Fixation Brewing Co (Lion/Kirin)

Around 2014, we'd often hear refrains along the lines of: "Everyone's got an IPA these days." Yet it didn't take much investigation to discover that, a few exceptions apart, this was far from the case. Sure, there were plenty of one-off or occasional draught only releases hitting taps, but in terms of breweries with an IPA as part of their core range? Not so much.

However, taking a lead once more from the States, it wasn't long before reality started catching up with the hype. Just as in the USA, where IPA has become the biggest selling style within the craft beer sector, more and more Aussie brewers are upping their orders with hop suppliers and creating their own contemporary updates of one of history's most storied beers: the India pale ales with origins in 19th century England.

If you were looking for confirmation of the increasingly central role such beers are playing in Australia, the arrival of Fixation Brewing Co in late 2015 was as good as any. A joint venture between the Stone & Wood Group and former Mountain Goat sales guy Tom Delmont, it not only launched with an IPA but announced plans to brew nothing other than variations on the style.

This was more than a case of canny operators looking at market trends and jumping in with both feet, however – of all the genesis stories we've come across in our time in the Aussie beer world, few have been as serendipitous as this.

Less than a fortnight before avowed IPA fanatic Tom was to learn that his then employer, Mountain Goat, had been sold to Asahi, thus abandoning the independence that was so important to him, he'd wandered into Stone & Wood's Byron Bay home. Not knowing his way around, he walked into the office rather than the public area and found two of Stone & Wood's founders, Jamie Cook and Ross Jurisich, there. They got chatting about beer, the local industry, trends and so on, before going their separate ways.

What he didn't know then was that, following a trip to the States in early 2015, Jamie, Ross and co-founder Brad Rogers had been discussing the potential for an IPA brand in Australia. Thus, the chat with Tom fresh in their minds, when news of the Goat sale reached them the pieces began to fall into place. Just weeks later, Tom and his family were in Byron Bay overseeing the first brew of Fixation's flagship IPA.

Tom continues to travel to northern New South Wales for brew days, working closely with the brewers on recipes, with the first bottles of the IPA hitting shelves in May 2016.

The original plan for this bit of hoppy serendipity was to go slow, ensure every keg was consumed soon after leaving the brewery and build an audience slowly. Within months, it was clear that not only were their suspicions for IPA's potential in Australia bang on but that a hop hungry audience was going to need them to speed things up. And fast.

As production increased, quality was maintained, with Fixation's beers all collecting gold medals and the brewing company itself winning trophies, including Champion Medium Craft Brewery at the 2017 Craft Beer Awards and the new Consistency In Excellence medal at the 2018 Australian International Beer Awards.

Then, in September 2018, the next stage – and potentially the most exciting – in the Fixation plan was revealed: a brewpub called The Incubator in Collingwood's Smith Street. It's a home for the brewery and also a place for its brewers to experiment on a 600 litre system with ten taps destined to pour all manner of IPAs, from the hazy to the high ABV and from the fruity to the rye.

The brewpub's opening has seen the number of limited releases – both on tap there and appearing in cans, often under the Freshly Hatched banner – increase significantly, at the same time as the brewery's core beers have continued to bring awards success.

In August 2021, Fixation became part of the craft portfolio at Lion/Kirin following the sale of parent company Fermentum to the multinational.

Name
Fixation Brewing Co (Lion/Kirin)
Address

414 Smith Street
Collingwood
VIC 3066

Open Hours

Thurs: 4pm to 10pm
Fri: 2pm to 10pm
Sat: midday to 10pm
Sun: midday to 6pm
Takeaway
2pm to 5pm


This is a directory listing. To find out more, head here

Fixation Brewing Co (Lion/Kirin) Regulars

Fixation Brewing Little Ray Hazy IPA

Published December 13, 2019
When you've got the sort of track record the Fixation team has amassed in the few years since launching, you're always going to approach a new nationwide release with a degree of confidence. If they're going to back one of the beers developed at The Incubator to be scaled up and released in printed cans, they're going to be happy with it. And, quelle surprise, Little Ray is another cracking addition to their canon. He pours with a deep, smooth haze and a steepling, fluffy head – all the better… Read more
Style
Hazy IPA
ABV
5.2%

