Boddington CC 1914 - 1921

I've never quite got my head around Boddington's naming convention. What makes CC a Strong Ale?

And does it have connection to the enigmatic "C" Ale, that type of Strong Ale only found in the Manchester area? I've no idea, to be honest.

The biggest surprise is that CC was only briefly dropped during WW I, for about a year between October 1917 and November 1918.  Brewing strong beers became virtually impossible after April 1st 1918, when the average gravity of all the beer a brewery produced couldn't be more than 1030º. Pretty difficult to brew a beer of 1060º and stick to that rule.

Brewers had to be careul. The average was totted up every quarter and brewers who exceeded the permitted average faced fines. Boddington took this so seriously that they kept track of the weekly average in their brewing book:

Like all of Boddington's beers, CC wasn't very heavily hopped in comparison to London beers. A London-brewed Burton Ale was hopped at around 12 lbs per quarter of malt - about treble the rate of CC.

It's surprising how well the OG bounced back after the war. The average drop in gravity between 1914 and the early 1920's when things stabilised again was about 19%. CC's fall was just 4%. Barely even significant. Its gravity did fall a little more between the wars, but in 1939 was still a very respectable 1056º.

Boddington CC 1914 - 1921
Date	Year	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
9th Jul	1914	1062.0	1020.0	5.56	67.74%	3.53	1.18
7th May	1915	1059.0	1019.0	5.29	67.80%	3.75	1.20
27th Oct	1915	1058.0	1018.0	5.29	68.97%	3.64	1.17
18th May	1916	1062.0	1017.0	5.95	72.58%	3.87	1.33
20th Dec	1916	1062.0	1017.0	5.95	72.58%	3.53	1.23
31st Jan	1917	1059.0	1018.0	5.42	69.49%	3.53	1.46
11th Oct	1917	1056.0	1018.0	5.03	67.86%	4.41	1.32
12th Nov	1918	1058.0	1020.0	5.03	65.52%	3.97	1.27
24th Dec	1918	1061.0	1021.0	5.29	65.57%	3.97	1.31
10th Feb	1919	1059.0	1020.0	5.16	66.10%	3.97	1.26
24th Mar	1919	1060.0	1020.0	5.29	66.67%	3.97	1.29
17th Jun	1919	1061.0	1019.0	5.56	68.85%	4.22	1.35
13th Oct	1919	1060.0	1020.0	5.29	66.67%	3.82	1.29
30th Mar	1920	1058.0	1016.0	5.56	72.41%	4.06	1.18
7th Oct	1920	1057.0	1020.0	4.89	64.91%	3.82	1.20
5th Oct	1921	1059.5	1019.0	5.36	68.07%	3.53	1.16
Sources:
Boddington brewing records held at Manchester Central Library, document numbers M693/405/126 and M693/405/126.