When looking for a new recipe, the adventurous homebrewer is faced with a breadth of choices so vast that it can be debilitating.
You can, without too much exaggeration, brew almost anything you can think of. Want something spicy? Try a Jalapeño/Haberno recipe. Feeling a bit light, perhaps craving some fruit in your malt? Try a watermelon wheat, or a strawberry blonde, or blueberry lager. You can even start messing with the types of sugars or yeasts you base the beer on and journey deep into the weird world of sweet potato, pizza, creme brulee, or even beard (yes face-hair) beer.
With so many options, so much potential just waiting to be mashed and fermented, it seems wrong to brew a clone of an existing beer, to recreate what has already been created, to add nothing new and plagiarize the work of another brewer so brazenly.
But, despite being the safe and boring choice, cloning is one of the best things you can do to improve your homebrewing skills. We know why we like certain commercial beer, be it the flavor or smell or presentation (or a little from columns A, B, and C), so by attempting to brew a clone, we can see how exactly the brewers used their alchemical skills to bring about such a well done beer. It gives us a standard to measure our own brew, and ultimately brewing skill, against.
How to Brew a Boddingtons Clone
I won’t try to hide why I picked Boddingtons of all the beers out there; it was, and will always be, my dad’s favorite beer. As my Untappd profile says, I’m pretty sure I drank Boddingtons before milk. I understand it may not be everyone’s cup of Earl Grey, especially since it was purchased and retooled by Whitbred and then ABInBev, but this is the brew that my dad used to teach me about beer, his rambunctious youth in British pubs, and how to tell a good story over a pint of ale.
“The Cream of Manchester” is a standard English bitter, fiercely golden with a thick white head, that, outside of pubs dotting the northern English countryside, comes in tall yellow and black cans, each of which contains a floating beer widget. Hopefully my all-grain homebrew will be less like the stuff available in the US today, and more like the stuff my dad drank on tap back in Manchester during the late 70s and early 80s. He always said there was nothing quite like a cask-condition, freshly pulled pint of pub ale.
Stuff You’ll Need
For a five gallon batch:
6.2 lbs of 2-row malt (British preferred, American accepted)
4 oz of Crystal 40 (for that golden color)
1/2 oz Patent Black Malt (for roasted goodness, and a little more color)
1/3 lb of invert sugar (which requires brown cane sugar and citric acid, explained below)
1.25 oz Fuggles (for bitterness and aroma)
.75 oz Kent Goldings (for aroma and flavor)
British Ale Yeast (I used WhiteLabs WLP013 but WYeast 1098 should work well, too)
You’ll also need all of the standard all-grain brewing stuff, like a mash-tun, brew kettle, bucket, carboy, fire, spoon, etc.
Step 1: Mash it up
The first thing you’ll notice is that this isn’t very much grain for a 5 gallon batch. Most American Ale recipes call for at least 10 lbs of malt, and we’re nearly 4 lbs short of that here. That’s because Boddingtons is a pretty low ABV brew, bubbling in at thoroughly sessionable 3.9%.
Because it’s so little grain, it’s best to mash for a bit longer than normal, say 90 minutes instead of 60. Mash the 2-row and specialty malts at ~151 degrees, stirring once or twice to make sure there are no malty dough balls floating around. Sparge once to loose the sugars, settle the grain-bed by draining off a liter or so, then send the rest right into your kettle.
You might be surprised at how brown the wort is, but that’s OK. From my experience, the color of the beer in a carboy or other container is much, much darker than it is in a glass.
Step 2: Make some invert sugar
While the grain is mashing, you’ll want to start your invert sugar. For the record, you can buy something like Lyle’s Golden Syrup, but if you’re putting in the work for all-grain brewing, you might as well create all of the ingredients from scratch. Consider it a lesson in self-sufficiency. Or survival preparation. Your call.
Invert sugar is naturally found in a lot of fruits and honeys, but you can make it yourself by adding citric acid to normal cane sugar, and heating it in water. The citric acid breaks the bonds of the sucrose in the cane sugar, resulting in free fructose and glucose (which are both sweeter than regular old sucrose). For those curious, this is the same chemical structure as the dreaded high fructose corn syrup, but our version is made from completely different ingredients (namely: not corn).
You want to heat 1/2 a lb of cane sugar (not table sugar) in 3/4 a cup of water. As it’s heating, add 1/8 a teaspoon of citric acid. Let it simmer, stirring frequently, for at least 20 minutes. The longer it simmers the darker and thicker it will be. You don’t want it too dark or thick for this beer, so try not to simmer it for more than 30-40 minutes.
