Ballatine IPA old Vs New

A bit of history in this thread: http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...sters-last-stand-vs-pabsts-ballantine.217032/

Cheers!

 

i just cant remember that many years ago......other than what the can/bttl looked like
fresh new stuff is good though but seems to be gathering dust locally

 

This post by @LuskusDelph contains some good info-
Resurrecting an IPA: Cluster's Last Stand vs Pabst's Ballantine

 

Nothing above three. Plenty of ones and twos.

I can't imagine there is anyone who could actually do that comparison other than by recipe.

 

Which was my primary motivation for conducting a side-by-side tasting of Smuttynose Cluster's Last Stand (brewed based upon a historical recipe published in Mitch Steele's IPA book) and the 'new' Ballantine IPA.

http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...and-vs-pabsts-ballantine.217032/#post-2853438

Cheers!

 

Where are you looking to see this?

 

60 years ago would have been the Ballantine IPA brewed in Newark NJ. I drank it a few times in the early 70's. All I recall is that it had a strong aroma and was bitter. I know now that that was because it was hopped up. Did not know that than. The people who used to drink Ballantine IPA and the XXX Ale all claimed that both beers went downhill fast after the move to Narragansett in RI.
My father drank the IPA every once in a while. The first time I poured him a SNPA, He said it tastes like a Ballantine IPA.

 

Ummmm, I'm joking.

 

Ahhh, ok, I missed the twinkle in your eye... :-)

 

Falstaff did change the processes and recipes (particular the hopping rates and types used) for the two Ballantine ales during the time it was brewed at the Narragansett brewery in Cranston, RI but I don't think most Ballantine drinkers of the time felt it went "downhill fast". The types of hops changed, they eventually dropped the use of hop oil, the aging time for the IPA was reduced a couple of times and its ABV lowered - but most of that happened over a long period of time, basically the two decades under Falstaff being brewed first at Cranston and then moved to Falstaff's Ft. Wayne brewery (1972-1991). Many regular (non-geek) Ballantine Ale drinkers stayed with the brand after Falstaff's purchase and reviews in various books during that period of the "Great Beer Awakening" generally had good things to say about both the ales.

Certainly, after Paul Kalmanovitz's S&P Corp. took control of Falstaff, the sales, advertising and distribution of the Ballantine ales were negatively affected by his notorious cost-cutting measures. The Ballantine labels were particularly at risk due to a somewhat unusual "50¢/bbl. royalty" deal that Falstaff agreed to pay the former Ballantine stockholders - making them more expensive to sell compared to the other Falstaff brands. As a result, it's probable that many of the changes in the recipes were economic decisions.

I drank the Ballantine XXX Ale as my "house beer" all through the Narrangansett and first few years of Ft. Wayne and it was still a nice, hoppy US style "golden ale". There was even a period after S&P folded all their brand and breweries under their "Pabst" umbrella when XXX had a really impressive hop nose and flavor - I think around the mid-late 90s, when the labels read "Falstaff Brewing Co., Detroit, MI" (!) which must have meant when S&P and Stroh were brewing each other's beers (and, yeah, even though Stroh in Detroit was no longer open). According to some industry articles at the time, it might have been coming out of Stroh-Allentown, PA or even Stroh/Heileman La Crosse. The final blow to XXX came when Pabst went to what they themselves called a "virtual brewery" and moved all brewing to Miller breweries.

I remember drinking a bottle of Ballantine Ale at a local NJ "shot and a beer" working class bar in the mid-80s (the owner was a fan and always carried it. Even loaned him a nice 4' Ballantine Ale florescent sign when the local distributor had no Ballantine POS material). Two old dudes across the bar from me drinking Miller Lite - one, points to me and says "He's drinking the good stuff over there." The other guy nods in agreement but then adds, "Yeah, but it not the same..." Both nod in agreement. Jess Kidden smiles and thinks to himself, "Yeah, it may not be the same but it sure in hell ain't Miller Lite!"

The IPA is a different story - it certainly underwent a steady, slow dumbing-down - those final batches out of Pabst's Milwaukee brewery in the mid-1990s, while still identifiable as "Ballantine India Pale Ale", seems like a dilution of the original, or a "light" version - "Ballantine India Pale Ale Light - with 1/3 less of everything than our other IPA".

