There has been a real buzz around the North West and beyond over the past few days as news has broken that a former iconic Manchester cask beer will soon be making a welcome return to some of the area's pubs and bars....
In recent years, especially in the wake of the 2017 Arena tragedy in 2017, there has been a revival of the use of Manchester's traditional worker bee logo on products, signage, and advertising, culminating in the roll-out of the Bee Network as the city and surrounding area's increasingly integrated bus service. In the days that followed that horrendous event which shook the city to its core and still reverberates today, the city rallied round its traditional logo like a collective comfort blanket. It became a unifying symbol for all that was good and positive about this proud city, the spirit of which has continued to be embraced by locals and visitors alike, such these past two weekends when the hordes descended on Heaton Park to see those noisy lads from Burnage rock up to stoke up the memories of all things Oasis.
However, prior to that tragic event, for many older Mancunians their first association of the bee as a symbol would have been in relation to one of the city's most historic and iconic breweries, Boddingtons, who traditionally used a logo featuring a traditional wooden barrel adorned with two bees. Even as the brand became a hollow parody of itself in more recent times as it passed from one owner to another and left its longstanding home in Manchester, the traditional barrel with its two beers was still part of its branding.
So what was it about the news that a cask version of Boddington's Bitter was to be revived by JW Lees and should be out in a number of pubs in September that caused such a buzz of excitement? Well, to Mancunians and others like myself who have spent a lot of our lives in and around the city, Boddingtons in its original life was the the real deal, the quintessential Manchester brewery. As part of the city's brewing heritage, Boddingtons is right up there and has been a source of inspiration for so many of today's breweries. Indeed Marble's Manchester Bitter is their own take on the famous bitter, not a copy but inspired by, a nod to the fact that a pint of Boddies Bitter was a Manchester institution. Its true form as a proper, locally brewed cask ale has been lost over the years as the brand has been butchered by Whitbread, who bought the company originally, and later by current owners Anheuser Busch InBev, who have at least agreed to this latest deal whereby Lees can brew a cask version of Boddingtons' much-missed bitter.
In 1778 the Strangeways Brewery was founded in Manchester by two grain merchants, Thomas Caister and Thomas Fry, to serve the growing population of what was in those days principally a town of cotton mills. It wasn't known as Boddingtons back then, and it was 1832 before the man whose surname was to become that of the company joined the business. Henry Boddington was born in Thame in Oxfordshire, and moved north, joining the company as a travelling salesman when he was 19. He became a partner in the business in 1848 when it was known as John Harrison & Co, and in 1853 he borrowed money so he could buy out the other partners and become the sole owner. From here the company prospered; in the period from Boddington's takeover up to 1877, the brewery's output increased tenfold from 10,000 to 100,000 barrels a year, making it not only Manchester's largest brewery but one of the largest in the North of England, with over 100 tied houses.
Henry died in 1886, and his son, William Slater Boddington became chairman, taking the business public in 1888 when it was known as Boddingtons Breweries Ltd. The business continued to grow and owned 212 public houses by 1892, making it the twelfth largest tied estate in the United Kingdom, most of it freehold. Interestingly, and reflecting the tastes of the time, mild made up 86% of production with bitter only a small proportion, a position that would switch around dramatically over the decades to follow. The Boddington family continued to play an active part in the running over the brewery, although by the 1930's the family shareholding had dropped to about 40%. In December 1940, the brewery water tanks were hit by bombs during the Manchester Blitz, and the brewery had to be closed down for several months, with production moved temporarily to the Hydes Brewery in Moss Side. The brewery was rebuilt with the most up-to-date and modern equipment of the time, and was the first in Europe to install stainless steel brewing vessels.
