In 1982, Boddingtons bought the Oldham Brewery for £23 million, hoping to combine Oldham's strength in lager and keg bitter with their own expertise in cask ales. After the acquisition, the company owned 272 public houses, 70 per cent of which were within 20 miles of its Manchester brewery. In 1983, Boddingtons Bitter was distributed in the Home Counties for the first time. In 1985 Boddingtons paid £27.5 million for the 160,000 barrel capacity Higsons Brewery in Liverpool and its tied estate of 160 public houses to form a combine with a £65 million turnover. "The Guardian" commented that the company had paid mere asset value for Higsons as the company had been reporting poor profits. There was virtually no overlap between the two companies, and the takeover brought Boddingtons to Merseyside for the first time. By this time Strangeways was producing only two beers, a bitter and a mild, with bitter constituting over 90 per cent of production. In 1986, the company employed 280 people and operated 530 tied houses, and while Strangeways Brewery had a capacity of 500,000 barrels a year, it was operating at around 50 per cent capacity. That year the company introduced its own lager, brewing Kaltenberg under licence.