A brewery born in the Republic of Ireland but very much of international standing, Whiplash has become a byword for quality in the world of modern beer. Founded by Alex Lawes and Alan Wolfe, and backed by a team from across the globe, Whiplash has made its name thanks to its meticulous pursuit of quality. Photo above: Leah Kilcullen

What canapés do you most enjoy with your beer festival pour? Avocado toast with the Double IPA? Prawn Cocktail to complement that Gose? Or maybe we can interest you in a sharp cheddar for that viscous Imperial Stout. 

While a world-class beer list was busy being curated for the inaugural Fidelity festival, held at The Mansion House in Dublin back in early 2019, the team behind the event were facing decisions of a different kind.   

“The Mansion House is the Mayor of Dublin’s residence, and as a result they do really great silver service black-tie events,” recalls Alex Lawes. “We had asked what food we could offer from small stands around the venue. We were thinking maybe a burger or hotdog. Stuff like that…”

Wrong! The only option the fine venue could provide were lovely canapés for all attendees. 

“They were proposing smoked salmon, scallops, mini wellingtons and fine cheeses…. we did briefly consider it,” he laughs. “But it would have more than doubled our ticket price, so we opted out. Maybe another year we can make Fidelity a black-tie event. That would really be a first!”

Fidelity is the brainchild of Big Romance, a self-confessed audiophile pub on Dublin’s Parnell Street and Whiplash Beer of Ballyfermot, also based in the city. Taking place for the first time in July 2019, the euphoric sold-out event was an opportunity for Lawes, business partner Alan Wolfe, and the team to briefly kick-back following the best part of 18 months that “knocked lumps out of us” building their brewery and to formally introduce their baby to world. 

The festival, featuring venerable breweries from across the globe such as Barrier, Deya, Finback, Lervig, Lost & Grounded, Other Half and Stigbergets, was the chance for many outfits to pour their beers in Ireland for the first time. Not only that, they’d have their creations imbibed within the resplendent surroundings of The Mansion House.

Located on Dawson Street, The Mansion House, as Lawes explained, has been the official residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin since 1715. Nestled between the picturesque St Stephen’s Green and the world-famous Trinity College, Fidelity would take place in the venue’s Round Room. And it was in these very confines that in 1919 the first Dáil Éireann was held, making the first definitive parliamentary move for home rule. 

Fast-forward a little more than a century, and following a three-year absence, Fidelity returns this month and is, once-again, a sold-out affair bringing together an acclaimed selection of breweries along with an equally-stellar soundtrack to boot.

But before then, there are other matters at hand for team Whiplash. Taking place at the Glendalough Estate in Co. Wicklow, Beyond the Pale is a brand new music festival. Not only that, it’s the first of its size in Ireland to offer patrons local, independent craft beer exclusively at the event’s bars.

As you’d expect, that has kept the brewery incredibly busy. And Lawes couldn’t be happier.

“I’ve been smiling from ear-to-ear with the amount of Pils coming out of the brewery,” he explains. “It’s been great to have so much of a focus on our core range for a month. It’s the most lager we’ve ever brewed.” Not only that, attendees can also imbibe the brewery’s Body Riddle Pale Ale, the Rollover Session IPA or Slow Life, its Nitro Stout.

“I’ve been smiling from ear-to-ear with the amount of Pils coming out of the brewery,”

Alex Lawes, Whiplash Beer

While 2022 is already panning out to be a year of progression and celebration for Whiplash, they’ve worked hard to get here. Very hard. Some seven years ago back in 2015, Lawes would be intro-duced to his now business partner Alan Wolfe. The former, who already briefly had dipped his toes into the world of beer production thanks to a role working at the Guinness Storehouse at St James’s Gate, had gone on to become captivated and enamoured with homebrewing and the community that came with it. 

Wolfe, also an alumni of Guinness, was a manager at Rye River Brewing Company based in Celbridge, Co. Kildare. As Lawes explains, Wolfe was running operations while he was “a jumped-up shift brewer with f*ck-all commercial experience and a reckoning that homebrews would get me through.”

