It’s St. Patty’s Day and having a lineage to Clan McDermott, some of the beers I’m keenest on are, naturally, Guinness, Murphy’s, Harp and Kilkenny.

Yet Smithwick’s red ale (its actual finishing palette resting somewhere between maroon and brown) remains dear to my hops-loving heart, one of my go-tos in any American Irish pub. Particularly mashed with a Guinness stout, the combo pint known as a Blacksmith. Cue the old Guinness t.v. spot: “Brilliant!”

Smithwicks has been around since 1710, originally brewed on the grounds of a Franciscan abbey, later coming together under the same brewing umbrella with Guinness in 1965. Originally manufactured in Kilkenny until 2013, it’s now brewed on Guinness turf in Dublin at St. James Gate. Ironically, Smithwicks these days is shipped internationally by the British alcohol distributor, Diageo.

Make sure you get the name right if you order one of these amber gems, lest the Irish true laugh you straight into the Atlantic. Or make good on this ad’s whimsical threat to put heat to our collective outsider arses. It’s pronounced “Smitticks,” not the way it reads, and this hysterical old pitch for the beer has such savory smarm it has me pouring my own pint as I write this.

I have friends with whom I’ve shared these glorious pints (especially on many memorable St. Patty’s pub sprees) and our glass-clinging call-to-arms was once “Up the Smitticks!” No doubt to many a private invitation around us to “feck off.” There was a time during COVID when “Smitticks” disappeared from U.S. beer retailers, making me wonder when we’d ever see it stateside again. Luckily, it wasn’t another 300 year wait for its return. I can’t imagine what we Yanks could send the Smithwick estate in gratitude, other than a plethora of IPA recipes which they already fused in 2011 for their own pale ale.

Slainte, my friends.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.