Feature
The rise and fall of Boddingtons, a proper Manchester institution
Where did it all go wrong?
Boddingtons went from a roaring success to almost impossible to find, so what happened?!
Boddington’s became known as The Cream of Manchester in the 1980s, but to understand how it became such a huge part of the city’s history we need to go back to a time when people drank beer instead of water.
Hundreds of years ago, water was a huge cause of serious sickness and unfortunately a lot of death. And as communities and civilisations grew the water got dirtier and even deadlier as sewers flooded into open water sources.
This is where beer came in, fermented and brewed making it healthier than water to drink. It was much thicker and a lot weaker than we know it to be now. But even back then you would regularly find the whole family chugging a few glasses at the dinner table, even the kids.
Mostly, beer was brewed within households. But as families got bigger and the need for space over a spot for brewing became more important.
Monasteries and schools started to lead the way for larger scale brewing operations. Manchester Grammar School used their ‘free’ workers to create beer under the guise of education and by the mid-1700s the school had a huge monopoly on the grinding of grain in the city.
As workplaces grew in the city, the desire for a nice place for a swift pint after work became huge. Hundreds of small brewers began setting up shop, including Strangeways Brewery.
In 1831, Strangeways Brewery employed John Boddington as a clerk. From a poor, large family down South, his family got wind of the job opportunities in prosperous Manchester and quickly followed suit chasing that northern dream.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t John who set up Boddington’s as we know it. It was actually his brother, Henry.
John pursued a career in Corn & Provisions, emigrating to America and dying penniless over there 20 years later.
Henry on the other hand, got a job at his brother’s old workplace and quickly made a name for himself, becoming a partner in the firm just 10 years later. He borrowed some money and became the sole owner in 1877.
By this point, they were the biggest brewery in Manchester, with their output growing from a mere 10,000 to 100,000 barrels a year.
Henry, as you can imagine, died a very rich man in 1886. His fortune equates to around £19.2 million in today’s monetary terms. His son William Slater took over, made the company public, doubled its value and so Boddingtons Breweries Ltd. was born.
By the turn of the century, Boddingtons were the 12th largest tied estate in the UK, owning over 200 public houses across the country.
But then there was the English Beer Scandal in 1900.
Over 6,000 people were poisoned and 70 people died from arsenic in the beer of many of the city’s breweries. While the illness was prevalent across the Midlands and North West England, Manchester was the most heavily affected by it.
It turns out hundreds of Boddingtons’ barrels were poisonous due to the sugar in the fermentation process – the beer market by then was very competitive, and high-quality barley malt was replaced with low quality in efforts to reduce costs.
This meant the barley was supplemented with sugar, a sugar that was made by heating starch with acid to form glucose. The acid was unpurified sulphuric acid used by Bostock & Co. which contained arsenic.
The poison remained in the sugar, and then subsequently poisoned the beer and thousands of people.
There was a significant decline in the birth rate in 1901 in Manchester, Salford and Liverpool, with an investigation later concluding that the arsenic epidemic was to blame.
A subsequent investigation into the mass poisoning later revealed that arsenic had been present in beer for decades – unknowingly poisoning thousands.
However, Boddingtons managed to get over this blunder and actually continued to be prosperous for the next century.
In World War II Boddingtons’ brewery was smashed to bits by the Luftwaffe in the Manchester Blitz, and they were forced to close for several months.
As a result, the the brewery was modernised and improved, becoming the first in Europe to install stainless steel brewing vats and getting all of the best mod-cons of the age.
During this time the Boddington family were selling shares and by 1930 only owned around 40% of the business. Then in 1961, Whitbread bought a 13% stake in the company.
In 1969, an attempted hostile takeover of the company took place, with Allied Breweries trying to force out the family and strip away its independence.
Whitbread actually raised the Boddington family’s stake to 23%, and by 1971 Allied Breweries had sold their 35% stake – leaving the family with 10% and Whitbread with 25% of it.
The ’80s saw huge growth for Boddingtons Bitter. The brand expanded outside of Manchester for the first time and people became enamoured with the cheap and distinct beer.
By 1986 they had 580 tied pubs and were producing over 500,000 barrels a year (while only maintaining a 50% capacity at the brewery). Finally, though, Boddingtons was sold to Whitbread for £50.7 million in 1989.
It was during the Whitbread era that Boddingtons became an international brand and a household name.
Much of the success of the brand is attributed to one of the greatest marketing campaigns of all time, ‘The Cream of Manchester’.
The style, swagger and colours highlighted perfectly the iconic taste of Boddingtons, and helped put Manchester on the map.
After the ’90s soaring success came the ‘fall’ of Boddingtons. It moved away from Manchester, the taste changed and the sales reflected that.