Fixation Brewing The 86 Hazy IPA

Published September 4, 2018
They're not calling it a New England IPA as such, but one of the beers prepared for the launch of Fixation's brewpub, The Incubator, is a hazy IPA that sits closer to such beers than anything else they've released to date. Taking its name from the iconic tram line that runs past the venue's front door, it eschews the yeast strains typically found in NEIPAs for the ubiquitous and cleaner US-05, instead using plenty of oats and wheat to create the haze, as well as the beer's full and rounded body. It… Read more
Style
Hazy IPA
ABV
6.2%
Bitterness
48 IBU

Fixation Brewing Obsession Session IPA

Published December 6, 2017
The mystery beer referred to in our December 2017 blind tasting write up? That was this, a session-minded addition to the Fixation lineup of IPAs. Slotting in as the little sibling to the brewing company's flagship IPA, Obsession is a session IPA (also referred to on the label as "where extra pale ale meets IPA") and gives Fixation fans a first sub-5 percent ABV beer. Aside from the fact they nailed the name, the beer itself continues the brewing company's mission to focus on hops above… Read more
Style
Session IPA
ABV
4.6%
Stockists

Find it at good independent beer venues and retailers nationwide

Fixation Squish Citrus IPA (can)

Published July 20, 2017
With so much attention focused on the haze craze surrounding New England style IPAs, one could forget another direction in which the increasingly broad IPA category has been heading: the addition of fruit and fruit juice. On a global scale, it's been San Diego's Ballast Point leading the way. Here, a brewing company whose co-owner was first really turned on to the wonders of West Coast IPA by a trip to San Diego back in 2010 (where Green Flash provided the epiphany of epiphanies) has been developing… Read more
Style
Citrus IPA
ABV
5.9%
Stockists

Midway Cellars

Saccharomyces Beer Cafe

And limited amounts of cans landing at other good beer venues

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Fixation Brewing IPA

Published May 3, 2016
Fixation's Tom Delmont was responsible for taking The Crafty Pint's founder to Mountain Goat shortly after he'd moved to Australia in 2008, so can claim at least partial blame for the slippery slope that led to this site. Since that fateful Friday evening, if there's one thing this long friendship has made more than apparent, it's that Tom loves and appreciates good beer more than pretty much anyone on the planet. Especially when it's an IPA. When he was still employed at Mountain Goat before their… Read more
Style
West Coast IPA
ABV
6.4%
Bitterness
64 IBU
Stockists

Available nationwide

Fixation Brewing Easey Street

One of the handful of beers likely to be a permanent pour at The Incubator is Fixation's mid-strength offering, another beer to tip its cap to its Collingwood home in name-checking the street two blocks to the south. And it's Easey by name, easy by nature, clocking in at a driver-friendly 3.7 percent ABV. With Citra and Mosaic at its core, this lightly haze pale ale serves up gentle citrus aromas and a pithy hop bitterness.… Read more
Style
Mid-Strength
ABV
3.7%
Bitterness
28 IBU

Fixation Brewing Co (Lion/Kirin) Specials

Fixation Brewing Freshly Hatched: 24 Hr Mini Golf

Published December 2, 2022
Who doesn't love a spot of mini-golf, that great leveller where a four-year-old seems to have as much chance of nailing a hole-in-one as a seasoned pro. That said, take one look at the cans on this Freshly Hatched release from Fixation and it probably should have gone with the crazy golf moniker. The blazed hop monsters bring to mind some of the golf tournaments I’ve heard about during beer weeks, during which players make their way through a can with each hole with results you can imagine. So,… Read more
Style
Oat Cream DIPA
ABV
8.4%

Fixation Freshly Hatched: Mez Dorado IPA

Published February 22, 2022
Let's be honest: Fixation's first Freshly Hatched offering for 2022 – beers they package in greater volume than most of their limited releases – sounds like a hot mess. It's an El Dorado dry hopped, kettle sour IPA featuring organic agave syrup, orange, lime and $4,000 worth of Del Maguey Mezcal San Luis Del Rio Azul. Well, either a hot mess or an excuse to host a launch party with a Mexican food pop-up and Mariachi band at your brewpub. Hats off, then, to the brewers who knew what they were… Read more
Style
Spiced Kettle Sour IPA
ABV
6.8%
Bitterness
4 IBU

