MORE than 200 years of brewing history ends today when the workers at Boddingtons produce the final batch of beer at the famous Manchester brewery.

The remaining 55 workers at the Strangeways brewery will load the huge copper mash tuns with the ingredients for the beer - known as the "Cream of Manchester" - for the last time.

The tuns, which have been in constant use since 1778, will then lie idle while the owners of Boddingtons decide what to do with the site.

Future production of most of the famous brew will switch to plants in Samlesbury, Lancashire, and Magor in South Wales. Cask-ale Boddies - which accounts for about 10 per cent of present production - will continue to be brewed in Manchester, at the Hyde's plant in Moss Side.

Boddingtons owners, Belgium brewing giant InBev, informed workers yesterday that the brewing of the final batch of ingredients was to be completed late this afternoon.

The final pints of Boddies are not expected to leave the brewery until next week although workers are likely to be on site until the end of the month.

InBev announced last September it was closing the brewery, claiming it was due to falling ale sales, two years after a campaign led by the Manchester Evening News forced a U-turn over a similar announcement.

History

Workers mounted an energetic campaign to block the closure, backed by Manchester City Council, local MPs and Euro MPs, as well as Coronation Street star Bruce Jones.

A "Save The Cream" website received more than 150,000 hits from 43 countries.

But this week the workers and their union, The Transport and General Workers, called time on their fight to keep the brewery open, admitting that there was to be no second reprieve.

A T&G spokesman said: "Today sees 227 years of brewing history being poured down the drain by a huge corporation which is only interested in creating massive profits by mass producing beer.

"This means the loss of a local Manchester beer which has been produced, served and drunk with pride for more than two centuries.

"Not many companies employing just 55 staff can boast that they have produced huge profits in the last couple of years like Boddingtons but apparently that is not good enough for InBev.

"There are many people leaving here with very heavy hearts, angry that they and the Boddingtons name has been treated so shoddily."

InBev's corporate affairs director Philip Malpass said: "This building was built in the Victorian times and it is an old historic brewery but it was a victim of its age. It is an inflexible brewery - it can't bottle or can and customer needs have moved on.

"The good news is that 19 people have now been redeployed. There are not as many workers facing redundancy as originally estimated."

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