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.…