Beer #9: All Things In Moderation –OR– Boddingtons Pub Ale
Brewery: Originally Boddingtons Brewery, Manchester, England but now Anheuser-Busch, St. Louis MO (unfortunately)
I think, at this point, it’s no real secret that I love beer. And I do truly love the fact that I can try beers from all over the world with relative ease, even from little ol’ Eugene, OR. Imagine if I had tried to write this blog 20 years ago. First, it most likely would have been a series of random missives that had a small chance of getting published in any public fashion. But, more to the point, it would be far more difficult for me to find any beers of significant variety outside of my immediate area.
The globalization of our world has increased my ability to find beer about a thousand times over. It’s great. Unless it’s not. Boddingtons Pub Ale is the perfect example of this ongoing conflict. The beer has been around for longer than our own Constitution, so you would imagine it should be treated with at least some reverence. The people of Manchester certainly respect it, or at least they used to. Story time!
Founded as Strangeways Brewery in 1778 by Thomas Caister and Thomas Fry, the company that eventually became Boddingtons operated just a few miles outside of the city of Manchester. Henry Boddington himself was hired as a repairman in 1832 before working his way up to a partnership 16 years later, and sole ownership in another five. The business survived shifting economics and even a direct bomb hit during the Manchester Blitz only kept it closed for a few months.
The beginning of the end, however, was in 2000, when Boddingtons was purchased by Interbrew (now known as Anheuser-Busch InBev). What could possibly go wrong when a massive, multi-national corporation buys a business with strong local ties and a pretty die-hard fan base? Boddingtons saw a nice boom in sales initially, which was great, right up until InBev moved production from Manchester in 2005 and demolished the brewery in 2007. The citizens of Manchester were, and remain, rightfully outraged at how the company handled their beloved beer, and sales have been declining in recent years.
I didn’t know any of this when I picked up a can of Boddingtons for this blog. All I knew was that a bright yellow can with bees on it seemed like it might be pretty good, and I definitely wasn’t disappointed. Boddingtons employs the same widget device as Guinness, which creates the awesome cascading bubbles effect, though it’s somewhat less impressive without the dark backdrop of the Irish stout.
Unlike Guinness (which makes sense because it’s not even trying to be the same beer), Boddingtons is golden brown in it’s color with a healthy tan-colored head of foam on top. From the way it pours and the initial similarities to Guinness, I was under the impression that it would have the same sort of weight. I was delightfully mistaken. Boddingtons is instead incredibly easy to drink, retaining a nice creamy flavor that has hints of toffee and very little hoppy flavor. In short, it’s delicious.
And here we reach a problem: I thoroughly enjoyed a beer that was only made available to me by the sheer size of its parent company, but I’m definitely opposed to the same parent company’s conduct. It’s something that we all have to face at some point, I suppose. It’s no secret that Nike (more specifically its founder, Phil Knight) provides lots of funding to my alma mater. It’s also no secret that Nike is not known for the best business practices, especially internationally. Truly, I have mixed feelings about Nike, and I can definitely see the argument for both sides. I’m pulled both ways with Boddingtons.
Realistically, we should all be supporting local business over major corporations every single second of every day. It’s not too difficult to look into the business practices of a company and know exactly what terrible things they do. I try to do this, but I’m still writing this blog on an Apple MacBook and wearing Gap jeans while I do. In terms of beer, I support local and craft breweries all the time, but I’d be lying if I said I’d never had a Coors.
My dad has a saying that I like a lot: “All things in moderation.” I know he didn’t make it up (what if he did??) but it’s definitely something we could all do better to live by. Realistically, I’m not going to exclusively buy Boddingtons for the rest of my life (there’s far too many other beers to try), not only because I don’t support its parent company’s business practices but it’s also not the most readily available beer. When I do, and I’m pretty sure I will buy it again, I’ll just have to not think about who owns it now. I guess I’ll just have to buy and consume it in moderation.
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