Fixation Brewing Pink Guava & Airing Of Grievances

Published November 22, 2021
The holiday spirit is in the air at Fixation: restrictions are gone, punters are back, there's a new head brewer at the helm, and Christmas is fast approaching. Before we get to the festive beer, however, there's the does-what-it-says-on-the-tin release Pink Guava. The Collingwood crew are still calling it an IPA, but this clear, pink offering sits somewhere between a young, juicy, summery rosĂ© and a glass of Bickford's cordial. The guava purĂ©e also adds a tanginess as well as a sweetness that… Read more
Style
Fruit Beer & Hazy IPA
ABV
5.8% & 6.8%

Fixation Brewing Freshly Hatched: 30666

Published June 4, 2021
Fixation’s Freshly Hatched beers are the brewery’s series of one-off IPAs that are born in their Collingwood home and give the IPA-focused brewery a chance to really get creative. For winter 2021, they’ve gone with a beer that’s a long way from their flagship and a fair way from many IPAs too: a rich Imperial Red IPA. The beastly beer's name of 30666 pays reference to both Collingwood's postcode and the number of the beast, with the beer clocking in at the satanic 9.666 percent ABV. Lurking… Read more
Style
Imperial Red IPA
ABV
9.666%

Fixation Brewing Straight To DVD, Deep Green, Sparkle & Fade & Piece Of Cake

Published November 27, 2020
For IPA lovers, one of the boons of COVID-19 has been Fixation's decision to go from very occasional limited releases in cans to no less than 28 in eight months. The final foursome for the year lands just ahead of summer and covers a few bases too. Straight To DVD is a pretty straight down the line hazy, the sort of beer Sam Bethune has been perfecting over his time at the Incubator: citrusy, tropical, a little sweet, a little bitter, and not around for long in your glass. Deep Green pours a slightly… Read more
Style
Various IPAs
ABV
6.5% & 7.0% & 8.2% &

Fixation Brewing Freshly Hatched #3: Danker Things

Published September 21, 2020
Since the nationwide shutdown in March, it's not as if Fixation have been holding back when it comes to releasing beer in tinnies. Like pretty much everyone else who'd lost much of their traditional means of reaching customers, the need to put as much IPA into package as possible saw a steady stream of 500ml cans leave the Collingwood Incubator. But their Freshly Hatched beers are those they deem worthy of a wider release. And this is number three. Danker Things comes with label artwork by local… Read more
Style
TDH Hazy IPA
ABV
7.0%

Fixation Mighty Boy, 100, Blues For The Red Sun & Social Space

Published August 25, 2020
When they sent samples of their August Incubator quartet, the Fixation team suggested an order in which to try the beers (not that I was planning on taking on all four at once, of course). It's the order they're listed above, but for the purposes of this write-up let's start at the end. Why? Because they've returned to the striking labels that were replaced temporarily by more generic decor with the previous trio and Social Space perhaps captures the moment – at least for a brewery based in the… Read more
Style
Various IPAs
ABV
4.8% & 6.4% & 7.0% & 8.5%

Fixation Brewing You Tell Me, Symbiotic Robotic & Blush

Published August 3, 2020
After gearing up to welcome guests back only to have to shut their doors again, Fixation have moved quickly to put more of their Incubator beers into cans. In the case of You Tell Me, it's a NEIPA and one that could be submitted as evidence they know what they're doing with such things (there's a fresh batch of their regular NEIPA, The 86, out in big cans too, by the way). Deeply hazy and grapefruit juice like in appearance, there's fruit aplenty, with pineapple leading the way, and some lively,… Read more
Style
NEIPA & Black IPA & Sour IPA
ABV
6.8% & 5.4% & 4.7%

Fixation Brewing You're On Mute, Hearing Colours, Oi! & Seismic Wave

Published June 20, 2020
One of the boons for fans of Fixation's IPA obsessions through COVID-19 has been the brewing team's decision to release more beers in 500ml cans. Here they follow up May's quartet with four more, each bearing eye-catching labels from a selection of artists, including Fixation main man Tom Delmont's brother Will. You're On Mute comes with a comic strip design, complete with Donald Trump as a hop flower on mute, and takes the form of a West Coast IPA. It pours with the sort of golden glow that makes… Read more
Style
IPAs
ABV
& 5.2% & 6.7% & 5.8%

