On today’s episode, we’re joined by Bellerophon Cold Brew as we continue our Australian Cold Brew Series. Owner Alex Leech has joined us on the podcast once before back on episode 48. Today, we talk with Alex about how to approach bars and restaurants about carrying your cold brew product (whether that be bottled or on draft). We get into discussions of cold brew tea and how a cold brew company can explore the world of tea as well. We also talk briefly about structuring a cold brew business.
Highlights & Takeaways
How to go about getting your cold brew into bars and restaurants
Cold Brew Martini – “Cold Brewtini” will combat the espresso martini – entirely pre-mixed in a keg
Kegged cocktails – pour a complete cocktail in zero time when compared with a typical mixed drink
When pitching your cold brew, start with people you know first
Cold brew tea can be a very profitable offering
Launching a fitness cold brew w/ MCT oils
Purging headspace with nitrogen can really help stabalize the taste/flavor of cold brew
What we mentioned on during this show
Episode 65 Transcript
[music]
Brendan Hanson: Hey there, you are listening to the Drips & Draughts Podcast. As always I am Brendan Hanson and I will be your host today. Welcome back to part three of our Australian Cold Brew series. Well, today we will be joined by Alex Leech from Bellerophon Cold Brew. Alex actually joined us back on episode 48, so if you are interested in checking out on that episode you can do that by going to dripsanddraughts.com/48.
If you have not yet listened to the other episodes from our Australian Cold Brew Series, make sure you go back and check those out. Back in episode 61, we were joined by Filament Coffee out of Perth. Episode 63 we were joined by Dustin Bailey from Rushmore Coffee. Today episode 65, we are joined by Bellerophon Cold Brew and for part four we will be joined by Mr. Bean Cold Brew.
Who holds a place in my heart right now, because they just sent us four bottles of cold brew all the way from Australia. That would be episode 67, and we are looking to get one final cold brew company from Australia and so if you got any ideas let us know.
As you listen to today’s episode, if you notice any audio problems, Alex and I had a bit of a hard time getting our audio linked up, but I think it finally happened. I haven’t gone back and listened to the episode yet, so hoping it will all work out. If there are any audio problems that’s why. We just had a problem connecting and speaking of audio, we actually just got a review on iTunes. A five-star review from juangui28.
Anyways, the title is Great Content Great Quality. The review says, “Love the podcast, it has been a great source of information while kick-starting my business. As an audio guy, the audio quality is great.” Juan, thank you for the review. We appreciate it and best of luck starting up that business.
As always if you get any value from this podcast do what Juan did, hop on iTunes and leave us a quick rating and review. It does not have be long, it does not cause you a thing, spread the love, leave us a rating, leave a review. All right, that is going do it for this intro. Let’s get into today’s episode with Alex Leech from Bellerophon Cold Brew.
[music]
Automated voice: Thanks to our sponsor Cold Brew Avenue, the first stainless steel cold brew system that has reinvented how you cold brew. Easily brew up to 50 gallons using their 100% re-usable stainless steel filter system. Visit them at coldbrewavenue.com to learn more.
[music]
Brendan: All right, welcome back. You are listening to the Drips & Draughts Podcast. As always I am Brendan Hanson and today I am joined by Alex Leech from Bellerophon Cold
Brew in Australia. How are you dong Alex?
Alex Leech: Good, man. How are you?
Brendan: Good. I feel like we have done this once or twice today.
[laughter]
Alex: Good old technology?
Brendan: Yes. Like I said earlier, it’s one out of two times this work is right at– every other time it is fun and it is a process. Alex, you joined us back on episode 48, where we talked about cold brew filtration among other things. Yes, if you looking to listen to Alex’s first episode you could find that at dripsanddraughts.com/48. Today Alex, we are talking about how to get cold brew into restaurants and bars who might already have a draught system.
How you might sell people on getting that into their space. Then we’ve got a couple of other things we are going to discuss. Before we get into that, would you mind giving a quick background on yourself? How you got into cold brew and maybe a little bit about your company for people who haven’t listened to the first episode.
Alex: Yes. Back in early 2015 I wanted to brew some really good coffee at home, but I didn’t really want to invest in expensive espresso equipment or anything like that. I also wanted to be as true to the commodity as possible of coffee. I looked in the simplest and easy way to do that and that turned out to be cold brew.
Brendan: Yes. Cold brew is– gosh, I love it. [laughs] That is all I can say.
Alex: It’s so, so effective in delivering what you are trying to get out of coffee. I think so.
Brendan: Yes. Absolutely. On our last episode, Cary and I drank one-year-old cold brew that we had been saving here. Prior to that, we actually answered a question that we had recently gotten from somebody about how to proposition yourself. How to get cold brew into bars and restaurants who might already have draught system or they are serving beer.
You know a lot of these bars and restaurants are probably hesitant because they know that they are going to be making money by selling that beer. How did you or how would you approach bars and/or restaurants about putting cold brew on draught?
Alex: Yes. I think it’d be [unintelligible 00:06:00] to think that a licenced establishment would serve a non-alcoholic beverage on one of their tap systems, just because of the markups that they can achieve from liquor or beer. I think when you’re pitching to a licenced venue you have to pitch the cold brew as a base to a cocktail where they can get that 2-300% markup.
Brendan: Sure. You go in and you actually suggest recipes or suggest cocktails. We’ve got the cold brew martini mentioned here, would you mind telling us a little bit about that?
