Beer Review: Boddingtons Pub Ale

You’ve got to get some Boddies down thee, you’ve been where you shouldn’t,
You’ve got to get some ale inside thee,
Coz you’re a fucking cunt.

Those brilliant lyrics are from the Macc Lads’ delightful ditty “Boddies”.  In fact, Boddingtons is mentioned something like a thousand times on the two albums by the Macc Lads that I personally own, and so when I realized it was a reference to none other than the yellow cans I see at Kroger every night when I am agonizing over which beer exactly matches what I’m feeling at the time, I had to try it.

 Wow, does this beer suck.  It is definitely “smooth and creamy” as the label says.  It’s also the least carbonated ale I’ve ever had the extreme displeasure of downing.  Which is fine, I suppose, for those of you that don’t mind non-carbonated beer, but you – I hate to tell you this – are in the minority.  Not just in the US, in the world.  Most British, German, Dutch, Irish, American, Czech, Russian, Belgian, French, Italian, Canadian and… everywhere else in the world… beers are carbonated.  Even Guinness, as thick and stouty as it is, has a teensy bit of god’s own bubbles.

What’s really weird about it is that this beer is amazingly full of head, for the first ten seconds in the glass.  To the point that, as I poured my first one, Tommy from Dog Germs remarked “That beer looks like caramel.”  Ten seconds later, the head reduced itself to something around 4 millimeters, and I took a sip, and discovered it to be the flat-tastic ass-tasting beverage that it is.

Flavor is, admittedly, more important than texture.  To a lot of people, at least, and to me as well depending on my mood and the flavor in question.  Does the flavor of Boddingtons make up for the lack of carbonation?  The short answer is no.  The long answer, I leave for the next paragraph.

I used to work at 7-11.  Sometimes, when stocking the cooler, we’d make mistakes that resulted in the busting of a bottle or the rending of a can, and therefore render a six-pack unsellable.  These sat in the cooler and got older and older; occasionally we would combine them with another six-pack that we’d broken one of but the collection of incomplete six and four packs eventually reached ungainly proportions, and I was instructed to write them off and throw them away.  I wrote them off and took them home.  Two big black-plastic 20-gallon trashbags worth of stale beer.  Boddingtons tastes like expired MGD plastic-bottles.

It’s odd, because it’s almost flavorless, in the way that you don’t even get with American beers.  It’s not only watery to the touch, it’s watery to the palate, sort of like someone dumped some flavoring into some water that had been sitting stagnant and uncovered in the air for a few days.

This isn’t the worst beer I’ve ever had – that honor goes to a commemorative can of Redskins (Hog Something) beer from sometime in the 80s that I had the nonpleasure of consuming in 1997 because I’d run out Natural Ice and wasn’t done drinking yet.  But it’s certainly somewhere on the list, and sadly reminiscent of that experience.

It is worth mentioning that I drank this beer cold, while English beer is – at least in theory – traditionally served at room temperature.  I find this doesn’t explain the wretched experience I underwent, however, for two reasons.  Firstly, I drink all my beer cold, because I’m an American, and other British beers don’t suck ass.  I adore Newcastle Brown Ale, by way of comparison.  And secondly, I spent a week in London drinking beer at local pubs, and not once did I get a beer that wasn’t chilled to a point quite cooler than room temperature in January.

Much like anal rape, sex with women who resemble Jabba the Hut and haven’t bathed in years, and sheep-fucking (other constants in Macc Lads songs) I can’t recommend Boddingtons to anyone but the most depraved.  I do, however, recommend the Macc Lads.  They’re fucking awesome.  Check out the lyrics archive on their official site here if you don’t believe me.

— devlocke