Sunday 11 February 2018

Boddington IP 1914 - 1921

You may have drunk ythis IPA tourself, without knowing it. Because this is the beer that eventually became Boddington's Bitter.

When I first started drinking in the 1970'a, Boddington's Bitter was very highly regarded and noted to be particularly bitter. Then there was a recipe change that supposedly made it much blander.

Yet when I look at the hopping rate in 1914, it's susprisingly low. Whitbread's IPA, which was a little bit weaker, was hopped at about treble the rate per quarter, a massive 12 lbs. And when I run the 1914 Boddington IP recipe through BeerSmith, it calculates just 43 IBUs.

Obviously, the strength of IP fell during the war. but even at its low point in 1918, it was still 1037º. That's actually quite a decent gravity for that period. And it bounced back quite well post-war, at a level only 13% below that of 1914. The average fall in gravity was 19%.

Boddington IP 1914 - 1921
Date Year OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl
10th Jul 1914 1053 1016 4.89 69.81% 4.00 1.35
6th May 1915 1047 1016 4.10 65.96% 4.52 1.18
14th Oct 1915 1050 1016 4.50 68.00% 4.52 1.23
15th May 1916 1053 1015 5.03 71.70% 4.52 1.42
15th May 1917 1044 1015 3.84 65.91% 4.75 1.16
6th Jul 1917 1046 1016 3.97 65.22% 3.78 1.18
9th Oct 1917 1045 1017 3.70 62.22% 4.75 1.15
26th Apr 1918 1038 1012 3.44 68.42% 5.38 1.11
2nd Aug 1918 1038 1014 3.18 63.16% 5.38 1.16
4th Oct 1918 1038 1012 3.44 68.42% 5.38 1.11
20th Dec 1918 1037 1014 3.04 62.16% 5.38 1.08
8th Jan 1919 1039 1015 3.18 61.54% 5.38 1.07
12th Jun 1919 1042 1013 3.84 69.05% 5.00 1.15
14th Oct 1919 1046 1015 4.10 67.39% 4.44 1.21
8th Oct 1920 1046 1015 4.10 67.39% 4.59 1.16
4th Oct 1921 1048 1015 4.37 68.75% 3.93 1.01
Sources:
Boddington brewing records held at Manchester Central Library, document numbers M693/405/126 and M693/405/126.

Before the war, Boddington brewed two other Pale Ales, AK and PA. Both were dropped in the latter war years.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I notice that label says Bitter. How common was it to say Bitter on a bottle?

Mike in NSW said...

I'm in Australia, grew up on Tyneside.
A Mr Edd whom we both know sent me a recipe for the 1955 IP and it's now my house beer here - it certainly is bitter and takes me right back to the early 1970s when I used to visit my Cousin in Manchester.

Mike