By this point the company had been acquired by Belgian brewer Interbrew, who are now known as InBev. By 2004 production had moved to South Wales and Lancashire.
The brewery had a huge send off in 2006 hosting the first ever Warehouse Project before the building was knocked down completely, and replaced by a car park – which it remains to this day.
The beer, however, remains the sixth best-selling bitter in the UK despite its sales falling by three quarters and it disappearing from the taps of many pubs.
If you do fancy a pint of it though, you can grab a draught pint at The Bay Horse in the Northern Quarter. And good news folks, it’ll be set to open its doors very soon now Boris has given the green light!
Feature
Affleck’s is home to the last remaining cassette tape shop in the UK
It’s 2021, and cassette tapes are going nowhere…
Remember the humble cassette tape? Those clunky bits of plastic wound up with tape containing all your favourite songs waiting to be played in your bedside cassette decks?
Well, while they may seem like a distant memory to most of us (or completely pre-historic to you younger readers), it turns out they’re still quite the hit for one shop right here in Manchester.
Mars Tapes, located in the vibrant and eclectic Affleck’s Palace, was opened by friends Alex Tadross, Giorgio Carbone, and Borja Reguira who all shared a passion for retro music. But their love for cassette tapes in particular came when the group started their own music label, Sour Grapes, in 2017.
Alex told the MEN: “All three of us have been musicians and in bands, done gigs, and been on the local scene before we launched the label. We kind of specialised in doing cassettes for local bands, and European garage rock bands, and that kind of turned into this shop.”
The group found vinyl to be a little too expensive to produce music on, and no one was interested in CDs, so they turned to the next best thing: cassettes.
Alex explained: “It was all about affordability at first really. Vinyl runs can cost up to £1,000 to £2,000 to do depending on how many you want to release.”
And, despite everyone getting their music fix via Spotify or Apple Music (guilty) these days, demand for cassettes is surprisingly high, with Alex saying that business couldn’t be better.
“We started selling them here in Affleck’s and we got more and more stock, and became an authentic cassette shop. And we like to think we’re unique and that we’re the last one.”
Mars Tapes now boasts an incredible selection of music, including ‘New music,’ which includes an array of brand new, unopened and newly released tapes from the likes of Chic, Bjork, Florence and the Machine and Lewis Capaldi.
Though for those with a somewhat more vintage taste in music, fear not! Customers will also be able to find some golden oldies, too, such as The Beatles, Elvis and The Rolling Stones.
There’s also a ‘Manc Bands’ shelf with tapes from Take That, Simply Red, New Order, and even current chart-toppers Blossoms’ last album ‘Foolish Lovin’ Spaces.’
There’s even a selection of cassette tapes brought back from a holiday in Cairo, limited edition tapes ‘from around the world’, pop, rock, compilations, radio shows, ‘songs for the bedroom’ and plenty more.
So, when you next come across a dusty cassette tape in your bedroom drawer, make sure you bring it down to Mars Tapes, because they’ll definitely buy it off you.
To stay up to date with their wonderful cassette finds and offerings, follow their official Instagram page and drop a visit to their website… Or, just pop into Affleck’s when you’re next in town. I’d recommend the latter.
Feature
The amazing reason Manchester has an Abraham Lincoln statue and square in the city centre
Believe it or not, the statue isn’t just there to brighten the place up…
Located just off Albert Square in the smaller, more easily missed location of Lincoln Square, there stands a statue of the late US President Abraham Lincoln.
But why?
You’d be forgiven for being a little puzzled at the presence of an American politician who seemingly has no connection or place in our city, especially in a location as quiet and hidden away as Lincoln Square is.
But, as it turns out, the statue stands tall today as a poignant reminder for the role Victorian Manchester played in the US Civil War and the eventual abolishment of slavery.
David Dixon / Geograph
Let’s start from the beginning: As the largest processor of cotton in the world at the time, Manchester took a strong moral and political stance by supporting President Lincoln, despite his blockade of the Confederate states and the cotton supply beginning in April 1861.
Even though Manchester and its surrounding areas found a huge proportion (an estimated 60%) of its mills were struggling to stay afloat, largely as a result of the blockade, in a meeting at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in 1862 workers agreed to maintain their support for Lincoln – who was aiming to out-manoeuvre the Confederate states, win the civil war and ultimately abolish the US slave trade.
In supporting Lincoln and the Union the working people of Manchester had selflessly put their principles ahead of their own economic self-interest, leading to unemployment and hardship for the workers.
Thomas Hawk / Flickr
President Lincoln wrote a letter in 1863 to thank the people of Manchester for their support – the letter, currently held by Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, reads: “When I came, on the 4th of March, 1861, through a free and constitutional election to preside in the Government of the United States, the country was found at the verge of civil war.