Lawes wanted to join the business but on his own terms.

Such was his desire to pursue his own path in beer, he wanted to make beer full-time but styles he loved, produced in the manner he desired. The young brewer would become part of the team at Rye River on the proviso that he would honour the contract for a year before going on his own journey. And along with that, his contract would outline that there could be no conflict of interest issues to arise with his eventual departure, either. But like many plans in beer, it didn’t quite turn out like that.

As the end of that first year drew close, Rye River found itself needing a new head brewer and Lawes would help Wolfe by putting out calls to potential applicants for this great role, a great role Lawes knew that he himself couldn’t commit to. But that didn’t stop Wolfe asking. 

“You can pick all your materials and start from scratch,” he would tell Lawes at the time. “Beers stay in as long as you like, f*ck it brew what you want. Fix the beers as you see fit, make new ones, have fun, sort the place out.”

Lawes’s response? “F*ck it, go on so,” he said.

Aged 26, Lawes found himself as head brewer at the helm of some of the country’s finest kit with the license to brew what he wanted. In the time under his stewardship, Rye River was an award-winning outfit, but with annual output growing nearly eight-fold during that stint it would take its toll, not only on Alex but Alan and the team at large.

It was time for Lawes to follow his own path once more and this time, he meant it. There were just some hurdles to overcome along the way and now, it was Wolfe that needed to be the one con-vinced of a new challenge. 

Although Lawes had already trademarked the ‘White Label’ moniker for the potential beers he’d make under his own steam, this would swiftly be knocked down by an international spirits business that made it abundantly clear they would fight any attempt by the brewer to create beers under this designation in the courts. Lawes would instead set up a new independent operation in the hope it could become a reality. And thankfully for drinkers far and wide, it would.

Early beers such as Scaldy Porter and Double IPA Surrender to the Void were a hit with consumers and demand for more frequent releases would grow. By 2017, it was time for this new outfit to show it meant business. And over the course of some six months Wolfe and then Lawes would depart Rye River to fully focus on their new business. But what could they call it?

“Whiplash,” Lawes would tell his business partner. “Sounds deadly, why Whiplash?” he asked. “The pain in me neck with this kip man,” Lawes replied. “You’re such a w*nker. Whiplash it is,” Wolfe muttered.

The level of encouragement from fans of great beer is something that gave Lawes and Wolfe confidence in their abilities from an early stage. That support is something that would also eventually go on to help ensure Whiplash would make it through those early months in their own premises, months that coincided with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But before securing their own site became a reality, it was down to Wolfe to help establish commercial channels for their beers. While during 2018 Lawes would continue down the path of keeping gruelling hours brewing. Just this time out it was at partner breweries across Europe with Whiplash starting out as a nomadic brewing operation. 

Lawes’ creations would continue to garner praise from consumers, retailers and ratings websites alike. But as Whiplash’ reputation grew, so did the demand for its releases from the ancillary world of beer. “Although we didn’t have our own place, people knew that we were working with reputable outfits, and they appreciated the quality of the product,” he says. “But negotiating brewing, selling and delivering was mentally and physically taxing. It became a battle to have beer at every festival you wanted to be at.”

The duo knew they needed premises of their own which in itself, predictably presented a whole new set of challenges. Lawes and Wolfe initially approached Whiplash with the premise of it being a brewpub operation with the majority of beers produced for sale on-site. They would also cater for some export and utilise contract brewing at partner breweries for larger batches. But the form which Whiplash would take would soon start to alter.

“Dublin is a fast-changing city these days,” muses Lawes. “There are lots of good but also lots of bad things to be said about the development in the city centre. Land is picked up for offices, hotels and the like when there is not nearly enough housing. And unlike the north of England, we don’t have a lot of old industrial spaces that can be repurposed and brought back to life as a brewery or similar.”

