Interesting that it had some troll friends who joined BA, reviewed this one beer highly, and then left. Just like Pariah Brewing of Baltimore, formerly San Diego (now closed as well).
Deducted 0.01 points for poor quality control on the part of the bottling line inspector. The dummy had let a bottle get by which appeared to have a foreign object (hot pepper?) inside it.
I really miss the days of walking in and trying to uncover the mystery of whatever bombers you were going to find there. Such a wild time!
I thought the same. It's basically just another crappy AAL, but with some flavor and heat from the chili peppers. I thought the chili peppers enhanced the flavor considerably. Not saying it was anything to write home about, but it's far from the worst beer I've ever tasted. If you were making a batch of chili and needed to add a bottle of beer as part of the recipe, Ed's would be perfect.
I agree, typically a large walk-in cooler. In most cases, they don’t have anything special. Here, in Vermont, they often put the popular local beer that they sell a lot - Lawson’s, Alchemist.
All the ones here are macro swill & if you head to the other cooler where the good shit might be, you get yelled at.
The walk-in cooler at the store I go to most often is now closed to customers. Special order sixtels were being purchased by people that did not make the special order. I remember a drive through beer cave many years ago. You drove your car inside the building. Cases and/or kegs were put in your trunk.
Yeah, in central Jersey, there was one of those "Pennsylvania style" drive-thru beer (and pop) stores in Edison on Old Post Rd., and one in the Rahway/Iselin area on Rt. 27 aka Lincoln Hwy. (There was a pretty famous one up in Bayonne or Hoboken, too, but I never came across it.) Worked nearby, so I regularly bought Ballantine Ale in deposit bottles in Edison, as well as the occasional case of Kaier's (then brewed by Ortlieb's in Phila., came in steinies), Utica Club and, eventually, Lord Chesterfield Ale all in long neck/returnables. Only thing I ever bought at the Lincoln Hwy place was Ballantine Beer in steinie quarts, which I needed for homebrewing. Still have the shell & bottles. I guess I can kiss my $1 (or were the quarts more in NJ?) deposit goodbye.
For homebrew, I used some of the Ballantine XXX Ale returnable green Tavern Tall (you call them bumper) quarts. I preferred green bottles (and the brew inside) because I could better monitor the fill level. My prohibition- era capper barely accommodated those. I still have some bottles and a shell. I gave my one bottle still with label still intact to a beer store nearby that had a small display.
I only call 'em that, 'cause they did Yeah, I had a bunch of 7 oz. Matt's Premium long neck returnables and some champagne-style Schmidt's Classic bottles, both clear (aka "flint") glass, I used to watch how the beer was progressing. Yeah, I had a few cappers from that era - one was adjustable enough to use on those tall Ballantine quarts, 'Gansett Imperial quarts and even a couple of ½ gallon "picnics" I had.
Falstaff had run out of the "bumper" neck labels by the time I got to the east coast. I got my capper from my grandfather when I was in HS making root beer. In the 30s, he operated a small market where he sold meat and vegetables. Any fruit that was past its prime was used for wine.
I remember the place on Old Post Road (It's a half mile from my house.), but it didn't sell anything interesting. For the last thirty years or so, it's been an Asian restaurant.
In my area, the best beer selection is one of our big grocery store chains, Hy-Vee. And about half of them have walk in coolers. My daughters love going into them, which is funny. One time, like 15 years ago, i found something really hard to find in there, so I keep looking ever since then. But no luck. Mostly macros and seltzers, and whatever else that they have too much of.
Yeah, I remember the lack of anything to buy the final visits to that place long after I was a regular. My period going there frequently for cases of returnable bottles was in the 1970s. Oh, yeah - St. Georges Ave! That brings to mind a, uh, "misunderstanding" I had with a young woman when she gave me an address on that road. I drove up and down Rt. 27, not realizing that St. Georges Ave. switches over to Rt. 35 at the junction of the two highways. +50 years ago...
