Episode 004: Tom Delmont

August 15, 2024, by James Smith

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Episode 004: Tom Delmont

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Selling Beer & Building Brands featuring Tom Delmont


Two weeks on from featuring a couple of the big winners from this year's Indies on the site and podcast just days before they took to the stage to collect their trophies, we found ourselves in the middle of breaking news once again this week.

Our guest is Tom Delmont, who many in the local beer industry – especially in Melbourne – will know very well. He was Mountain Goat's first sales rep, forcing his way into the role then helping put their beers into pubs and bottleshops all over the city and further afield before leaving when the brewery was sold to Asahi. He subsequently went on to create Fixation in partnership with the founders of Stone & Wood, helping fire the rise of IPA in Australia and picking up some major awards over the years. 

He'd featured prominently in discussions around which early guests we'd like to invite onto the show. In part, this was because he's such a great communicator and has a wealth of insights to share on the industry as a whole, as well as specifically on how to sell beer and build brands. And it was also due to his long relationship with The Crafty Pint: Tom and wife Kate were the first people to introduce the site's founder to craft beer in Australia one Friday night at Mountain Goat back in 2008.

When we heard he was leaving Fixation a few weeks ago, that cemented our desire to bring him in early, making him the first guest to join us for the entire show, including our discussion of the week's news. This week we focused on festivals (on the back of Blobfish), the sale of the Lord Nelson, and the closure of Burnley's taproom.

Then, just hours after the interview had wrapped up, first Tom and later the Crafty team were informed that the Incubator – Fixation's brewpub in Collingwood – is to close. The seven-year lease is up soon and Lion has taken the decision not to renew, which means it will cease operating in the coming weeks.

They hadn't planned to announce the closure at this stage as they're still working through finding new roles for Incubator staff within the wider business, but heard Tom was on this week's show so gave us a heads-up. The Fixation brand and beers are to continue, but the brewpub will soon be another casualty of the current economic downturn.

The news doesn't impact the chat with Tom, however, which covers his career in beer from his pre-Goat days as an entomologist through to today, when he's working with carbon accounting platform Zevero. We talk about how to sell craft beer and maintain taps, independence, the importance of collaborations in reaching new audiences, being beermiscuous, dad craft, music and beer and much more besides.

As anyone who has met Tom will know, he's a fantastic storyteller and here draws upon two decades as a well-travelled member of the beer industry who, above all else, genuinely loves good beer more than pretty much anyone you'll ever meet.

You can find the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube. Since last week, with a few episodes under our belt, we've also created a dedicated section for The Crafty Pint Podcast on the site, as well as on the homepage.

NB: Around 47 minutes in, you might pick up a slight buzzing sound coming and going. We're not sure what's caused this given we didn't pause or restart the recording before that point, but we'll attempt to find out what caused it before the next show...

Cheers!



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