As the iconic beer is set to make a return, I take a look back at my first experiences of Boddington's Bitter

The sharp-eyed amongst you will soon realise that the article I’m about to run, and follow up on, is a month or so old now, but time doesn’t diminish a good story, especially one like this that appears to have come out of the blue. I imagine that the main protagonists behind this development will have been working on this project for some time, but whatever was going on behind the scenes, the news still came as a shock to us beer lovers, albeit a pleasant one. The story concerns Boddington’s Bitter, the beer marketed as the "Cream of Manchester" until its disappearance 13 years ago. Now, the good news for beer aficionados is that this legendary beer is set to return to pubs across the North West. It will be brewed and distributed by Manchester brewer JW Lees under licence from brand owner the Budweiser Brewing Group.

First brewed in 1778, this beer became a symbol of Manchester's spirit and Northern pride. It disappeared in cask form in 2012, but now a revised version of Boddington's Bitter, with an abv of 4.0 %, is due to reappear in pubs across the North West in December. Brian Perkins, president of AB InBev in Western Europe said: "We're excited to relaunch Boddington's Cask Ale in partnership with JW Lees, combining one of the UK's most iconic beer brands with one of its most respected brewers".

As stated earlier, this isn’t a new story, and it’s one that several other writers have already covered. As far as I am concerned, the best article by far about the return of Boddington’s, is this lengthy homage by Chris Dyson, whose excellent blog Real Ale, Real Music encompasses his love of good beer and good music. Chris doesn’t seem to have an “about me” page on his blog, although if he does, he keeps it well hidden, so if you’re reading this Chris, and I’ve got it wrong, then please let me know. Reading between the lines though, Chris is based somewhere in West Yorkshire. Of particular relevance to this article is the fact Chris was a student in Manchester, at around roughly the same time as me. He went up to Manchester University in 1974, a year after I started at neighbouring Salford University, in 1973.

What I find particularly fascinating is that we both report the same reaction to our first encounter with Boddington’s Bitter, Chris’s comments are here in his most recent post, The bees are back in town. For the uninitiated, the worker bee logo, has long been a symbol of Manchester, and an emblem of all that is good and positive about a town that claims to be Britain’s second city (a claim that is argued over with Birmingham).  Leaving city rivalries aside, as well as giving a detailed history of Boddington’s brewery, Chris’s article describes his first encounter with Boddington’s bitter. “A seismic moment, and life-changing event,” Chris had never tasted anything so bitter, and this had been my reaction, exactly a year earlier.

I wrote about my experience in an article for a pre-blog project, that never got off the ground. I have reproduced the piece below, because not only does it describe my first encounter with Boddington’s, it also details how I sought out the city’s most famous beer over the course of the four years that followed. These were years when I was still a student, living in the Greater Manchester area, and a period that only came to end when my then wife and I left the city for the bright lights, and better employment prospects of the nation’s capital.

Boddington's were arguably Manchester's favourite son and, certainly during the early days of CAMRA, were one of the darlings of the burgeoning Real Ale movement. The company was established in 1778 at Strangeways, Manchester and, in common with other local breweries, expanded gradually whilst at the same time gaining a reputation for the quality of its ales. Things continued in this vein until 1969, when Boddington's received an unwelcome takeover bid from Allied Breweries. Allied wished to increase their presence in Manchester, a city where they were not particularly well represented.

The takeover would have given them control of Boddington's 280 pubs, but they had reckoned without the resolve of the Boddington's board and the loyalty of local drinkers. The board decided to fight the takeover and sent out a letter to shareholders citing several "non-financial reasons" for opposing the bid. When Allied upped the price of their bid, the board again urged shareholders to reject it, a move which flew in the face of all financial wisdom, and which went against the general trend of what was happening in the brewing industry. Allied were forced to concede defeat when they announced that they had not picked up sufficient shares for the bid to go through, and local drinkers heaved a big sigh of relief.