“Whatever might have been the cause, or whosesoever the fault, one duty, paramount to all others, was, before me, namely, to maintain and preserve at once the Constitution and the integrity of the Federal Republic.”
Just two years later and months after the US Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment which officially abolished slavery, Lincoln was assassinated.
Despite his death, however, Lincoln continued to be regarded as somewhat of a Mancunian legend so, shortly after the First World War, a statue in his memory was sculpted by George Grey Bernard. The original statue was completed in 1916 and exhibited in New York before its sponsor, wealthy businessman Charles Taft from Cincinatti, said he would pay for a replica to be erected in England.
The statue was actually intended to stand outside the Houses of Parliament, in a tribute from the United States marking 100 years of peace between the two countries. However, the American sculptors’ depiction of a ‘vigorous pose’ was far too controversial for London’s tastes at the time, so the statue subsequently came to Manchester where it remains today.
Waymarking.com
The monument was initially unveiled at Platt Fields Park, where it remained until the late 1980s before being moved and mounted on a new pedestal in its home today, Lincoln Square.
And, in 2013, after years of enduring pollution and dirt build-up, the plaque was eventually cleaned and the message to the people of Manchester was revealed at long last.
It reads: “The support that the working people of Manchester gave in their fight for the abolition of slavery during the American Civil War… By supporting the union under President Lincoln at a time when there was an economic blockade of the southern states the Lancashire cotton workers were denied access to raw cotton which caused considerable unemployment throughout the cotton industry.”
Feature
NEW OPENING: The Manchester pop-up serving waffles, fried chicken and lobster boxes
Manchester’s newest opening is built upon the roots of good old fashioned home cooking
The newest addition to Manchester’s already extensive food scene is giving the humble chicken burger a very syrupy makeover.
WaffleStop opened its first ever pop-up kitchen just last week, but was born during lockdown as a virtual dark kitchen with a focus on good, old-fashioned home cooking with a twist. The brains behind the unique chicken-waffle-barbecue concept, Moss Side-born Georgia Patrick, came up with the idea for her brand when cooking for her partner.
Speaking to Proper Manchester, Georgia detailed how the inspiration for WaffleStop was born, crediting her love for home-made, high quality and unique food. She said: “I’m not really the type of person who always wants to go out for date nights, sometimes I prefer to just sit in and make a nice meal.
WaffleStop
“So on our anniversary a couple of years ago, I asked my partner what he wanted to eat, and he suggested ‘American fusion.’ There, I thought to myself, why don’t I make my own waffle chicken burger?”
From there, Georgia got to work researching various recipes for barbecue sauce, eventually coming up with her own unique recipe and creating her own waffle sauce. Initially using frozen waffles from the supermarket, Georgia made her first waffle burger and it proved to be a huge hit. She explained: “My brother came around to try it and when he loved it, that sparked the idea to start selling them.”
From there, she started making her own waffles from scratch and, with her business partners, brother Jerome Patrick and Dominic Cook, began putting together a full menu and business plan.
Thanks to the ongoing lockdowns last year, however, WaffleStop was forced to operate as a virtual dark kitchen – but now that Manchester has officially reopened, WaffleStop has secured a residency at The Progress Centre in Ardwick as a pop up.
WaffleStop
Since then, the menu has expanded massively; as well as her trademark waffle chicken burger, there are the likes of mac ‘n’ cheese, chicken wings, and even seafood additions such as chilli jerk glazed prawns and barbecue glazed lobster tail. There are also meat-free alternatives for vegetarian and vegan customers such as the Cali Burger, which includes a southern-fried cauliflower with sweet-chilli sauce.
Speaking of the unique menu, Georgia explained: “A menu highlight is definitely our lobster tail which is served with our signature barbecue sauce. The lobster tail comes as part of our Waffle Box deal, which comes with seasoned corn and two slices of waffle.
“The fusion-fried rice is also really popular, as are our honey-nut strips and honey-nut waffle burgers, which all give a sweet-but-savory twist to the menu.”
WaffleStop
Other box combinations include the Beach Box, which consists of loaded white chocolate and strawberry waffles, sweet chilli jerk salmon and seasoned corn, and the Baby Box, a smaller portion of white chocolate waffles and seasoned corn and a smaller price for those not wanting to break the bank.
WaffleStop is open Tuesday – Saturday, 12pm-8pm at the Progress Centre in Ardwick and operates on a strictly order and pick up basis only (though a sit down restaurant is on the cards for the future.)
WaffleStop, CheeseTrap and SugarBabez can all be found at the Progress Centre in Ardwick. For more information and to place your order, visit the official WaffleStop Instagram account here.
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