Brewery workers are battling plans to move production of Boddington's bitter away from its Manchester home.

Employees from the Boddingtons factory will travel to Brussels later this week to ask European Union officials to grant Boddington's bitter the same legal protection afforded to Parma ham or Newcastle ale.

Both are protected by an EU law tying products to their place of origin.

Applying the law to Boddington's would make it illegal to use the Boddington's brand name for beer made anywhere other than Manchester.

On the move

The move has been prompted by plans by Boddington's owner Interbrew to shift most production out of Manchester, where the beer has been brewed for over 200 years, to new sites in Preston and south Wales.

The move would cost about 70 jobs.

The Boddington's workers have enlisted the support of Manchester MEP Arlene McCarthy.

Ms McCarthy said Interbrew was happy to trade on Boddington's strong associations with the city, promoting it as "the cream of Manchester" in advertising campaigns.

"We're going to explore every avenue to keep Boddington's brewing in Manchester," she told the BBC's World Business Report.

Ms McCarthy has also requested a meeting with Interbrew executives at their European headquarters in Belgium.

Original brew

Many beers marketed on the strength of their geographical origins are brewed in entirely different locations.

Some of the UK's most popular foreign beers - including France's Kronenbourg and Australia's Fosters - are in fact brewed under licence in the UK.

Boddington's has been brewed in Manchester for the last 224 years.

The brewery was acquired by Interbrew as part of its takeover of Whitbread's brewing operations in May 2000.