| Me: | Manchester link is a con - now brewed in Wales. |
| The Net says: | 'By 'eck it's gorgeous'. Best ads in 50 years: Boddingtons was the cream of Manchester's crop. |
| Type: | Bitter ale 4.6% ABV |
| Flavour: | A straw-golden, hoppy bitter which was one of the first beers to be packaged in cans containing a widget, giving it a creamy draught-style head. |
| Fact: | No longer brewed in Manchester! In the 1990s, the beer was promoted as The Cream of Manchester in a popular advertising campaign credited with raising Manchester's profile. Boddingtons was one of the breweries implicated in the 1900 English beer poisoning epidemic, in which 6,000 people were poisoned by arsenic and 70 died. In 2010 Boddingtons was the sixth-highest selling bitter in the United Kingdom, although sales had dropped by almost three quarters since the takeover by Anheuser–Busch InBev in 2000. A previously unknown Melanie Sykes launched her career as a television presenter following her appearances in the adverts from 1996 until 1999. Animated television advertisements starring the transgender playboy cow Graham Heffer ran from 1999 until 2002. The adverts attracted complaints from the public for allegedly promoting bestiality, homosexuality and drug-taking. |
