Recreating Boddingtons

I’d love to be able to brew Boddingtons bitter, just like it was around Manchester when I was first into drinking beer. I don’t mean the horrible creamflow stuff in cans, I mean the wonderful “Cream of Manchester” brewed at the Strangeways Brewery before it sadly closed.

We’ve tried a couple of times, and while we made decent beer both times, it wasn’t quite Boddingtons. I remember it having a golden straw colour and a white white creamy head. The smell was straw-like, and the flavour was crisp, bitter and left you with an almost woody after-taste. That after-taste was critical – I’m not talking deep oaky, or heavy woody, I’m talking the sort of light woodiness of fresh wood shavings from a light wood.

OK, enough of my flavour ramblings…

To see if anyone else has any recipes, I posted to Jim’s Beer Kit forum. The helpful people there provided me with two recipes, one from Orfy and one from Seymour.

On Monday we brewed Orfy’s recipe, with the plan that we will brew Seymour’s next Monday, using the same yeast.

It’s currently fermenting happily, which gives me time to share the recipe with you.

Grain bill

Maris Otter    3300g (89.2%)

CaraPils        250g (6.8%)

Crystal 45L   35g (0.9%)

Pale crystal (30L)  85g  (2.3%)

Chocolate     30g (0.8%)

Hop Schedule

Northern Brewer  (8.4% AA) 32g  60min  (28 IBU)

EKG                    (5.4% AA)  22g  60min  (11 IBU)

EKG                    (5.4% AA) 25g flameout

Water treatment

In 32 litres, 2.5 tsp gypsum and 1 tsp CaCl

Yeast: WYeast 1318 London Ale III  (bought as an Activator pack, but made into a starter anyway, see photo below. The starter cleared nicely!)

Batch size: 23l

Mash temp: 66C

Strike vol: 12l

Mash time: 90 min

Sparge vol: 16l

Boil time: 60 min

Finings: Irish Moss, 3g at 10 min

OG: 1.038

IBU: 39

Colour: 5.7 Lovibond, 7 SRM, 14 EBC

Target FG: 1.010

Target ABV: 3.7%

According to Orgy’s recipe, the first EKG addition should have been at 45 min, but I put it in at the start by mistake.