“Live Everyday Like It’s Friday.”
That’s the Fox Friday promise and they’ve certainly lived up to it for craft beer drinkers across the country. Having launched in Tasmania, the brewery has since taken off across the mainland, with their tall tins – that are often heavily loaded with hops – appearing in bottleshops and bars far and wide.
Since the end of 2023, they’ve also been welcoming people inside their impressive brewery and taproom in Melbourne – while another in Perth is set to open in 2024.
Visiting the Richmond brewery and taproom is as grand an experience as enjoying one of their lush double IPAs, with the space both welcoming and built to encourage exploration. Located close to some of the city's craft beer pioneers in Mountain Goat and The Royston, Fox Friday’s Melbourne home is a modern taproom that’s a welcome addition to the inner city.
Indeed, with space for more than 200 people, the venue is a craft beer haven and has helped boost Richmond as a suburb that no beer lover should ever miss.
Like their home in Hobart, the old warehouse has been transformed into a social space where high ceilings and large windows drench the good beer haunt with natural light. While it's a working brewery and former warehouse, there’s much to the venue that makes it as comforting as a classic Melbourne pub. Cosy booths, warm lighting and wooden furnishing all create a stylish and timeless feel, as does the fireplace that brings people together during the city’s coldest moments.
Although timeless, what’s incredibly contemporary is the lineup of beers that pour from a dozen taps: a mix of Fox Friday’s core range and ever-developing range of limiteds. Those beers are made on a 15-hectolitre brewhouse identical to their Hobart production system, which ensures ever-fresh, creative and consistent beers flow freely in Richmond.
Walk in and you can instantly feel how the venue was designed to create a sense of community, with large wooden tables allowing family and friends to enjoy a beer together and bar seats offering the perfect vantage point for solo drinkers to feel at home.
Likewise, the menu centres around sharing, with the open kitchen fuelled by favourites from America’s south, including cajun shrimp skewers, pork belly burnt ends, smoked cheeseburgers, and whole (or half) smoked chicken and cauliflower.
Wander upstairs and you’ll find further seats and spaces in which to drink, with a second bar pouring more of the brewery’s lineup and playing host to functions.
Given Fox Friday’s commitment to uniting people over beer, and how carefully they’ve crafted a space to allow that to happen, any time spent inside the Richmond brewery certainly feels like a damn fine Friday.
Will Ziebell
