hopping
Ballantine's Hops
[BELOW] A Ballantine-contracted Hop Field.
P. Ballantine & Sons claimed to have pioneered contracting with individual hop farmers in order to assure consistent hop quality. The company had growers in California, Oregon and Washington. Earlier in the post-Prohibition era, they apparently still bought some New York State hops, before that state's hop industry eventually died out. In 1944, a post-Repeal peak year for New York's hop farmers with over 500 acres planted, it was estimated that Brewer's Gold made up only 2-3% of the NY hop crop.
A 1950 article in a local paper, The Press Democrat, of Santa Rosa, Californina on the local hop market noted that "...Ballantine Brewing Co. (are) users of a large tonnage of Sonoma County's choicest hops in their products..."
In 1957, some of Ballantine's Brewer's Gold hops were coming from contracted hop ranches near Independence, Oregon, where growers of English hop hybrid varieties Fuggles, Bullions and Brewer's Gold had organized the Willamette Valley Hybrid Hop Growers.
WVHHG President Eugene MacCarthy harvested only between "a token"
"...(Ballantine) experts walk among the grain fields and hop vineyards, talking with farmers, finding ways to improve the barley and the corn and the hops." --- THIS IS BALLANTINE"Ballantine specialists supervise every step in the process (of cultivating their contract hops) - planting, growing, harvesting and shipping. On arrival at the brewery, sensitive instruments measure each hop shipment by taste as well as by pound."
--- AMAZING BUT TRUE, Fabulous Facts About a Famous Company
Illustration from THIS IS BALLANTINE
circa mid-1960s
11 and 31 acres of "full-bodied flavored hops" for Ballantine in the mid-1950s, along with "four or five" other local growers, including Norman Stauffer (who served on the USDA Hop Administration Committee), Gordon Huntley, Gale Prather, and Eldon Pugh. MacCarthy's family had grown hops since before Prohibition but had slowly converted most of the 240 acre farm to to other crops by the 1950s, claiming that "...the Oregon hop industry has been ruined by pale, mild beer". The MacCarthy hop ranch had first started growing Brewers Gold and Bullion hops when given cuttings by Salem OR hop dealer Tom Livesley. According to a local newspaper story in Salem, OR's The Capital Journal, Aug 20, 1957, the Willamette Valley group's growers grew hops for:
"...a particular brewer. They are specialists.
The brewer specifies when they shall fertilize,
irrigate and pick their crops. He produces a
beverage with a distinct hop flavor for
connoisseurs of beers and ales."
After the closing of P. Ballantine & Sons, in the late 1970s an Independence, Oregon hop ranch owned by John I. Haas sold Brewer's Gold hop to Guinness, while chairman of the Oregon Hop Commission Paul Serres' hop farm near Woodburn sold Brewer's Gold and Bullions to Miller to be turned into pellets or extract used for bittering. By the 1980s, Nugget hops were replacing Bullion/Brewer's Gold in Oregon.
Ballantine's refrigerated hop storage area in Newark, with a capacity of 1.5 million pounds.
[BELOW] Adding whole flower hops - a 2-man job - to the brew kettle in Newark, 1960s.
[LEFT] P. Ballantine & Son's "hop field" painting ad was part of their early 1960s "Golden Harvest / Golden Mellow" campaign for Ballantine Beer - as seen in the ad [RIGHT], most of the promotional material, including colored magazine ads, coasters and a tray featured barley fields.
The hops ad did not state which hop varieties were used in the lager beer.
Two references to the brewery's hops usage from one-sheet - THE DIFFERENCE - OUR ALE AND BEER. While the varieties of hops used in their ale and lager are not stated, the do say the beer and ale hops are grown in "different areas of the United States". At the time of the article, commercial hop growing was limited to CA, OR, ID and WA.
Also, a description of the ale's dry hopping procedure (some latter sources have claimed they used hop oil exclusively in place of dry-hopping).
Jahnsen's study of Hop Oil from The Journal of the Institute of Brewing used Ballantine's hop oil distilled from Bullion hops, a "sister" to the Brewer's Gold hop, suggesting Ballantine used both varieties.
[ABOVE] 2 newspaper articles announcing the introduction of the Brewer's Gold hop variety (a relative of the English Bullion hop) to the Oregon and New York hop fields in the first few years after Repeal.
“One possibility (for a new variety for New York State hop growers) is Brewers Gold. It is a high-yielding hop, has a dense, small cone which appeals to brewers, is very high in resins, and has relatively few seeds, which fact also appeals to the brewers. The aroma is entirely different from any of the Clusters, and not all brewers approve of it. From the growers’ point of view, it is somewhat too leafy for them to take readily to this new variety.”
-- J. D. Harlan, 1942 and (below) 1941
Given that the post-Repeal Ballantine XXX Ale was first released in 1934 and Brewer's Gold hops weren't grown commercially until years later, the recipe for the ale obviously changed over the years (of course, a not-uncommon situation in brewing despite the fiction promoted by many long-time brewers).
Brewer's Gold was the only specific hop variety Ballantine ever claimed to use. In the late 1950s, the labels, packaging as well as TV, newspaper and magazine ads for Ballantine XXX Ale referred to Brewer's Gold hops, noting that it was a Registered Trademark of P. Ballantine & Sons.
In 1980, Falstaff would release the short-lived "Ballantine Brewers Gold Premium Ale". Internet rumors two decades later claimed the beer was a blend of Cranston-brewed Ballantine XXX Ale and India Pale Ale. As can be noted by the labels and ads, Falstaff's name for the beer sometimes included the apostophe 's' (B&W ad below) and other time did not (labels, color ad).
The ale apparently was dropped when Falstaff closed Narragansett brewery and moved the production of the Ballantine ales to their brewery in Ft. Wayne, Indiana.
The second label design for the BGA (BELOW, RIGHT - probably changed quickly with little thought put into it because retailers could not tell the difference between the original label and the one for the lower-priced XXX Ale) unusually used the 'dba' "P. Ballantine" for the name of the brewer, as did the B&W ad that ran in Connecticut in the summer of '80.
Most Falstaff-brewed Ballantine products before and after listed the brewer as "Falstaff Brewing Corporation" even after the parent company S&P combined all their brewing under the "Pabst Brewing Co." name.
In 2016, after reviving Ballantine India Pale Ale and Burton Ale, the Pabst Brewing Company introduced a new beer using the Ballantine Brewers Gold Ale name, quite unlike the Falstaff brewed of the late 1970s. M. Jackson's The Pocket Guide to Beer [1982], one of the few written records of the short-lived ale, said it was 7.1% abv and had 30 ibu's while the 2016 product's label [BELOW, LEFT] states 5.5% and 23 ibu's.
The beer, like the other 2 "new" Ballantine ales, was contract-brewed at Cold Spring Brewing Co.'s "Third Street Brewery". All three were soon after dropped by Pabst.