The fact that Boddington's were successful, in thwarting this unwelcome bid, was largely due to the unwavering support of their shareholders who remained loyal to the company in spite of some very attractive profits which would have been realised if the bid had gone through. They were backed by a board, comprising chiefly of members of the Boddington family, who urged them to resist on the grounds of product quality, plus the loss to local drinkers that would have resulted from a successful bid from Allied. Additional support was also obtained from Whitbread, who had long held a stake in the Manchester company, and who had no wish to see a formidable rival "muscling in" on their territory. However, this support came at a price and led to Whitbread increasing their holding in the company. The ultimate cost of this support was very heavy indeed, as the Boddington's brewery and brands ended up being owned by Whitbread! 

 

My first introduction to Boddington's was in 1973, during my first term at Salford University. I had been recommended to try the beer by friend back home in Kent, who knew a lot more about beer than I did. (The only northern beer I was familiar with, prior to my arrival in Salford, was Newcastle Brown Ale!)  Boddington's wasn’t that easy to find. The bar in the students union sold only big brewery products, as did the type of pubs popular with students at the time. With no pub guides available to help me, it was sometime before I managed to track down Manchester's most famous brew. In order to do so it was necessary to venture further afield to the area known then as Salford Precinct. This was a concrete jungle of high-rise flats, erected during the previous decade as replacement housing for the notorious Salford slums. In the end these blocks turned out to be infinitely worse than the back-to-back terraces they replaced, but that's another story!

I don't remember the name of the pub, but it was a somewhat functional modern building. What I do remember is that when I first entered it, I thought that everyone was drinking lager!  It wasn't until I ordered my first pint, (dispensed inevitably from a metered electric pump), that I realised that the pale, straw coloured liquid, most of the clientele were drinking, was in fact Boddington's Bitter. Now here was a novelty, I had never come across a bitter with such a pale colour before. I took my first sip, and it nearly took the skin of the roof of my mouth - such was the degree of bitterness. To say that the beer was uncompromisingly bitter was an understatement, indeed after all those years I can still picture my reaction.

I had never tasted a beer that was quite as bitter (although I hadn't tasted Holts at that point!), and once my taste-buds had adjusted, I was hooked. I persevered and discovered, much to my amazement, that the taste was addictive, and in spite of my surroundings I ordered a further pint. It was straw-pale in colour and very well-hopped and at that time having been brought up on the more gentle bitters of south east England, had never tasted anything as bitter, and once my taste-buds had adjusted, I was hooked.

Over the following four and a half years, I regularly sought out Boddington's beers and discovered that the brewery also produced two milds, plus a strong ale - the latter being available during the winter months only. By this time, Boddington's had become something of a cult drink and the brewery, flushed with success, was extended, with new plant installed to cope with rising demand, together with plush new offices. As well as brewing good beer, the company also possessed some marvellous, unspoilt pubs. Most of these were the older style houses, as Boddington's tended to go for some characterless designs for their more modern pubs.

Towards the end of my stay in Manchester there were murmurings in both CAMRA and other circles that Boddington's bitter was becoming blander in taste. Certainly, to me, it seemed less bitter than the beer I had first tasted four years previously. The brewery strenuously denied these rumours, but a friend of a friend, who worked at the brewery as an electrician, reported that they were true, and that the hopping rate had indeed been reduced in order to make the beer “more acceptable to a wider audience.” By this time my friends and I had discovered the delights of Holt's Bitter - a truly bitter beer if ever there was one! Shortly afterwards I moved back south and, apart from occasional visits to Manchester, had few opportunities in which to sample Boddington's, or indeed any of the city's beers.

Footnote

There was quite a bit more copy associated with the original article, but in the main it concerns itself with Boddington’s fall from grace, how the company overstretched itself, and how it fell into the hands of Whitbread, the company that had been its saviour, back in 1969. I might, one day, allow the piece to see the light of day, even though with its descriptions of mergers, sell-offs and outright takeovers, it does represent all that was worse in the country’s brewing industry at the time.

For the time being though, we’ll leave it in the can, so to speak, but there is one more proviso concerning this blog post, and that is the lack of photos, contemporary or otherwise. There are a handful, lifted from a book published in 1978, celebrating 200 years of brewing at Strangeways – a book that I knew I had somewhere at home, and fortunately unearthed it earlier today (I've got umpteen brewery history books stashed away). There is also the odd library photo, but nothing personal that connects the brewery with me.