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Keeping Pabst Blue Ribbon Cool

thehall07

thehall07

All World
Jul 29, 2004
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On a July afternoon, Evan and Daren Metropoulos, the new owners of Pabst Brewing, showed up at the lounge on the 35th floor of the Mandarin Oriental in midtown Manhattan. They had come to discuss their plans for Pabst, which their father and co-owner, C. Dean Metropoulos, bought in May for about $250 million.

Business week
 
Cool article. I used to sip beer out of my dad's pbr bottle all the time as a kid. It was his beer too.
 
nostalgia time for me.. I literally grew up in the shadow of the Hoffman soda bottle (later the Pabst beer bottle). Although, being a Yankee fan, now that I think of it, my dad drank Ballantine. "Make the three ring sign". Mel Allen used to make that glass of beer look sooooo good.
 
It was very sad for the city of Newark & this area when two of Newarks great breweries closed up - Ballentine & Pabst Blue Ribbon. Newark was truely one of this nations great brewing cities. At the time I worked for a firm that represented many of the brewery workers. The shame of it was Ballentine was bought out by a company named Investors Funding that literally raped the company of it's assets. Closed the plant & sold off the pieces. When all the dust settled there was no money left in the pension funds that the long time workers paid into for many years and since they were self insured there was no money to pay the awards workers incurred for injuries on the job. Because of the Ballantine fiasco laws were enacted to protect the workers but it was too late for the Ballentine employees. They eventually received something like 20 cents on the dollar or less.

As to Pabst they were done in by political interference. They wanted to move to the newer Ballantine facility after Ballentine closed up. The City would only approve the move if Newark residents were hired for open positions. The Union insisted that the jobs go to the laid off Ballentine workers. Neither side compromised & as a result the plant closed leaving no jobs for anyone. It was a long time ago but that's my recollection of what occurred back then.

TK
 
never knew those facts about Ballantine & PBR..... what lost opportunites. What year was it that Pabst contemplated moving to Ballantine facility. Boy that would have been a nobrianer.

Tom - what was the name of that book you recommended about the history of ewark? or was that 75???

edt: never mind I just scrolled down and found it....
from Snake tom's post:
If any of you are intereseted in the Politics & History of Newark, NJ (our beloved home town) I am reading a very interesting book on the topic: HOW NEWARK BECAME NEWARK - THE RISE, FALL & REBIRTH OF AN AMERICAN CITY. by Brad Tuttle, 2009. OK I don't get the Rebirth part either but I have not gotten to the last chapter yet. Actually I started reading the book in more than in colonial times.
the middle starting with the 20th Century as my interest lies there much
This post was edited on 9/30 1:53 PM by PiratePride
 
My guess is that Pabst closed their Newark Brewery in the late 70's & Ballentine closed up a few years earlier. Investors Funding raided the assets of the Ballentine pension fund leaving little left for the many long time workers. I'll double check the dates. Fallstaff Brewing Company bought the Ballentine name and produced Ballentine Ale at their Rhode Island plant.

Regarding the Book on Newark it is a very good read. Hall85 also just put up a post on the other board about this book as he just finished reading it. It was in the thread about the gift to the Newark Schools. I think I got it on Amazon.com for about $20.00.

Give us your thoughts after you read the book.

Tom K
 
OK Pride here is the info: Ballentine was a family owned Brewery. It first opened in 1840. Their original Brewery was on High St. I'm not sure when they opened the down neck brewery but it was a modern facility even when the company closed up. I think it was upgraded in the early 1960's. The Badenhausen family sold the Company in 1965 to Investors Funding. They proceeded to sell off the pieces including the product names & closed the plant around 1970. Pabst had wanted to move to that facility which was more modern than their So Orange Ave plant but was unable to for the reasons I previously stated. Eventually Pabst closed up their Newark plant in 1982. Another major area brewer Rheingold closed their plant in Orange, NJ in 1977.

Tom K
 
thanks for the info Tom..... so much of my life revolves around beer (lol).... even defunct brands
 
Here's the other thing I remember about Ballentine Beer. Somewhere in the 1960's, probably just after Investors Funding bought the Company, they changed the formula and marketed the new brew as Ballentine Premium Beer. This was a disaster along the lines of when Coca Cola created "New Coke". The Ballentine customer hated the new brew and wanted Ballentine Beer to taste like the Ballentine that they previously enjoyed for many years. Eventually they changed it back but it was too late as their customers had already switched to other beers. Fortunately for those who drank their Ale they never changed that formula which was the largest selling Ale in the country.

Tom K
 
Just one other thing. Baseball fans are a loyal group. Just as fans were and are extremely loyal to their baseball team in the 50's & 60's those fans were also loyal to the beers & cigarette companies that sponsored their teams. Yankee fans by and large drank Ballentine & smoked Camels, for Brooklyn Dodger fans it was Schaefer & Luck Strikes, NY Giant fans Knickerbocker Beer & Chesterfields and and for Mets fans Rheingold & Kools.

Suffice it to say Ballentine was never served in my family's house. It was always Schaefer or Rheingold - lol.

Tom K
 
Psssst Tom... it's Ballantine (with an A) .....
You Mets fans go to any length to disparage the Yanks lol

Dad drank Ballantine, but smoked Old Gold. To his credit, he quit cold turkey when he turned 40.
 
Originally posted by PiratePride:
Dad drank Ballantine, but smoked Old Gold. To his credit, he quit cold turkey when he turned 40.
Click to expand...

Good for him. My father stopped smoking when I was a little kid. Don't know what brand but my two older brothers who had been hard core Brooklyn fans smoked Luckies (before giving the habit up) who sponsored the Dodgers. Fortunately I never started smoking at all. Maybe because the Mets weren't good enough to imitate-lol.

PS: I think I actually spelled Ballantine both ways in the thread above.

Tom K
 
My Dad smoked Winston and drank Bud, rooted for the Dodgers, then for the Mets when they were started. The Buds and Winstons did him in the summer of 69, before his new team started its miracle run. A few older relatives drove beer trucks for the old breweries and I rememebr the elders talking of all the breweries and old beers long gone as a kid. And an ex roommie at SHU (we lived on Stuyvesant Ave in Irvington, across the Hall from Junior Foye and Kenny House - both terrific guys btw) drove a Pabst truck once in a while - you could tell by the cases of beer that mysteriously showed up in our fridge.
 
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