It was in the post-war years that bitter, or pale ale, as it tended to be known back then, started to gain in popularity, and from the 1950's its sales overtook that of mild. The success of the company led to covetous glances from would-be suitors, and in 1969 Allied Breweries initiated a hostile takeover bid for Boddingtons, which valued the company at £5 million. Chairman Charles Boddington took the unusual step of issuing a spirited defence of the company to the shareholders, an emotional and heartfelt plea to resist the tide of homogenisation and loss of an independent brewery with a good reputation. Allied's Big Six rival, Whitbread, who already had a 13% stake in Boddingtons, upped that to 23% and the company was saved. it was the first time a regional brewery had headed off an offer from a national company. In 1970, Charles Boddington retired and his son Ewart took over. During the 1970s the company operated within a 70-mile radius of Manchester, and growth was driven by the increasing popularity of its main product, Boddingtons Bitter. The Observer commented in 1974 that Boddingtons cheap pricing and distinctive flavour afforded it an unusually loyal following. In 1981 the same newspaper said "what has stood Boddingtons in good stead is the highly distinctive flavour of its brews, especially its bitter. In fact, in the North-West, Boddies is increasingly becoming a sort of cult brew."
It was 1974 when I first came cross Boddingtons. I was a new student at the University of Manchester, and it wasn't long before I got to taste my first pint in one of the pubs close to the campus, the long-gone Plymouth Grove in Chorlton-on-Medlock, which was a large and rather ornate pub with its own clock tower above the side entrance. But the beer! That first taste was a seismic moment, a life-changing event. It was straw-pale in colour and very well-hopped and at that time having been brought up on the more gentle bitters of the West Riding, I had never tasted anything as bitter (although I hadn't tasted Holts at that point!), and once my tastebuds had adjusted, I was hooked. This was my first-ever favourite pint, and you never forget! The Plymouth Grove became a regular haunt, but it was when my friends and I moved to a rundown house in Salford in our second year that we got to visit more of the brewery's pubs and see a completely different world to the leafy suburbs in the student areas of South Manchester. This was Boddington's heartland with the brewery only a mile or two away at the bottom of Bury New Road close to Victoria Station and in the shadow of Strangeways Prison. We would venture out into the real world to huge Victorian drinking palaces and back-street locals, which more often than not were busy, and with our long hair, jeans, and different accents we were not the typical customer. And whilst there was a pretty edgy feel to many of the pubs I can't recall us having any problems anywhere. Mind you there were some places where we didn't hang round long enough to find out and supped our pints at speed....
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| The former Plymouth Grove (image: Manchester Evening News) |
Over my time in Manchester, we would venture out to visit Boddies pubs in various suburbs and neighbouring towns with a vague aim of trying to visit them all. The brewery had helpfully produced its own guide book to all its pubs which stretched across Greater Manchester, Cheshire, and Lancashire, and that little book (long-since lost) was a source of inspiration. There were visits to pubs like the Concert Inn, Locomotive Hotel, and Wrexham Inn in Openshaw, the Grey Mare in Ardwick, and the Hare & Hounds in Gorton, In Blackley there was the Alliance and the Millstone. In Cheetham Hill there was the Waterloo, there was the Royal Oak by the brewery on Great Ducie Street (a re-built version is shown in the opening image), whilst amongst Salford's highlights were the Wellington on Regent Road and the Black Friar on King Street. In Stockport there was the Crown Hotel, situated under the arches of the huge viaduct with its 11 million bricks, whilst in Stalybridge there were several to choose from including the Pointsman, Briton's Protection, and Wellington, and in nearby Dukinfield there was the Lamb which closed as a pub in 2009 and is now a children's nursery. Further afield, Boddingtons had a host of pubs in and around Preston, whilst away from the more urban pubs there was the Hest Bank beside the canal in the posh Lancashire village of Hest Bank, near Lancaster, with the attractive village of Chipping in the Forest of Bowland boasting two, the Sun and the Talbot. With more pubs out in Cheshire, and even one in Yorkshire, the Kinsley Hotel near Hemsworth, they were a big part of the pub scene in many communities in the 1970's and into the 1980's.
