Decline and Fall: Boddingtons & Bass

Mayhem and murder at the top of the brewing industry continue apace. Hard on the heels of the closure of its Scottish and Newcastle plants by Kronenbourg UK, Interbrew is to shut the Boddingtons site in Manchester, killing a history that date back to 1778.

Steve Cahillane, Interbrew�s chief executive, has the brass-necked nerve to state that "only" 10% of Boddington�s production is now in cask form. And why do you think that is the case, Steve? Who is responsible for the fact that one of the finest and most revered cask beers in the country has been allowed to wither on the hop vine?

Who do you blame: beer drinkers, Camra, Postman Pat or Osama bin-Laden? Why not remove the mote from your eye and look in the mirror.

Beer lovers throughout the country sought out the magnificent and wonderfully complex pale bitter when it was owned by the Boddington family.

There may have been a tiny amount of carbonated keg, but to all intents and purposes Boddies was a great cask beer, no more, no less. It was made by dedicated craftsmen for people who relished the rich aromas and flavours of a fine ale that was allowed to mature in the cask. No filters, no pasteurisers, no applied gas pressure, just a living, breathing, natural beer.

But then the brand fell into the dread hands of Whitbread. The group saw potential in Boddingtons Bitter but it couldn't stop its itchy fingers from turning it from a cask brand into a nitro-keg and canned one that would appeal to the "yoof" sector that might mistake it for lager. Combines such as Whitbread and Interbrew think only in terms of volumes and profits. They don't give a fig for tradition, let alone beer connoisseurs who happen to prefer their beer without fizz and widgets, promoted by over-inflated models with exaggerated chucky-egg Mancunian accents.

The other national brewers followed suit. Today, the cask versions of Tetley Bitter, John Smith�s and Worthington account for tiny proportions of total production. In the case of Worthington, the figure is a risible 7%.

And yet Steve Cahillane and his suited and booted fellow chief execs roll their eyes and bewail the fact that the cask sector is in decline when all the hot money, all the slick promotions, go on the smooth-flow versions of their brands. Last year, when Interbrew promised a �17 million promotion for Draught Bass and Boddingtons, it didn�t make it clear that not all the cash would be directed towards the cask versions alone.

Where Draught Bass is concerned, we can all take pleasure from the fact that the beer will continue to be brewed in its Burton-on-Trent homeland. But what an absurd situation it is when another great beer - poor, under-promoted and unloved Draught Bass, once the biggest beer brand in the world - is forced to scuttle off to Marston's where it will be brewed alongside its arch rival, Pedigree. Bass's share of that �17 million has been used to support the packaged versions, while the re-launch of the higher-strength cask Boddingtons has been confined to the North-west.

Is it surprising, then, as Steve Cahillane admits, that "Boddington is still declining at a faster rate than the cask market". Whitbread destroyed Boddington's dedicated � and lucrative � base as a great cask beer and Interbrew left it too long to revive it.

We now have the ludicrous situation in which cask Boddies will be brewed by Hydes in Moss Side in order to give the beer a fig-leaf of Mancunian respectability. The fact that Hydes� total brewing capacity is 50,000 barrels a year speaks volumes for the way in which sales of cask Boddies have been allowed to fall.

So congratulations, Steve Cahillane, on week of remarkable achievement. Your decision to close Strangeways has angered the unions, annoyed Camra and, in case you haven�t notice, made me bloody angry, too.

And now you have a battle on your hands. Boddingtons is too good to close and we intend to fight you every inch of the way. If we fail, it won�t be for want of trying.