Friday 16 February 2018

Boddington CC 1914 - 1921

I've never quite got my head around Boddington's naming convention. What makes CC a Strong Ale?

And does it have connection to the enigmatic "C" Ale, that type of Strong Ale only found in the Manchester area? I've no idea, to be honest.

The biggest surprise is that CC was only briefly dropped during WW I, for about a year between October 1917 and November 1918.  Brewing strong beers became virtually impossible after April 1st 1918, when the average gravity of all the beer a brewery produced couldn't be more than 1030º. Pretty difficult to brew a beer of 1060º and stick to that rule.

Brewers had to be careul. The average was totted up every quarter and brewers who exceeded the permitted average faced fines. Boddington took this so seriously that they kept track of the weekly average in their brewing book:


Like all of Boddington's beers, CC wasn't very heavily hopped in comparison to London beers. A London-brewed Burton Ale was hopped at around 12 lbs per quarter of malt - about treble the rate of CC.

It's surprising how well the OG bounced back after the war. The average drop in gravity between 1914 and the early 1920's when things stabilised again was about 19%. CC's fall was just 4%. Barely even significant. Its gravity did fall a little more between the wars, but in 1939 was still a very respectable 1056º.

Boddington CC 1914 - 1921
Date Year OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl
9th Jul 1914 1062.0 1020.0 5.56 67.74% 3.53 1.18
7th May 1915 1059.0 1019.0 5.29 67.80% 3.75 1.20
27th Oct 1915 1058.0 1018.0 5.29 68.97% 3.64 1.17
18th May 1916 1062.0 1017.0 5.95 72.58% 3.87 1.33
20th Dec 1916 1062.0 1017.0 5.95 72.58% 3.53 1.23
31st Jan 1917 1059.0 1018.0 5.42 69.49% 3.53 1.46
11th Oct 1917 1056.0 1018.0 5.03 67.86% 4.41 1.32
12th Nov 1918 1058.0 1020.0 5.03 65.52% 3.97 1.27
24th Dec 1918 1061.0 1021.0 5.29 65.57% 3.97 1.31
10th Feb 1919 1059.0 1020.0 5.16 66.10% 3.97 1.26
24th Mar 1919 1060.0 1020.0 5.29 66.67% 3.97 1.29
17th Jun 1919 1061.0 1019.0 5.56 68.85% 4.22 1.35
13th Oct 1919 1060.0 1020.0 5.29 66.67% 3.82 1.29
30th Mar 1920 1058.0 1016.0 5.56 72.41% 4.06 1.18
7th Oct 1920 1057.0 1020.0 4.89 64.91% 3.82 1.20
5th Oct 1921 1059.5 1019.0 5.36 68.07% 3.53 1.16
Sources:
Boddington brewing records held at Manchester Central Library, document numbers M693/405/126 and M693/405/126.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Ron ,
I've only seen the Boddingtons ledgers with the 'C' ale in , and I believe that the second world war finished it off as a beer , as I've not seen a post WW2 Manchester area record with it in.
Though who knows what defunct breweries records are out there !, though the Groves & Whitnall records (pre WW 2 ) were probably destroyed when the brewery was received a hit during 1941-2? .
Does anyone out there have any pre 1939 Manchester area brewing records in their collections ?, I'm sure you'd like to see them , as would I !!
Cheers
Edd

Ron Pattinson said...

Edd,

I've a Lees "C" Ale from the 1950s.

Unknown said...

Hi Ron ,
I'm only looking for defunct breweries brewing records, I'd be interested in any you know of , I've got Boddingtons and Wilson's records , but that's it for Manchester .
Cheers
Edd