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| The Crown, Stockport, formerly a Boddingtons pub |
In 1982, Boddingtons bought the neighbouring Oldham Brewery and in 1985 acquired Higsons of Liverpool, the latter bringing Boddingtons to Merseyside for the first time. By this time the Strangeways brewery was producing only two beers, Bitter and Mild, with the bitter making up over 90 per cent of production. However, having probably over-reached themselves, the business went into a decline with Strangeways operating at only 50% capacity. In 1988 they closed Oldham Brewery with the loss of 70 jobs and they shed further jobs in distribution at Strangeways and Higsons by outsourcing to a third party contractor. Boddingtons themselves remained independent until 1989, when Ewart Boddington sold Strangeways Brewery and the Boddingtons brand (though not the tied estate) to Whitbread who after years of closing cask breweries and producing virtually none themselves now wanted to own a credible national cask ale brand. The sale was amicable, with both parties aware that Whitbread capital and distribution could make the Boddingtons brand national, although some of the family board members had been resistant to the sale. At this point, although it retained an almost cult following within its Manchester heartland, only 5 per cent of sales were outside the North West. To some of the beer's diehard supporters, though, this move was tantamount to selling your soul to the devil.
And so what happened next?
Whitbread transformed Boddingtons into a national brand, expanding production from 200,000 to 850,000 barrels a year between 1989 and 1995. By 1994 it was the fourth-highest selling bitter brand in the country. The canned version was distributed nationally from 1990 and was the highest-selling canned bitter in the UK from 1992 until 2000, being the first bitter brand to be sold with a widget in the can, which gave a creamy head and smooth mouthfeel. This gave rise to the beer being promoted as The Cream of Manchester in a popular TV and visual advertising campaign which was also credited with helping to raise Manchester's profile at a time when there was also the growth of the indie-dance and fashion cultural scene of Madchester, fuelled by bands like Oasis and the Happy Mondays. Suddenly Manchester was cool and Boddies was right up there.
Boddingtons beer brands are now owned by the global brewer Anheuser–Busch InBev, which acquired the Whitbread Beer Company in 2000. Strangeways Brewery was closed in 2004 with the brewery and its iconic chimney which had been a landmark in the city for over 200 years being demolished in 2007. Keg production was moved to Samlesbury in Lancashire, whilst the brewing of the cask-conditioned beer was done under contract by Hydes in Moss Side, just as it had been during the dark days of World War 2. However this time there was to be no happy ending, with cask production being quietly discontinued in 2012, thus ending the beer's association with the city.
And so back to last week's news.
In a statement announcing the company's latest results, William Lees-Jones, the MD of family brewers JW Lees also revealed that they had signed a long-term partnership with the Budweiser Brewing Group to brew and sell Boddingtons Cask under licence. It will be brewed with an ABV of 4% and should be available from September. As part of the deal, Budweiser Brewing Group brands will also be available in JW Lees’ pubs.
He said: “When I joined JW Lees in 1994 Boddingtons was ‘The Cream of Manchester’ and we were in awe of their position in leading the cask beer revolution and we are planning to put Boddingtons back where it rightly deserves to be as one of the leading premium UK cask beers particularly in our heartland of the North West. We also look forward to working with Budweiser Brewing Group with their portfolio of market-leading lagers and premium packaged beers in our pubs.”
Brian Perkins, President of AB InBev, Western Europe said: “We see real growth potential for Boddingtons in the UK On Trade, and this is a great example of how strategic partnerships can unlock value for both businesses and beer lovers alike.”
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| Mural at JW Lees' flagship Founders Hall, Manchester |
Whilst Lees' brewery in Middleton Junction isn't quite in Manchester, it isn't that far from its traditional home, and it will be interesting to discover what this latest development brings. Will the revived brew hark back to those distant days of the 1970's when the beer was very bitter, dry, but moreish? I very much doubt it. Will it be a creamy beer maybe with added lactose? Who knows. It may be a disappointment, it may be amazing, or it maybe something completely different. Whatever form it takes, it will be interesting to see how it is received as the world of beer has moved on considerably courtesy of some of those brewers like Marble, Track, Runaway, and the rest who have followed in Boddies' wake. Lees though are a well-run and forward-thinking brewery and it is safe to say that they will be doing their best to ensure the revived beer has a positive and successful return to the cask.
Come September, I look forward to trying my first pint and seeing those bees back on a hand pump clip....
Opening image courtesy Manchester Evening News.
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