Friday, October 23, 2009

Nitro Nostalgia

As much as I would be classified as a "beer geek", or "beer anorak" if you prefer, I am not adverse to taking trips down beer memory lane, despite the fact there are more than several nights where the beer stole my memories entirely, although I would like to claim that the Scotch on top of the beer was to blame. I have mentioned on Fuggled before that before I moved to Prague from the UK, I drank ale instead of lager as a rule, beers like John Smith's, Murphy's and Caffrey's were my staple tipples.





If those beers weren't available then my back up plan was Boddington's, which I vaguely remember being available on draught in a few places in Birmingham, but when I moved back to the Highlands I could only get in cans. About a week ago I noticed that our local Food Lion was selling four packs of Bod for only $6.79, and so for purely nostalgic reasons I dropped a pack into the shopping trolley - sorry guys, "cart" just sounds wrong - they won't let me bring my horse into the shop to pull it.





Well it certainly still pours with the bubble cascade and thick, creamy white head I remembered so well - I was tempted to try the old Czech quality test and see if I could balance a coin on the head, it is said that being able to do so is a sign of a properly made beer. Whereas I used to enjoy watching the cascade, and though that the head was great, these days it just annoys me. Eventually though the head settled and I drank my Bod, and although it isn't great, it isn't that bad - I have certainly drunk far worse, and that from the "craft" beer world.





Probably one of the main contributing factors for a lad of my age drinking Boddington's back in the 90s was the advertising, with the lovely Melanie Sykes fronting a series of commercials based around the theme of Bod being the "Cream of Manchester", my favourite though stars Sarah Parish:






7 comments:

  1. Ha. I love this commercial. A bar here in Fredericksburg keeps Boddington's on tap. Every once in awhile I'll have one of those creamy concoctions.

    ReplyDelete
  2. What coin would you use? English 5p?
    Ben

    ReplyDelete
  3. As I am living in the US, perhaps a dime would do the trick?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Totally agree with the 'cart' thing. Personally, despite all my experience gathered in the intervening years, I can rarely resist having at least one pint of Tennent's whenever I'm back home in Troon. And Guinness as well. Brings back all the memories of uni. I draw the line at Carlsberg though...

    ReplyDelete
  5. I used to love the 'Do you want a flake in that love?' ad for Bod's.

    Worthingtons and Bod's got me though many a night at Uni when it was either that or Carling out of a plastic pint glass!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I remember that commercial. It was before my beer drinking days but it was great to see it again.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I remember the advert too. Didn't Melanie Sykes get her break on another one?

    Last time I had this beer was in America a few years back. The guys I was drinking with thought it quite refined and sophisticated, being from England an' all. I didn't disagree, they paid for the beer and it would have been impolite to preach.

    ReplyDelete

Decocting an Idea

At the beginning of this year, I made myself a couple of promises when is comes to my homebrew. Firstly I committing to brewing with Murphy ...