Great story about bringing back an oldy
:cheers:
“Flash forward to 2012, when Pabst (you know it for its PBR) was looking for a new master brewer.”
I always thought Pabst contracted out their brewing?
[quote=“acogg84”]“Flash forward to 2012, when Pabst (you know it for its PBR) was looking for a new master brewer.”
I always thought Pabst contracted out their brewing?[/quote]
They do. They have no breweries anymore, but they do have a brewmaster. He cooked this batch up at Cold Spring…and did a damned good job, too.
Not really a recreation of the original IPA (it would take a few tweaks to reach that) but its still quite good and a clear cut above some of the other IPAs on the market.
As I mentioned in another thread,…tasting it, you won’t believe it’s a Pabst product.
Sounds tasty!
Mr. Octabird
American Made!
I remember balantine ale from back in the day. Or at least I remember it giving me a headache .
Back in what day? :mrgreen:
In the original Newark days (pre-1972), their lineup included (among other things) both Ballantine Ale and Ballantine IPA…either of which would sit quite comfortably alongside (and probably succesfully compete with) any American ales since made since the dawn of the “craft” age.
The quality and flavor were actually essentially maintained by the brand’s successors, but only until the early 1980s…it was definitely downhill after that, when the brand’s custodians started dumbing down the recipes and stripping out most of the flavor (an especially odd move, since the new generation of brewers was just starting to get the drinking public more accustomed to bolder flavors).
You would probably be a bit shocked (as I was) by the Ballantine India Pale recently released by Pabst. It is rather different than the original, but still pretty impressive, especially considering the source.
The real problem is finding any.
Despite the press releases and news stories touting its return, there doesn’t seem to be much real effort on Pabst’s part to get it into distribution, even in the limited regions for which is supposedly targeted.
:roll:
In HS in the late 60s. Probably drank to much of it. I just had the regular ale. Not the IPA.
I can’t wait to go out and get some to try. I remember being able to get it years ago. And liked it.
It seems to be in better distribution now (at least on the east coast).
Average price for the sixpacks now seems to be around $8.99 (and there a some reports of it showing up for $7.99, but not here in NJ). Either way, it’s a pretty respectable brew for the price.
I’ll be very curious to see if the formula gets tweaked a bit (assuming they even keep making the stuff now that Pabst has changed hands again). There’s still some room to make it a bit more like the original product. They’re actually pretty close…they just need to get rid of the citrusy hops; it’s the only thing (besides the lack of proper aging) that mars the re-creation. The aroma could use a slight boost as well.
Even as it stands, it’s considerably better than a lot of modern IPAs out now. I do still prefer the homebrewed version by a pretty wide margin, but whenever I run out this is the one I’d probably buy over any others currently on the market.