The closest such option the team could entertain was the Wholesale Fruit and Vegetable Market. Head some 500 metres north from Temple Bar over the River Liffey and you’ll find the Victorian-era structure, which was built in 1892 by the then Dublin Corporation. The site was built as a dedicated market space for local farmers and traders to sell and buy fresh produce. Constructed from a wealth of materials such as redbrick, steel and wood, the area has been a mainstay in the city for the best part of 150 years.

“We found ourselves asking what’s the best way we can flip a brewery idea we can just about afford to a production brewery that will be a much larger operation.”

Alex Lawes, Whiplash Beer

“I love that part of Dublin. I feel connected to it there,” Lawes ponders. But conversations with the businesses still plying their trade would swiftly put pay to the idea of Whiplash calling it home.

“They told us that the whole area was as good as gone five years before. It had all been snapped up for redevelopment,” he says. “It stopped us in our tracks. We had focused too much energy on a taproom model and it was time to shift to a production brewery mindset.

“We found ourselves asking what’s the best way we can flip a brewery idea we can just about afford to a production brewery that will be a much larger operation.” And that journey would lead them to the Dublin suburb of Ballyfermot and kit that Lawes would describe at the time as “the most over-engineered pilot kit ever imagined”.

Ballyfermot is located south of the famous Phoenix Park. One of the largest enclosed public parks in any capital city in Europe, it’s a space that’s hosted live acts such as U2, Robbie Williams and Ed Sheeran. It also calls itself the spot ‘Where Dublin goes to breathe’. Fitting then that down the road would become the new home of where discerning beer fans go to drink.

Following nearly two years of searching, the duo would settle on a unit located on the Cherry Orchard Industrial Estate. It’s an impressive facility where no element has happened without consideration. There’s a hugely satisfying flow to the premises, premises that were worth waiting for.

When it came to shifting their focus for the brewery build, the plan was to build a kit that could produce a few small brews of around 20-30 cases and a couple of kegs every week. This would enable the business to be nimble enough to cater for everything from tap takeovers to festivals and more. Speaking at the time Lawes said that from his experience, 500L of a test brew would be perfect amount. 

“It’s a perfect volume to take proper risks with and experiment with flavours you might not even associate with beer. If it works there’s just enough to sell cases and not p*ss too many people off, and if it’s rubbish then it’s down the drain,” he said. “It’s R&D and that’s going to be expected. What I hadn’t planned for, but Alan could apparently see a mile off, was I’d get over-excited by the possibilities, over-engineer the entire thing and turn this thing into being the main project pretty quickly. We’re here now.”

Following conversations with brewery manufacturers, Lawes said it was quickly apparent that they could offer a 500l kit to cater for all of the beers he wanted to produce but it would never be possible for Whiplash to make its money back from such a system size. “They were right,” he said. The solution? “DIY – Design It Yourself. A truly terrifying prospect for any brewer – nobody to blame if it doesn’t work. So what are we building? It’s the most over-engineered pilot kit ever imagined,” he said. And that would manifest itself as a five-vessel and mash filter custom brewhouse. 

The kit would comprise a mash mixer, decoction vessel and cereal cooker, mash filter, wort receiver, boil kettle and whirlpool. Kit that makes Whiplash the smallest brewery, as Lawes explains, ca-pable of producing “the most flexible and fastest high-quality wort in the world”.

And its prized mash filter plays a major part in this equation. Having dabbled with such kit while working on the Guinness pilot plant, he had fond memories of wort that presented as the cleanest and most complex he had tasted. Following a period of research, which included a visit to Spanish manufacturer Landaluce that could offer such kit for a microbrewery operation, the team went ahead with the investment. 

For Lawes, there are three key benefits the mash filter offers their production setup, namely in extract, with time and ease of use. “On a mash filter you use cereal flour instead of the coarse grist you’d need to mill for a lauter or a mash tun. Getting rid of all of that flour during separation allows you to get at 100% of that malt goodness,” he said at the time.

