Ballantine Ale Ad from the New York Times December 23, 1937

Hey peeps. Hope the New Year is working out well for you. Still on the "New Year, New Me" tip? Its a New Year for me but as with the last few posts, I'm still chilling out in 1937. December 23, 1937 to be precise. This time I'm profiling a beer that at its peak was the third largest brewer in the US. But for those of us who grew up in NYC in the late 1980's and early 1990's, this beer was one of the 40oz beers that you could find in the local bodegas. This beer is Ballantine Ale.

If you grew up in Astoria during the 1980's and 1990's you would have spent many a day and night hanging out at the Astoria Park strip cracking open 40's of "Old E" aka Old English 800, Colt 45, St. Ides and Ballantine Ale. But at the time I had no idea that Ballantine Ale had quite the pedigree. Actually even now I didn't really know about how long Ballantine's Ale has been around aside from the old school pictures of Ballantine Ale being advertised at Yankee Stadium.

So let's take a page out of my Alter-Ego HistorySisco and dive head first into the history behind Ballantine Ale.

Ballantine Ale was brewed by the P. Ballantine and Sons Brewing Company which was founded in 1840 by Scotsman Peter Ballantine. The brewery was located in one of the brewing meccas of the United States: Newark, New Jersey.

The Ballantine brand proved to be so successful that a second brewery was built in Newark. As with all the major beer companies in the United States, Prohibition proved to be difficult to navigate. The Ballantine company was able to do so by producing a number of different products just to stay afloat. When the 21st Amendment to the US Constitution repealed Prohibition, the Ballantine breweries jumped back into action.

Beer and Baseball went hand-in-hand (and still does) and it was no less for the Ballantine brand. As shown above, Ballantine Ale was the official beer sponsor of the New York Yankees with legendary Yankees announcer Mel Allen belting out "Its a Ballantine Blast!" when the Yankees would hit one out of the park.

They would continue to sponsor the New York Yankees until the end of the 1966 season.  By this point the writing on the wall was visible for the Ballantine brand.

By 1972 the brand was sold to the Falstaff Brewing Corporation, who in turn sold the beer to the Pabst in 1985. At some point the original recipe for Ballantine Ale was lost. Pabst would still make the beer in a similar fashion as the original and relaunched the brand in 2014.

Now for the benefit of you fine people, I've decided to go out and find myself a Ballantine Ale to sample. What did I think of it? Check out the video from my YouTube Channel:

Ballantine is just your ordinary beer. No more, no less. And that's it. See you in Brooklyn at Finns Corner (660 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, NY.) 

Until Then Keep Drinking,

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