suspect that the "2016" Ballantine Burton Ale that's appearing on some shelves might be from Pabst out of Cold Spring, and not just old stock from distributors? (The label I saw Friday looked the same as the 2016 released in 2016).

One would think that older vintages that are already bottled would have new, additional labels/stickers but Pabst might not be willing to spend the money (a Falstaff/Pabst tradition since the start of the Kalmanovitz era) on a brand they've killed. If that 600 bbl. aging in Cold Spring is ever bottled, I'd hope it would be specifically labeled, but...

I notice, too, that Pabst's Ballantine XXX Ale website http://ballantineale.com/ (not the "Ballantine Beer" which once featured the 3 "new" ales but now only the Burton Ale) is dead and redirects one to Pabst Blue Ribbon and the brand logo is no longer featured on Pabst's Portfolio page.

Older views of the two Ballantine ales websites:

 

Some serious communications skills problems at Pabst, it would seem! Here's what I got from them today:

So, we're only getting pre-aged Burton Ale this year? (Assuming that we can find it at all...) I can't really complain, since it's damn fine aged, but I do like the taste of a fresh one sometimes as well, and the closest thing I've found to it is Dogfish's Burton Baton, which is a hell of a lot more expensive -- and for some reason, the one bottle of Burton Baton that I tried to age myself didn't seem to change one bit...

 

The beer existed from the first post-Repeal brewing dated 1934 up until around 1966. The recipients - based on the names collected over the years - tended to be brewery officials and business associates of the brewery (distributors, radio and TV announcers, other media partners, supplier personnel, clubs, etc) - I guess they might be called "friends"...

Ballantine was a long time sponsor of the New York Yankees and both Casey Stangel and owner Del Webb got cases and I imagine the same was true for the Phila. Phillies' and Washington Senator officials, since they were also teams the brewery sponsored. In addition, politicians and other famous public figures received Ballantine Burton Ale, like Harry Truman and Cardinal Spelling (supposedly Eisenhower had his case sent back !).

Burton Ale was the same basic recipe as the brewery's India Pale Ale (which itself was "aged in the wood one year" before bottling), with additional dry-hopping for the longer aging period, and was blended with fresh IPA at bottling. The beer was aged solera-style, a new batch added after a small percentage was removed.

The shortest aging period was probably 5 years (1934 - 1939). For the second "vintage" batch from 1946 they didn't start bottling that until 1956.

It was not "aged in...American Oak Barrels" - it was aged in Mammut-lined 140 -150 bbl. casks.


Might have been these:

 

I replied with my ZIP and they sent me a list of every store within 200 miles -- unfortunately, only one of them is anywhere near me, and not really close enough to go for just for beer.

I suppose I'll have to contact the closest distributor between me and that store and see if they can order a case for me -- although if it was released in October (! -- I don't think I ever saw it before December), I doubt it's still available...

 

Found this article on Reddit today:

https://www.beervanablog.com/beervana/2018/1/2/ballantine-burton-makes-a-return

I have no idea why it makes no mention of the fresh batches released in 2015 and 2016, but apparently, it's only going to be available from here forward as an extended-aged version, and only as a whale instead of a wide release. Bah humbug!

 

Much of the stuff Pabst's brewmaster Duehs says in that article contradicts previous sources.

According to Ballantine's former Technical Director John Brzezinski (quoted in Lew Bryson's Brewed Too Soon article in All About Beer http://allaboutbeer.com/article/brewed-too-soon/ ) the Burton Ale were the "best" batches of Ballantine's IPA, further aged and dry-hopped. They were then blended with new batches of IPA at bottling.

M. Jackson said they were aged solera-style in his first Pocket Guide to Beer. The labels, from the releases that date from the late 1930s to the mid-1960s, all listed either a brewing date of May 12, 1934 or May 12, 1946. (The first year the '46 was bottled was 1956).

Brzezinski also said they aging casks were lined with Mammut (a commercial tank lining - although Bryson spelled it wrong - see ad in post #32 above).