Yeah, I often got some BIPA deja vu when I drank both Celebration and Bigfoot in the 80s and 90s. Maybe more than I got with Pabst's "reboot" Ballantine India Pale Ale. I figure that I drank much more of Falstaff's Ballantine ales than I ever had of Newark's, so my "taste memory" of the originals is long deminished. I mean, Pabst's brewmaster Greg Deuhs, pretty much admitted that, without an original recipe, they tried to re-create a taste rather than duplicate a recipe - going all-malt, using modern hops not available in the 1960s or before, using oak in a "torpedo" like device (even thought the original "Aged in the Wood One Year" IPA was aged in Mammut lined tanks, not raw wood), a comparatively very short aging period, etc.

As for the OP's question, supposed some of Deuhs research was done with ex-Ballantine employees (who, after all, would all now likely be in their 70-80s and few are probably left who remained in the industry). Supposedly, there was some video taken of an interview with a former Ballantine brewhouse worker in his 90s done by Pabst with him trying their "new" version but I don't think it was ever posted --- or I just can't find it.

 

I should have said the people I knew who drank it. Even that could have beer a "last years Celebration was better" reaction.

 

Yeah, I agree there was a local backlash to Ballantine's closing and the screwing of their workers and retirees out of their pension by the Wall Street outfit, Investors Funding Corp., that owned the brewery the last couple of years before selling the brand to Falstaff. (I worked with a +20 year Ballantine worker in the late 70s who I'd discuss beer with and while he had nothing bad to say about XXX Ale, he wouldn't drink it, IIRC - and I usually had some in the cooler in my vehicle out in the parking lot for breaktime and lunch .) That combined with those changes in the ales and S&P's cost-cutting, did lose them a lot of local market share and "goodwill".

I just wouldn't describe that reaction, even among the local north Jersey drinkers, as the beers themselves going "downhill fast" since there were those several other factors at work.

Similar to how some current beer drinkers who refuse to buy the Goose Island or other ABInBev-owned "craft" brewers' beers, regardless of whether the beers themselves have changed.

Of course, Ballantine Beer's history is even worse than that of the ales - Falstaff moved it firmly into the "discount" segment and even admitted it was the same beer as other Falstaff products in court. But Ballantine Beer's downfall had begun under P. Ballantine & Sons management - at least, according to none other than Joe Owades (of "Lite Beer" and "Samuel Adams Boston Lager" fame):

 

While I don't remember ever having an old style Ballentines, if I'd known back in the day what I've learned from you about the history of what happened under Falstaff ownership and their general practices, etc., I probably would never have had a Falstaff.

 

Well, by rights - and I think I try to mention it often in these sorts of threads - the worst came under Paul Kalmanovitz's S&P Corp. ownership - and, really, Falstaff itself (both the brand and its brewery workers) also suffered from similar or worse fates.

Unfortunately, "S&P Corporation" and its successor, The Kalmanovitz Charitable Trust, never appeared on any labels of the beers from the breweries it owned (General, Falstaff [inc. subsidiary Narrangansett], Pearl and Pabst) so it is still relatively unknown - even some so-called "beer writers" still claim that "Pabst bought Falstaff" , when the opposite happened - Falstaff's parent company, S&P, bought Pabst in 1985. Geez, it was in all the papers...

I always had mixed feeling about the company even back then (70s- early 80s) - I still drank their Ballantine ales (including the short-lived new ones, like Cream Ale, Brewer's Gold Ale and Twisted Red Ale) and when I lived in or visited New England I always bought Haffenreffer Malt Liquor, Croft Ale, Pickwick Ale, Ballantine Porter, Narrangansett Porter, Krueger Cream Ale or the rare draft-only Krueger Old Surrey Porter, etc.

I mean, what else was I gonna drink in New England in the 1970s - Schlitz or Carling Black Label?

 

I really enjoy these threads when our historians chime in. Thanks jesskidden and JackHorzempa.

 

Jesskidden is Master Po and I am just grasshopper but thanks for the shout out!

Cheers!

 

So its a step down from Torpedo

 

Do you think the cost cutting could have started when Investors Funding Corp. owned Ballantine? I work at an A&P with a liquor license back than. The sold a lot of beer but very little Ballantine anything. Schafer,Rheingold, Budweiser and Tudor Cream Ale (a house brand) were the big sellers.