Fixation Brewing Fall & Quick Fix

Published May 13, 2020
Completing the quartet of tallboy tinny releases from their Incubator in little more than week – following on from Danker Things and Half Cut – comes another pair of IPAs from Fixation. Fall is the first time they've put one of their spins on the increasingly popular oat cream IPA style into cans. It's not the densest looking pour for such a beer, not overly bitter either, instead centred around smooth, almost vanillin orange and passionfruit creme aromas and fullness of body, with a lemon slice… Read more
Style
Oat Cream IPA & Kveik IPA
ABV
6.3% & 5.9%
Bitterness
15 & 32 IBU

Fixation Brewing Danker Things & Half Cut

Published May 4, 2020
In the space of a few weeks, the team at Fixation's Incubator in Collingwood have gone from wondering what the hell they're going to do with tanks and kegs full of IPA (including some from other brewers sent to their ResinFest just before venues closed) to filling as many growlers in a month as they'd previously done in a year and repackaging a keg run of Little Ray into cans. And now they've decided to speed up their short run can program too, with four 500ml IPAs set to land in little more than… Read more
Style
Hazy IPA & Hazy Mid-Strength
ABV
7.0% & 3.5%

Fixation Brewing Dreamseeker IPA

Published February 19, 2020
On Valentine's Day, the team at Fixation's Incubator brewpub in Collingwood bathed their venue in warm, bright lights. But this was no fuzzy, heart-hued red to mark the romance of the day (although there was hot pink in the mix); instead, walls, tanks 'n' all were turned into psychedelic scapes by Melbourne artist Ruskidd. Why? To herald the arrival of the brewery's second Freshly Hatched tallboy tinnie release, Dreamseeker. The beer inside the eye-catching cans is tagged a "juicy IPA"… Read more
Style
IPA
ABV
7.2%

Fixation Brewing Totally Rad, Don't Brett On It & Paw Paw Pow

Published January 29, 2020
Fixation’s Collingwood home has well and truly been living up to its Incubator name, with head brewer Sam Bethune averaging a new beer every week. So you can’t exactly blame him for contorting his IPAs into all kinds of different shapes. Of the latest trio, let’s start with the lightest and least IPA like of the bunch, *Totally Rad. The 3.2 percent ABV radler started life as a session IPA that was brewed with a mix of mint, thyme and the lemony hops Falconer’s Flight and Citra. The beer… Read more
Style
Radler, Brett IPA, Fruit DIPA
ABV
3.2% & 5.7% & 7.8%
Stockists

The Fixation Incubator

Fixation Recliner & NSR & Hop Tingle & Midnight Sun IPAs

Published August 11, 2019
You turn your back for five minutes and, whaddya know, there's four new IPAs pouring at Fixation's taproom. Working through the foursome in order of palate impact, let's start with Recliner, the brewery's beer for the 2019 Bendigo On The Hop. It's a twist on their Tropical IPA, featuring pineapple and mango additions, with the former leading the way on the nose, the latter coming into play more to taste. It's a combo that works well, creating an easy-going fruity IPA with a smooth body, a little… Read more
Style
IPAs
ABV
5.8% & 5.2% & 6.5% & 6.8%

Fixation Brewing TNT Express

Published April 16, 2019
Originally planned as a beer featuring fresh Enigma hops shipped straight up from Tasmania, TNT Express is less a lesson on working with the fruits of the hop harvest and more a reminder that sometimes it's necessary to brew on the fly... Upon learning the hops were in Melbourne and would be landing at the Collingwood brewery shortly, head brewer Same Bethune started brewing the IPA. Some hours – and five phone calls – later the hops were nowhere to be seen. The team decided instead to use two… Read more
Style
IPA
ABV
6.2%

Fixation Brewing Wet Hop 2019

Published April 16, 2019
Australia’s hop harvest is an important time of year for many brewers across the country yet, when your operation is dedicated to making IPAs, chances are the months of March and April surely carry that extra special shine. That’s been the case for the Fixation team anyway, who headed up to Victoria’s north east to pick up some fresh Galaxy for their first wet hop beer. The trip to Hop Product Australia’s Rostrevor Farm in the High Country saw the brewery bring back 15kg of the fresh hop… Read more
Style
Wet Hop IPA
ABV
6.9%

