Brewers

1869 - 71

Alfred E. Smith was a brewer for P. Ballantine & Co. He left to brew at the Wheeling, WV brewery founded by his father in 1845, The Smith Brewing Co. The elder Smith had previous owned a NYC brewery, as well as brewing in Albany at Uri Burt's brewery, and Pittsburgh at Brown & Verner (which he later bought).

1870

W. Jameson, 40, living with Peter Ballantine's family, listed as "brewer" in census. (First name listed as "Welcome" on ancestry sites).

1880-1905 - Lager brewers

Frederick Christopher Wackenhuth, Sr., listed as "brewer in brewery" lived at 436 Ferry St., along with his family including son, Frederick Christopher Wackenhuth, Jr. (1877-1926). By 1900, Wackenhuth Sr., was listed as "Head Brewer" and the son as "Ass't Brewer" and they were living on the lager brewery grounds, at 57 Freeman St. He retired in 1905, after 25 years with Ballantine.

F. C. Wackenhuth, Jr., in 1905, would be cited as "Technical Brewer" and, in a Rutgers alumni publication, "Head Brewer". He would be admitted to membership of the "American Brewing Institute" the same year. Son and grandson of Chistopher Wackenhuth, who ran the former Kolb brewery on Orange St. in partnership with Adams as Wackenhuth, Adams and Co. in 1870's with sales of 20,000 barrels in 1875 - making them them the tied with the Krueger and Kastner breweries for sixth largest lager beer brewer in Newark. In the 1870 census, the brewery was said to be worth $40,000.

By 1878, F. C. Wackenhuth alone is listed as the 13th largest brewery (out of 25) in Newark, with sales of only 3,188 barrels, dropping again to 2,682 in 1878. The property would be auctioned off the next year (1879). Wackenhuth's obituary in the 1918 edition of American Brewers' Review claimed that the Wackenhuth Brewing Co. (South Orange & Springfield Sts) was "absorbed" by P. Ballantine & Sons.

Wackenhuth testified at Pure Food Hearings in Congress in 1900.

In 1908 F.C. Wackenhut, Sr. along with another son, Carl, formed the Malto-Brau Company to produce a non-alcoholic cereal beverage, which would be out of business by the time of the enactment of National Prohibition.

1859 - 1900's - The Porter family of Ale brewers

William Porter was hired by P. Ballantine & Sons in 1859. He was succeeded by his son, John Grove Porter, who worked for Ballantine from 1869 until retirement in 1911. His son, Ernest G. Porter, who had joined the brewery in 1896, became master brewer upon his father's retirement until his early death in 1914.

POST-REPEAL, BADENHAUSEN ERA 1933 - 1972

1876 - 1940

Scottish brewery consultant hired by the Badenhausen's who would soon become P. Ballantine & Sons' head ale brewer and, later, lager brewer (after a German brewer left to return home) after Repeal. In the UK, MacKechnie worked for Tennant (Glasgow), Thompson (Perth) and Watney (London). In 1911, he became the brewmaster at Wm. Dow & Co. in Montreal, Canada. A New York Times obituary also mentions working for "Moulson's (sic) Brewery" in Montreal. He returned to London in 1930, working at "brewing research" when hired by Ballantine in 1933 as a "consulting brewmaster".

Relevant details for MacKechnie - from a 1935 Ship Manifest of Alien Passengers

Above - "A veteran Ballantine brewer checks his ale."

Photo published in the 1950's, possibly an older photo of MacKechnie?

MacKechnie is also pictured with VP Otto Badenhausen and possibly the photo above it in the photos of the Ballantine brewery's open ale fermenters.

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James J. O'Meara was noted as "masterbrewer" for Ballantine in 1935 American Brewer magazine's List of Operating Breweries and in other articles in the post-Repeal era of 1933 -1937. The 1940 census has a James J. O'Meara, "brewmaster" living in Newark on Lake St. Newark city registers would have him at Oxford St. (immediately behind the brewery, the address of which is also noted in his entry in the 1937 Directory) and Highland Ave in the late 1930s-1940s.

James J. O'Meara graduate of the National Brewers' Academy and member of the MBAA, was a brewer at Albany's Quinn & Nolan ale brewery in 1916. Born in Massachusetts, he had previous worked at the Worchester Brewing Co. (Mass.) as an assistant brewmaster.

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Most industry reference books in the post-Repeal era do not list master brewers or other brewers for P. Ballantine & Sons, which was the convention for most other breweries' entrees. That may have been due to management's attitude at the time, noted in a 1950 FORTUNE article:

Below is a list of people whose employment as a "brewer" for P. Ballantine & Sons was claimed in their obituaries or other articles (as noted in footnotes) As such, no claim of accuracy is made (other breweries they worked for in Red).

¹ John C. Brzezinski bio (page down half way)

² Worked at various NY, Ohio and Connecticut breweries, pre- and post-Prohibition. Hired by Ballantine and working in a Connecticut company-owned branch in 1957. Likely never brewed for Ballantine. Former president of Brewery Workers Local 35 (CT) .

³ Apprenticed in the Pielson brewery in Bavaria, was a brewer for P. Ballantine & Sons, previous to June, 1934, according to an article at the time of his appointment as brewmaster at the Monongahela Valley Brewing Co. of Fairmont, WV.