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Prohibition Era
Cereal Beverage and Soft Drinks
Trade card for Ballantine's "cereal beverage" (less than .5% alcohol).The term "Special Brew" was one used by a number of Newark breweries for their "near beer".
Near beers were marketed by many brewers at the start of the Prohibition era, tho' sales weren't as large as most hoped and, by most accounts, grew smaller throughout the 1920's (unlike malt syrup, used for homebrew).
[BELOW] During the first year of National Prohibition and only 4 months after the ad above, Ballantine sold it's cereal beverage business to the local conglomerate known as The United States Brewing Co. (Newark brewers Krueger and Trefz and nearby Hauck from Harrison, NJ).
Krueger and Hauck had previously been brewing for a number of other area brewers during the period of so-called "War Beer" (2.75% abw).
As noted [RIGHT] Ballantine continued to make their own soft drinks and malt syrup.
When 3.2% beer was legalized (April, 1933) before the complete Repeal of Prohibition in December, only 2 NJ brewers were still licensed to make and sell near beer; Krueger, being one of the two, would be the only Newark brewer ready to sell the 3.2 beer on April 7, 1933.
Soft drinks were another Prohibition-era product- here ads for Golden Glow Ginger Ale notes they also made sarsaprilla, lemon and club sodas.
[LEFT] The Ballantine Ginger Ale (no doubt marketed to taverns as a mixer by the "no frills" look of the label) was continued after Repeal, though manufactured by a local NJ soft drink bottler.
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