Fixation & Wizard State Of Mind Hazy IPA

Published April 5, 2019
As seems to be the case with many people at this time of year, there's a cold that refuses to die hanging around Crafty Towers at the minute, meaning beer sampling has been outsourced where possible. Including here, when I arranged to meet Slowbeer founder Chris Menichelli at The Incubator and asked him to offer his thoughts on the Fixation-Wizard collab as I luxuriated in chilled, draught soda water. The result suggests I should hand him the reins full-time as a couple of sniffs, a few sips and… Read more
Style
Hazy IPA

Fixation Brewing Dew Respect & Max Volume IIIPA

Published April 2, 2019
The new beers (well, IPAs) continue to hit the taps at Fixation's Incubator home thick (well, often hazy, at least) and fast, so much so it can be hard to keep tabs. Newcomers for spring 2019 include a melon milkshake IPA and the brewery's biggest beer to date, an 11 percent-plus triple IPA. The first of those is the punsome Dew Respect, brewed with new German hop variety Huell Melon, lactose, juiced honeydew and rockmelon, and Lallemand's New England yeast strain. While it might sound like a recipe… Read more
Style
Milkshake IPA & Triple IPA
ABV
7.0% & 11.2%

Fixation Brewing Tropical IPA

Published September 4, 2018
Every now and then, Aussie brewers deliver an IPA that we're pretty sure any beer loving expat from the UK of a certain age puts to their nose and finds their brain going: "Um Bongo, Um Bongo, they drink it in the Congo." To that list can be added the Tropical IPA from Fixation. It should come as little surprise, given the base beer was loaded up with mango, passionfruit and lime post-fermentation. With Enigma, Galaxy and Citra hops in the mix too, this is an IPA that was only ever going… Read more
Style
Tropical IPA
ABV
5.9%
Bitterness
44 IBU

Fixation Brewing Rye IPA

Published September 4, 2018
If you've reached this beer after working your way through some of the paler, lower ABV and more hop forward beers lining The Incubator taps, you could be forgiven for thinking they'd forgotten to add some of the hops to the Rye IPA. With plenty of rye and a fair bit of caramel malt in the mix, your hop-battered olfactory system is likely to be drawn to its rich and smooth caramel and toffee side. But, given time (for the beer to warm a little as well as your senses to recalibrate), the classic US… Read more
Style
Rye IPA
ABV
7.5%

Fixation Brewing The Fix (Bottles)

Published May 5, 2017
It was while hosting a hop masterclass featuring various brewers, hop growers and sellers that we heard a panellist get straight to the point as to why American style IPAs have become so popular – and continue to grow in popularity. It's a pretty simple theory and one with which it's hard to argue: when done well and consumed fresh they're great beers that deliver a huge amount of drinking pleasure. Sure, we get loads of good beers of all shapes and sizes coming through Crafty Towers but (in part… Read more
Style
Double IPA
ABV
8.2%
Bitterness
70-plus IBU
Stockists

And other good beer outlets in SA, VIC, NSW & QLD

Fixation SQUISH Citrus IPA

Published March 8, 2017
With its flagship IPA impressing beer judges and voters in the Hottest 100 Aussie Craft Beers in equal measure and a couple of batches of The Fix double IPA under the young brewing company's belt, where would IPA-only Fixation turn next? A session IPA? A different shade of IPA? Nope, they started playing around with fruit. In recent weeks, a smorgasbord of different fruit additions have been trialled by the brewing team and, for their first citrus IPA, SQUISH, it's white grapefruit and blood orange… Read more
Style
Citrus IPA
ABV
5.9%
Bitterness
50 IBU
Stockists

Crowbar, Brisbane, for Fixation's Brewsvegas event

Fixation Brewing The Fix

Published May 17, 2016
When this new venture between Stone & Wood and former Mountain Goat rep Tom Delmont launched last year, it was with the aim of brewing nothing but IPAs. So, having already built a reputation on the back of their flagship IPA, they're sticking to their word and following up with this double IPA. It's only going to be an occasional release and for this and the second release they're only brewing pilot size batches. Which means that, taking into account the tank samples staff at the Byron Bay brewery… Read more
Style
Double IPA
ABV
8.2%
Bitterness
80-plus IBU
Stockists

Up in Smoke

Old Bar

Bangalow Hotel

Mill on Constance

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