September pairs 1: Whiplash

Autumn has arrived, and the annual Dublin Beer Festival at the RDS will be upon us soon. Ahead of that, I have a series of short posts on recently released Irish beers, all of which have trickled through in pairs. We begin with Whiplash, and a couple of pints in their Dublin pub, Fidelity.

They've done a grodziskie, which is certainly a rarity for these parts. Final Credits (no idea why) is 3.5% ABV, and an equally-innocent clear dark gold colour. So the big opening smoke hit was a shock. This is not a subtle beer, nor a tasty and fun little curiosity from world brewing. This is a serious commitment to the smoke. It tastes of bonfires and blast furnaces; engines and factories. Smoky, but not in the savoury way of pork and fish. It is at least light-bodied, which goes some way to soften the impact, and once you're used to the acridity, I can see how it could even be seen as refreshing. But that's at least pint two, or possibly generation two of this being the ingrained local beer style. I give props to the brewery for giving one a go, but I couldn't get into this one. It's for grodziskie extremophiles only.

Whiplash brews Oddity, and the latest from the Barcelona client brewer is The Dreamer. In a move that's sadly typical for Whiplash, they claim this is west coast, though my suspicions were aroused as soon as the tap started pouring. The look is hazy; translucent, not opaque, but that's no excuse. We are NOT on the west coast here, boys and girls. The poorly-rendered subterfuge continues with a flavour which is downright juicy. Opening on fresh-squeezed, after a moment it sweetens to orangeade, leaning to hard candy and aromatic citrus oil, and only then reluctantly drifting towards the hard pith and resin of the west coast. It doesn't go all the way there, however. It's maybe a bit slight for 6.6% ABV, and while it's certainly enjoyable, well-made, and properly flavoursome, the style fidelity (lol) is poor. Exercise caution.

More IPA tomorrow, from a brewery that turns them out as prolifically as Whiplash.