Boddingtons Bitter clone

[decanter2020]

Honestly I think you are way overcomplicating the brew, Boddingtons never was that full on.
Graham Wheeler has a recipe in Brew Your Own British Real Ale that I suspect will be very close to the money.
No disrespect aimed at Orfey, he has developed some very good clone brews over the years (His Hobgoblin is amazing), but he has a bit of the American disease that limits their ability to use one malt when you can cram in three.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

There's no need to speculate about Boddies recipes, as their brewery books for most of the 20th century are safely tucked up in the Manchester archives. Although at heart they're close to being an English hop SMaSH, the detail can get complicated as they used some maize, enzymic malt, wheat, multiple sugars etc. Ron Pattinson has published his version of a number of them, although he does simplify them a bit. There's also been an extensive thread on Jim's.

The key thing about the "golden age" of Boddies in the 1970s is the very high apparent attenuation they got, often over 90%. (eg 91.6% in 1971) - as so often it's more about the yeast than the recipe. Nottingham is often suggested but it might be worth trying Omega's Gulo yeast, which is a hybrid of their Irish Ale (OYL-005) and French Saison (OYL-026) that is claimed to get 85-90% attenuation without phenolics.

But broadly you want 1.036 pale malt with 10% golden syrup, maybe a bit of maize or wheat if you have some to hand, then 28 IBU of English hops and a bit of Goldings late and as a dry hop. Then Gulo or Nottingham.

 

[dwhite60]

AB-InBev has ruined Bass too. It's just Bud in a Bass bottle now.

Sad, the younger generation has no idea what they've missed out on beer wise.

All the Best,
D. White

 

[Matt Miller]

I just about remember the original boddies in the early 90's. It really was nice even on my then young pallet.
Pubs near me were the lane ends in Preston, the plough at Galgate and the Nib in Carnforth. All served it well.
This is my ultimate aim as I start my first brew. Going to start with a kit first, on browsing this forum I may go for the Young's IPA kit.
For some reason I always thought boddingtons got flavour from orange peel??

 

[Marty F]

If you never had Boddies before the 90s then you can have no idea what the fuss was about. Boddies now is not worth drinking. Originally it was a great beer, and allegedly gave rise to CAMRA, which was started in Manchester in the 70s by blokes who liked Boddies, according to legend, and were not happy that so few other beers were worth drinking at the time, and the fact that independent breweries were all being bought out and ruined by the big breweries. As Boddingtons was itself, by Whitbreads, who ruined it and then InBev, who now own the brand, and made it even worse.

We are now seeing some of the craft breweries of the recent craft wave being bought out by big brewers.

I too was brought up on Boddies, what a shame when it was bought out and ruined and they had the cheek to market ask the cream of Manchester’.

 

[Baz Chaz]

...... the plough at Galgate .....

Early 70's spent many an evening supping pints of Boddies in the Plough

If you never had Boddies before the 90s then you can have no idea what the fuss was about. Boddies now is not worth drinking. Originally it was a great beer, and allegedly gave rise to CAMRA, which was started in Manchester in the 70s by blokes who liked Boddies, according to legend, and were not happy that so few other beers were worth drinking .......

Can't remember exactly which year, probably around 1973 ? Attended the first CAMRA meeting in the Royal Hotel in Lancaster, a lot of Boddies enthusiasts!

Looked back in my brew book, 25/10/10 had a go at brewing a Boddingtons beer, but from notes it was "Not like Bods v much - but very good"

 

[MickDundee]

Interesting that this thread has been bumped because I’ve decided this week that my next run of brews will include a Boddies clone (was going to use the Graham Wheeler recipe). My dad used to like the cask version in the 90s and I remember the first pub I worked in in 2002 having it on cask and it being a nice drop to my young uneducated palette, and for the price, at the time.

My dad’s cousin’s husband was some kind of relation to the original (or subsequent) owners of Boddingtons and inherited quite a lot of shares at some point in the past.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Ron Pattinson has a selection of Boddies recipes from 1901 through to 1987 - although the Boddies that everyone gets excited about is before the various changes of the late 70 and early 80s when Boddies ruined Boddies (it wasn't Whitbread that ruined Boddies as is popularly supposed, the rot set in before that).

But for the early 70s version you need a yeast with crazy attenuation - they were getting apparent attenuation of over 91% in 1971, albeit with the help of 10% invert. I've often thought Omega's Gulo hybrid might be rather suitable, they quote an attenuation of 85-90%.

 

[chuffer]

Great work by ron pattinson. So to be clear, is it the 1971 version (with the enzyme malt) or the 1987 (which it seems was in the Wheeler book) that was the classic?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

The first edition of the GBG in 1974 regarded it as "One of the best" and the 1977 edition called it "exceptionally bitter" The general thought is that the decline probably started around that time, and something in particular happened around the end of 1981.

It's not so much about the recipe per se as a conscious decision to end fermentation at a higher FG (1.006 compared to 1.003 in 1987 vs 1971) coupled with a move to make it less bitter, and apparently to use older hops. Also there was a change to a ?darker? priming sugar because Tate & Lyle stopped making the old one. There's also dark rumours about them losing the yeast - after they were bombed in WWII they got a new yeast from Yorkshire which led to much higher attenuation. Certainly they changed yeast after Strangeways closed - they contracted out cask to Hyde's and the Strangeways yeast didn't like working there, so they used Hyde's yeast for cask at least in the noughties.

So 1971 is in the classic time, but it's more about the yeast and temperature profiles than about whether they were adding a bit of enzymic or not.

 

[terrym]

My only real recollection of drinking Boddies was from the late 1960s when it was really light and very bitter but not as bitter as Stones which was like sucking on a lemon.

 

[BeerGuy2020]

How Do All ,
If you want a Really good recipe for Boddingtons I.p ( Brewhouse Code for Bitter )
Try this recipe , one of 3 Bodds IP one's up there
https://oldbeersandbrewing.blogspot.com/2019/03/boddingtons-bitter-1958.htmlCheers
Edd

 

[BeerGuy2020]

My only real recollection of drinking Boddies was from the late 1960s when it was really light and very bitter but not as bitter as Stones which was like sucking on a lemon.

Ooh Hangover by Half Pint mark juice eh

 

[Hanglow]

I keep wanting to make a late 60s boddies attempt, not that I ever drunk it anywhere near when it was good - although the 90s adverts with Melanie Sykes was a cracker whichw as the version I tasted first

But it looks like a beer I'd like, pale, dry and relatively very bitter.

 

[BeerGuy2020]

How Do Hanglow,
Have a look at this Beauty
https://oldbeersandbrewing.blogspot.com/2019/04/duttons-of-blackburn-bitter-1967.htmlSimple and as good as Bodds, Better IMO
CHEERS
Edd

 

[BeerGuy2020]

How Do Hanglow,
Have a look at this Beauty
https://oldbeersandbrewing.blogspot.com/2019/04/duttons-of-blackburn-bitter-1967.htmlSimple and as good as Bodds, Better IMO
CHEERS
Edd

Or even this if tha's interested in thing from't wrong side o't hills
https://oldbeersandbrewing.blogspot.com/2020/10/tennant-brothers-lion-pale-ale-1955.html

 

[trummy]

I remember proper Boddies - Always served with a head at a time when I drank alot of 'southern' ales which were served close to headless. Had a pint of Boddies from a pub along side the river Wye on the Welsh border, that was served straight from the barrel headless, it did not work at all.