Boddington Bitter hops 1939 - 1945

Still obsessing about Boddington Bitter.

When the war kicked off, Boddington Bitter contained both English and foreign hops. The latter being described as Oregon and Styrian. That is, from the USA and Yugoslavia, respectively. From 1941 on, only English hops were employed, both in the copper and as dry hops.

The age of the hops employed varied at different times in the war. In 1939, quite a lot of the hops were two seasons old. While in 1944 and 1945, most of the hops were fairly fresh. There’s a simple explanation. By then, most brewers had exhausted any stocks they had built up before the war. With no imports, locally-grown hops were the only option.  

And only from the last season, as each year’s crop was divided up amongst breweries based on their pre-war usage.  Enough to hop at, if they were lucky, perhaps 80% of their peacetime rate.  

Boddington Bitter hops 1939 - 1945
Year	hop 1	hop 2	hop 3	hop 4	hop 5	hop 6	hop 7	hop 8
1939	Oregon 1937 CS	Styrian 1937 CS	English 1937	English 1937 CS	English 1938	Styrian 1937 CS dry hops	English 1937 CS dry hops	English 1938 dry hops
1940	Styrian 1936 CS	English 1939
1941	English 1940	English 1940 dry hops
1942	English 1940 CS	English 1941	English 1941 dry hops
1943	English 1941	English 1941 dry hops
1944	English 1943	English 1943 dry hops
1945	English 1943	Kent 1944	Kent 1944 dry hops
Boddington brewing record held at Manchester Central Library, document number M693/405/129.