The Bar Towel

http://www.grubstreet.com/2014/08/pabst ... AtB87wc9NZ

"Have we reached peak PBR?" Outside asked earlier this month, and now Pabst Brewing's latest move seems to suggest we have. The beer company is hoping it has the next great hipster brew on its hands with its revival of Ballantine India Pale Ale, a beer nobody's really tasted for decades and for which no original recipe exists. Pabst master brewer Greg Deuhs says he relied on analytic reports, some of which date back 80-something years, to reverse-engineer the flavor profile, and he also went the (literal) oral-history route by working off "beer lovers' remembrances." The result is an ale made with eight kinds of hops, four malts, hop oil, and oak chips. Six-packs and large-format bottles return to store shelves next month.

wow.......just wow!?

I wouldn't have a problem with PBR doing it, if they actually did it right. Sadly, it sounds like they're really just using the name.

I could probably make a better clone, with just a bit of googling...

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.ca/2010/ ... e-ale.html

Anyone have the brew your own?
https://byo.com/stories/issue/item/2000 ... ballantine

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/t ... bers.4912/

Actually, the BYO recipe was reproduced in Mitch Steeles book, and is also here:
http://beermumbo.com/brew-a-legendary-b ... le-or-ipa/

Based on Jay Brooks report, clearly the company did make extensive efforts to ensure an historically accurate palate:

http://brookstonbeerbulletin.com

I just hope they don't overdo the wood chips part, because if the beer had any wood character - and I drank it many times - it was subtle. From everything I've read, the beer was always kept in lined oak barrels (large tank-like barrels), not unlined wood. But maybe the company feels the wood somehow got into the beer. The results will tell, but net net it's good news.

With 8 different hops and 70 IBU, it sounds like they're jumping on the bandwagon... but I guess we'll see.

What are the odds the original was made with hop oil?

squeaky wrote:What are the odds the original was made with hop oil?

Quite likely actually

http://heapsofhistory.blogspot.ca/2012/ ... works.html

icemachine wrote:

squeaky wrote:What are the odds the original was made with hop oil?

Quite likely actually

http://heapsofhistory.blogspot.ca/2012/ ... works.html

Did they keep the same recipe until the 70s? I suppose like that article says, they probably used oil in years where hop harvests were low.

Derek wrote:With 8 different hops and 70 IBU, it sounds like they're jumping on the bandwagon... but I guess we'll see.

Derek, yes, but only in the sense that Ballantine IPA actually did have 70 IBU and 7.2% ABV in its original formulation. Clearly the brewery knows this from its internal verifications, but I know it too because Michael Jackson reports a similar gravity for the beer in its 50's and 60's heyday. Also, 1800's sources regularly report circa 7% ABV for the best American IPAs and the hop rates would have been similar to England's for which 70 IBU is well within the ball bark. Putting it a different way, the craft IPAs actually caught up to what Ballantine IPA (and many other long disappeared ones) were all about.

Gary

squeaky wrote:What are the odds the original was made with hop oil?

That is a good question. It is unlikely that it was in the 1800's. But the use of a small still to concentrate hop oils at Ballantine was known since the middle of the 1900's. It either came in in the 1930's when brewing started up again after Prohibition, or possibly after 1945. But Ballantine histories regularly refer to it.

squeaky wrote:

icemachine wrote:

squeaky wrote:What are the odds the original was made with hop oil?

Quite likely actually

http://heapsofhistory.blogspot.ca/2012/ ... works.html

Did they keep the same recipe until the 70s? I suppose like that article says, they probably used oil in years where hop harvests were low.

This is possible. I think it was probably a way to dry hop without the downside of using whole leaf hops which can impart an unwanted secondary fermentation due to microflora on the leaves. Reading that article, it does seem possible that using distilled hop oil was practiced by Ballantine in the 1800's. But in any case it is documented since the mid-1900's.

The recipe did change over time, Mitch Steele's (from Stone) book on IPA confirms that. The recipe by the mid-1990's was fairly bland although it was still an excellent beer and quite different to Ballantine XXX ale say. But again the key point is that a beer is being brought back which represents the English tradition of pale ale when first implanted in America. Maytag and Grossman amongt others knew the beer in the 70's when it was still very good. Celebration Ale is supposed to be SN's take on the style in fact. IIRC, Old Foghorn was inspired by it too (from Anchor).

G.M. Gillman wrote:Celebration Ale is supposed to be SN's take on the style in fact. IIRC, Old Foghorn was inspired by Ballantines too (from Anchor).

Celebration is truly great, will have to try Foghorn for the comparison. Thanks!

Cool stuff...not a beer I'm familiar with but I love learning new things from the BT crowd here...makes me want to try it more now.

I do recall drinking this as far back as the 80's, yet if they interviewed me, I would not be able to give them a single clue of the "flavour profile". I guess some are better at retaining these details.

I recall liking it, but also that it was pretty much treated like a malt liquor by most; as in frat boy get drunk faster stuff.

Belge, I did a quick check. Ken Grossman of Sierra Nevada definitely was inspired by Ballantine IPA when Celebration Ale was devised. I can see the resemblance myself, however, Celebration is frankly of the New World hop type. Ballantine IPA was not, it used Bullion, Northern Brewer, and Fuggles at various times, and the effect was basically English.

Old Foghorn was inspired by Ballantine Burton, a yet stronger beer made by Ballantine into the 1960's. This beer was famous due to its very high ABV and being aged for 15-20 years. When bottled, it was blended with the IPA. Dogfish's Burton Baton is a salute in part to the Ballantine Burton.

In the 1930's, Ballantine also made a Brown Stout. There is hope that the Burton and Brown Stout may yet re-emerge as well. I never had the Burton. Ron Pattinson told me recently he tasted a 50 year old bottle of it in the States and it was great, rich and oaky - quite like a good English barley wine he said.

Here is some evocative period advertising (late 1930's) of Ballantine IPA:

https://sites.google.com/site/pballanti ... rown-Stout

In the 1800's, many American breweries made beers like this, which of course are British in inspiration. The craft beer movement is not something new, it is a revival of a much older tradition of fine beer-making.