By Steve Strunsky | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
Newark’s history as a brew town is evident in the Anheuser-Busch plant that opened in 1951 on Route 1&9 and still produces Budweiser and Bud Light, or the 1885 Ballantine House, preserved as part of the Newark Museum of Art and one of several surviving mansions built by Brick City beer barons of the 19th and 20th centuries.
“I’m looking at a list of 40 historic brewers in Newark,” Bill Henne, author of Great American Beers: Twelve Brands That Became Icons, said in a phone interview. “Ballantine is really the one that stands out.”
The main building of the P. Ballantine & Sons brewery complex was demolished a few years ago, and the brand founded in the city in 1840 by Scottish immigrant Peter Ballantine now belongs to the blue ribbon bottlers at Pabst. But fans of the famous Ballantine XXXAle can raise a glass — or a 40-ounce bottle — to the return of the famous name and even its iconic three-ring logo to the company’s historic location in Newark’s Ironbound section.
“The Ballantine,” a 280-unit apartment complex on the site of the brewery at Freeman and Ferry streets, is nearing completion and expected to begin leasing this spring.
The $88 million project’s Manhattan-based developer, the Shorewood Real Estate Group, bought the rights from Pabst, and the entrances to the building bear the Ballantine name. The surrounding sidewalks along Ferry, Freeman and Christie streets are punctuated by three-foot iron ornamental versions of the Ballantine logo, though without the original watchwords “Purity,” Body,” and “Flavor” that marked each ring.
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