“It’s not a huge concern on cost when making beer but it really helps when you’re making really big beers like barleywines and imperial stouts when compared to a mash tun the efficiency can go as low as 60%.” The filter always works more efficiently than a lauter tun, while Lawes says the kit rarely blocks. “You can throw what you want at them provided you’re operating the thing correctly. We can brew with as much oats, wheat and spelt as we want for our New England bangers without worry.”

Looking back on the brewery build, while it was a challenging and intense time for the team, Lawes said it was a phase in the story of Whiplash that has been a positive in the long term.

“We drew the tanks in CAD, worked with a Chinese fabricator and they sent us everything to setup. Asking every little question about each tank makes you a better brewer, he says. “We are a more qualified outfit as a result.”

And the beers the team outputs from its facility are testament to that. And following the exhausting brewery fit-out, which needed countless delays around local installation issues overcome, there were other unprecedented challenges on the horizon. 

“When it came to local fabrication and pipeworks, you could say there were some delays on that front,” Lawes recalls. “But we did our first mash on the 1st November 2019 and knew we had to get to work.”

With 64 brews carried out in the first few days, he says the production rate probably came as a shock to some of the team. “Had we not filled those tanks then we wouldn’t have survived the pandemic that was to come,” Lawes says. While FVs were happily filled, a traditionally quiet January would follow a Christmas period of “scrambling in the cellar and turning to some barrel-aged ideas”.

But as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, the team could take slight solace in the taxing brew schedule they undertook once the kit had been installed several months prior. “Two days before St Patrick’s Day, Ireland shut down,” he sighs. “Our pubs here were closed for the longest time. We had an insane amount of stock, but it’s beer that wouldn’t have been available had we not brewed so much at Christmas.” 

While they had beer available to sell, they had vastly reduced avenues through which to sell it. Step up the loyal beer fans that helped give Lawes and Wolfe that early confidence to make a go of what would become Whiplash. “We were contacted by the National Homebrew Club in Ireland that wanted to buy our beer,” he says. “They reached out to independent breweries like ours, which we truly appreciate. While there is strict legislation in the amount they could buy, they’d get close to a pallet and split it among themselves. They knew small businesses needed support and it kept us going.”

And that support was integral in ensuring the brewery’s fledgling team could remain employed and go on to grow as conditions improved. It’s a team international in its composition and a group that works as one. “It’s a respectable, cohesive team,” says Lawes. “Lots of our brewers moved to Ireland to work for us and many of us have lived with each other. We are a very egalitarian unit.”

The output produced by team Whiplash spans the broad spectrum that exists in the world of beer. Lawes has a “master list” some 100 beers long and they are slowly and surely working their way producing them. Just don’t expect a red ale anytime soon. “It’s just a cynical style, isn’t it? he asks. “It’s a Pale Ale with 1% of the grain bill roasted barley. It was invented by macros in the 70s and I have a real distrust for it!”

Instead, patrons in the summer can expect more Grisettes, Tripels and Wits while decoction lagers will enter the fold come early autumn. Attendees to the recent Hop City event in Leeds would also have been able to imbibe a new beer in the form of Emerald Rush, an IPA showcasing Riwaka. “I love that hop,” says Lawes. “We managed to get our hands on 10kg and knew we do a could job using it. You can create a supercharged beer with Riwaka, especially when you have some Ekaunot underneath it.”

While the beers brewed are diverse in their nature they are underpinned by that almost obsessive desire to make the best liquid possible. “We never make concessions as to what is a saleable beer. We make what is interesting to us,” explains Lawes. But they always need to be of high-quality. And quality is repeatability and the reduction of variance. We strive for that each and every time.”

If this month’s sold-out Fidelity Festival is anything to go by, then Whiplash is achieving just that. Because attracting leading lights from the world of beer to pour and collaborate with you doesn’t happen by accident. 

And if anything, things are more jovial than they were at the end of 2020 when the team could mark one year since their first official brew, when they joked: “This brewery is now quite the pain in our neck. We’ve ruined our lives.”

While they’ve taken their far share of bumps and bruises along the way, those of us that enjoy fantastic beer are glad they did.