Step 3: Boil her up (or down, not sure how it works)
Now that your grain is mashed and your sugar is inverted, you can start your boil. As soon as it’s roiling enthusiastically, you’ll want to add 1 oz of your Fuggles and .5 oz of your Kent Goldings. Boil for another 45, stirring as your impatience dictates. Next, add your invert sugar, a teaspoon of Irish moss (or a whirlfloc, if that’s how you roll) and the rest of your hops. There are no hop additions at burnout for this recipe, so you just need to wait another 15 minutes. Now is a good time to drop your (cleaned and rinsed) wort-chiller into the beer so that the boil can do most of the sanitation work for you.
Step 4: Drink a beer and chill out (while the beer chills out)
I always try to drink something in the same style as what I’m brewing. Three guesses as to what I was drinking this time around.
This is a good time to use the excess water from your wort chiller to water your poor, droopy hydrangeas. You can also use some to hose the bird-poop off your car. Get creative with it.
This is also a good time to get an original gravity reading.
Step 5: Pitch your yeast
Around ~75-80 degrees you are ready to stir the hell out of your wort and pitch your yeast. Remember that the more oxygen the yeast has, the better it will get established, and the better it will attenuate. I sometimes seal my bucket and shake the hell out of it once the yeast is already in there, just to make sure it’s well distributed and has enough oxygen to breathe comfortably.
Step 6: Prime and bottle
Let the golden-brown joy ferment a week, then rack to secondary. Bottle by priming with 2/3 a cup of cane sugar. Let the beer very slightly carbonate (to mimic the traditional style) for another ~14-21 days.
That’s it! Enjoy one for me and my old man.
Great run down on the process. When I visited England I loved this low ABV, malty, touch of hop, gems that the nice barman would pull from the cask for you. As you said, sadly what we get over here doesn’t really compare. But it’s always nice to know you can brew a tribute to them (and your father). Cheers!
Thanks, Ed. I’ve had the stuff on tap in England, and it’s so much better than what we can get in cans here that a 1 to 1 comparison isn’t even really fair.
Hopefully my all grain will do my lineage proud. I’ll let you know when it’s bottled.
My first favorite beer was Heineken, straight from the Heineken factory in Amsterdam.
I’d love a chance to taste some English Ales while in England.
Great post, but shouldn’t the face-hair brew be called “Beerd”?
I think you’re onto something there. If I ever get around to brewing my own beard-yeast beer, I’ll be sure to name it more appropriately 🙂
Nice,
A fascinating process,Oliver. Thanks for explaining. For a few years, Boddingtons, Belhaven,and Wexford is all that we’d drink. It was a phase of sorts. Still love the English bitters, but IPAs and Pale Ales have taken the fore for now;)
I go back and forth between regular ESBs and Pale Ales, to mega-hopped monsters in American DIPAs. Depends on how hard my week was, I guess 😉
Man, I don’t know if I could handle tasting this stuff from the source. I’ve only ever had what we get over here and I love it anyway. It’s simple stuff, but it’s drinkability is off the charts. It’s like liquid silk.
I might brew this one day soon as my girlfriend is a huge fan as well. Heck, maybe we can schedule a two man brew day one day in the future.
I tasted one last night (a bit premature with the carbonation, but I’m impatient). I can’t match the smoothness of the N02 cans, but the taste is spot on. I’m pretty proud of this batch. I’ll try to save you some (and we should meet up for some pints!)
Get a large syringe. Suck up some beer from the glass and squirt back in below level of beer. This almost mimics the no2 widget and gives a frothy head. Be careful not to squirt too vigorously or it boils over!
How did the colour and flavour turn out ?
I’ve one on at the moment from graham wheelers book, there’s no patent black in mine! I used the same yeast strain and transferred to the secondary last week must say from my memory it’s pretty close( I’m a Salford lad)been in Ireland this last 10 years.
Due to delays on brew day I had an extended mash on an already larger grain bill ( faulty scales turns out) and I’ve ended up with a sg of 1004 so it going to be dry( bodies is on the dry side anyway) and probably nearer 5% !
Im going to try it and keg it with nitrogen! thanks!
Let me know how it turns out! The subtly carbonated version was great 🙂
can i use acid blend instead of ascorbic acid
It needs to be citric acid, or the inversion of the sugar won’t work correctly. I’m not sure what’s in your acid blend, but if it’s part citric, it might work.
