P. Ballantine & Sons

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P. Ballantine & Sons is a former US brewery in Newark . It was founded in 1840 and closed in 1972 . At the height of its popularity, P. Ballantine & Sons was the third largest brewery in the United States.

history

Founded by the turn of the century

In 1840, Scottish emigrant and brewer Peter Ballantine moved from Albany to Newark, New Jersey , to start a brewery near the promising New York market . He had worked as a brewer in Black Rock and Troy in previous years .

Together with Erastus Patterson he rented the Thain & Collins Brewery and operated it under the name Patterson & Ballantine . In 1846 Ballantine bought Pattersons shares and became the sole owner of the Peter Ballantine Brewing Company . Ballantine specialized in making classic ales , including India Pale Ale . With increasing success, he expanded the brewery to include a warehouse, an administration building, a malt house and a brewery. Ten years later, Ballantine's sons Peter Jr., John and Robert joined the company, which was then renamed P. Ballantine & Sons . The brewery kept this name until it closed in 1972. The annual output of the Ballantine brewery in 1870 was approximately 60,000 barrels of ale and 30,000 bushels of malt . The brewery was expanded again to keep up with the growth.

Due to the increasing popularity of lager beer and the falling sales of classic ales, Ballantine decided in 1879 to acquire the Schalke Brothers Brewery. Production of its own lager started here, while ale was still being made in the old brewery. At that time the company was already the sixth largest brewery in the USA, almost twice the size of Anheuser-Busch . In the same year, the well-known logo with three interlocking rings was introduced, which should stand for “Purity, Body, Flavor” (Eng. “Purity, Body, Taste”). The logo resembles the arrangement of Borromean rings and, according to the company legend, was created when Peter Ballantine noticed the wet rings that beer glasses left on tables.

The family dealt severe blows in the years 1882–1884. Three Ballantines died: company founder Peter Ballantine (1883) and his sons Peter Jr. (1882) and John (1884). The youngest son, Robert, took over the management of the company. Under him, in addition to the daily brewery operations, two subsidiaries outside of the beer market were set up: a company for malt-based breakfast cereals and a company in the transport business. In the 1890s it had an output of approximately half a million barrels. In 1905 the last son of the Ballantine family died and the vice-president of the brewery and husband of the granddaughter of the company founder, George Griswold Frelinghuysen, took over management.

Prohibition and zenith

In 1912 the old brewery and its own malt house were stopped - the latter mainly because foreign malt houses were now able to provide much cheaper brewing malt. During Prohibition , in which many American breweries had to close, P. Ballantine & Sons could rely on the business of the subsidiaries founded by Robert. In addition, business in insurance and real estate was pursued. Malt syrup was made in the Schalke Brewery.

After the end of Prohibition, the Ballantine brewery was bought by Carl and Otto Badenhausen, two German entrepreneurs who had sold brewing machines in South America with great success. It was under them that the Ballantine brewery experienced its greatest success. Shortly after the end of the Second World War , the Christian Feigenspan Brewing Company was acquired and used as a second brewery until its closure in 1948. In 1950 Ballantine was the third largest brewery in the USA, behind Anheuser-Busch and Schlitz , with an annual output of around 4.4 million barrels , and the largest in the New York region.

Decline and closure

Increasing competitive pressure and the lack of economies of scale soon ensured that the Ballantine brewery lost its importance. Other breweries had meanwhile switched to a strategy of national expansion and were engaged in a widespread price and advertising war. In 1960 the annual output was unchanged at 4.4 million - Ballantine was however only the sixth largest brewery in the USA. From the mid-1960s, the Ballantine brewery was no longer profitable.

A major labor strike finally forced the Badenhausens and their partners in 1969 to sell the brewery to the Investors Funding Corporation of New York for $ 16.3 million. Annual sales at that time were approximately $ 70 million. The changing taste preferences for beer made things even more difficult: customers now preferred light beers to traditional ales, which were perceived as difficult. Sales and market share continued to decline until 1972 when Investors Funding Corporation decided to close down the brewery and sell its brands and rights to Falstaff Brewing Company . Ballantine beer production was relocated to Cranston . After Pabst acquired the Falstaff Brewing Company , Ballantine beer was produced in various brewery locations.

In August 2014, Pabst released an updated version of the original India Pale Ale.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Several sources state that Ballantine rented the brewery, which was also called High Street Brewery because of its address , from General John R. Cummings in 1840. However, he had already sold it to Robert Morton in 1832, who in turn rented it to Thain and Collins in 1838.

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