Thanks so much! I’m new to home brewing, just getting ready to bottle my first batch, a brown ale, but I remember tasting dads home brew when I was just a kid. Dad also made white lighting and wine, didn’t drink, just enjoyed making it. So it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Took my son out for a couple of Boddingtons a few days ago, he’d never had it before, but liked it a lot also. As much as I’ve enjoyed Boddingtons, I hope to taste the original stuff some day. Can’t wait to brew this! I was planning on brewing a bourbon ale next, but now maybe not.
hi guys !!,,,,,,,,,ive got my grain,,,,and ile be brewing tomorrow,,,,,,,,,bods is the best,,,,,unfortunately we cant get any of it in southern ireland !!,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,ile be racking this one in a corny keg,,,,,,,,,and i have the nitro !!!!!!!!!,,,,,,,,,,cant wait,,,,cheers for this recepie !!!………..paul from cork !!!!!
Oliver, this looks delicious and pretty simple. I have enjoyed Boddington’s in England on Cask, and it is amazing. I would live in England, for the ales alone. Steak and ale pies are great, but nothing compares to the pubs and cask ales.
I have made several batches of beer, and I have always purchased the kits that come with the malts already broken down into the syrup form. With your recipe, how large of a kettle would I need to start from scratch? I’m not familiar with that part of brewing yet, but want to start.
What is the purpose of a secondary fermenter? I have never used one. I always ferment for 4 weeks, then keg it. Other than the last batch of Brown Ale, they have all turned out really good. The last batch didn’t have much of a hoppy flavor, and tasted lifeless and boring. This made me lose hope in the pre-assembled kits.
Last question: On a Boddington’s clone, how long is your fermentation process? I ferment in a room that is usually around 69-70 degrees.
Thank you!
Firstly, I always encourage people to go all-grain, as it’s a much more authentic brewing experience, and it gives you more control over the final beer. It isn’t, however, the easiest thing to jump into, as you have to mash the grains.
A compromise to building your own mashtun and learning to do the mashing part (which I do actually recommend if you’ve got the time and desire!) is to “brew-in-a-bag.” This basically means “steeping” your grains as if you were making a beer tea, and removes the need for a standalone mashtun. Here’s a solid tutorial:
http://beersmith.com/blog/2009/04/14/brew-in-a-bag-biab-all-grain-beer-brewing/
You’ll need a kettle that’s slightly bigger than your final fermented volume; I use a 7.5 gallon kettle for 5 gallon batches of beer.
As for a secondary fermenter; it’s just a different way to ferment that seems to be antiquated in modern homebrewing. My dad taught me I should get the beer off the trub after 2 weeks, to make sure it properly clarifies and doesn’t develop weird off flavors. I switched to doing all of my fermentation in one go about a year ago, and notice literally no difference. The main advantage to doing all of the ferm in one vessel is it reduces the chances of infection and oxidation.
Lastly: the ABV is low, so if your yeast is healthy, it should only take about 14 days to reach the goal FG.
I should add; don’t stick to a 4-week fermentation just because. You should be using a hydrometer or refractometer to measure your OG, then take samples and measure the gravity in increments until you hit your target. 4 weeks is relatively long for most ales, unless you’re going high gravity, sour, or something else that warrants a longer cycle.
And what OG and FG did you end up with?
Having mis-spending most of my youth sucking down Boddingtons Bitter it has become the beer to judge others by. As you probably know, Strangeways Brewery in Manchester has closed, I bought a can here in Australia a few days ago and it was made in bloody Luton!!! Anyway, to the point, I remember that Boddingtons also made a half decent mild, you wouldn’t have come across the recipe for that by any chance?
Interesting! What OG and FG did you end up with? Trying to brew something similar here…
I’m trying it. My old recipe from an old brewing book wasn’t quite as good.
Hi Oliver, I am a big fan of nice Bitters and Boddington is one of my faourite. Impossible to get on tap in Sweden though so really escited when I found your recipe. Now I just tasted the first batch of home brewed Boddington, awesome ! I Can´t get the creamy head though so I guess I have to get a beer engine and a sprkler for that but otherwise is fantastic !
Thanks a lot for sharing !
/ Johan
This will be the first time that I will use liquid yeast. Do I have to make a starter with the yeast before pitching, or should I just add it to the wort(in fermenter) directly from the package?
If it’s fresh liquid yeast, no real need for a starter. Just make sure you get it to room temp before pitching!
Thank you Oliver. Just realized also that it has a smack pack in it.
Oliver! Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. I’ve made this several times now. I’ve been back to read your article here a few times and I agree – nothing tastes like fresh pub ale when you’re in the pub itself… especially when you’re in some little English village chatting with the locals. Your recipe is quite good and this beer is one of my faves to brew at home. Cheers!
Kim T.
Lincoln, NE
Kim,
So glad after all these years this recipe still works for you! My dad – rest his soul – would be over the moon to think people were still enjoying our interpretation of the cream of Manchester 🙂