Alex: Yes. My cold brew martini is a staple that I go to. Most people love an espresso martini and the cold brew martini or cold brew-tini is just a bit of a twist on that. I use that and I mix it up into little 100ml throwdowns, instead of 2-3 ounces bottles and I provide those to establishments as a tasters. Then just to see what is possible in the realm of coffee base cocktails and then also provide them with just base cold brew for them to experiment with.
Brendan: Nice. Anytime you make a sales call to a new restaurant or new potential client, you will actually leave them a couple of bottles of cold brew?
Alex: Yes, I will leave them both mixed up liquor and also just a base for them to go creative and try something unique and see what is going to work with their customer base.
Brendan: Right on. Well, I know you have already done this with me, but I think we have lost that recording. Would you mind going through that cold brew martini recipe real quick again, just for anybody who is curious and might want to try this at home.
Alex: Yes. Just mix one and a half ounces of cold brew, with a not so ready to drink cold brew [unintelligible 00:07:55] concentrate, with an ounce of vodka, third of an ounce of any coffee liqueur, then about half of that six of an ounce of sugar syrup or liqueur 43. Which is this Spanish based coffee, vanilla herb liqueur. It is pretty tasty.
Brendan: Right on. I know the first time we got cut off you were talking about serving this on nitro and my question was are you mixing the entire drink in a keg and serving the entire drink on nitro or you are just servicing the cold brew on nitro and then post mixing?
Alex: Yes. One of the great benefits of serving cocktails on top is the time, you can just essentially pitch the value proposition of zero time when compared to actually physically mixing and making a cocktail. I mix everything together in the keg and when I am serving on keg I do tend to add 10-20% more coffee just to make up for that dilution right that you get with the shake or a stir in a cocktail shaker or glass.
Other than that, you just mix– chuck everything in together, just make a big very expensive batch of cold brew and cocktail. Then essentially serve that directly on nitro.
Brendan: That is so cool. I think that’s awesome and they still go into martini glasses?
Alex: Yes. The one place I’ve got a in at the moment which I launched about two weeks ago. They are serving it directly into a set of prohibition style martini glass with the curved sides.
Brendan: Man that is great.
Alex: Yes. It’s really cool and they are up because it’s so low cost, there is no time involved in it. They are serving that with hot Spanish churros and a glass of the cold brew martini for like 15 bucks, so good times all round.
Brendan: Yes. No kidding. While we were cut out from our first try at our recording, you mentioned some whiskey stuff and you’re about to go make some whiskey cold brew cocktails. Mind sharing any ideas there because as I told you, Cary and I are scotch and whiskey guys. I think whiskey has a lot of potential for making cold brew cocktails.
Alex: Yes. There is a whiskey one that I have really been liking lately with a rye and some Maraschino which is a cherry liqueur. You just mix equal parts Maraschino cherry liqueur and if you want to make it a bit more old-fashioned Manhattan style, you can add some Vermouth in there. There’s this cherried bit, it’s called [unintelligible 00:10:57] and you just put a bit of dash in there and just stir and pour basically. You can serve that with a sprig of thyme and some lemon zest. It’s pretty boozy, but really delicious.
Brendan: Yes, sounds good. This is something that we haven’t explored too much, but I think coming up here soon Cary and I are going to be doing some quite a few cold brew cocktails.
Alex: Yes, don’t get your taps mixed up when you’re pouring it during the middle of the day.
Brendan: [laughs] Do you think there’s– ? You guys have Red Bull down in Australia obviously?
Alex: Yes, we do.
Brendan: Obviously that RedBull, they hit the scene real hard with the Red Bull vodka and that whole mix. Do you think there’s a potential for Cold Brew to replace Red Bull in that kind of bar, nightlife scene?
Alex: Look, I think–
Brendan: Totally off topic question. [laughs]
Alex: Yes. No, I think that’s an interesting concept. I don’t know whether we’ll see the proliferation of a drink like that. I don’t think cold brew is there yet, but I think there’s certainly possibilities for that. I think it’s about how the market treats cold brew cocktails and really, that’s going to be the tester. I mean it’s just another mixer– cold brew. If we pitch it right and we go forward as an industry and pitch it into the right locations.
We might do, but it’s really– when you look at it, it’s quite an expensive commodity– cold brew. It’s not really in that cheap range like you see Red Bull when you talk about the actual cost of the product, so it’ll be interesting. I’m not sure yet.
Brendan: Okay. Yes, it’s definitely interesting. I compare it to Red Bull just in the fact that it’s a caffeinated product, but it’s so much more healthy for you obviously. I think there’s a lot of room there, but obviously, time will tell if it catches on and takes off.
Alex: Yes, the market will tell us what they want, I guess.
Brendan: Exactly. Kind of related, going back to what we talked about previously, trying to get your cold brew into bars and restaurants. Any particular sales techniques that you could suggest being that you’re out there on the front lines trying to get your cold brew into places? This is something that we get asked and obviously, we’re making cold brew equipment.
We sell draught equipment, but any tips or pointers to people who are trying to get their cold brew into a local bar, local restaurant, pub?
Alex: Yes. I would definitely suggest going to the people you know first, that provides a relatively safe environment for testing and provides you a little bit more leeway in case there are any setbacks. I’d say, definitely split the approach and wait till you get a case study essentially and a proven concept with one establishment. Then using that one establishment, you can then build your base out from there.
It’s really about pitching this idea to a market that’s going to lap it up and really embrace it, so maybe going to your local pub isn’t potentially the best location for it. Maybe you want to try a higher-end cocktail bar where they are going to not only pay the money for a drink like this, but they are also going to be interested in it and the bartenders are going to really sell it and pitch it to their clientele.
I think in a standard commercial bar or pub, I don’t think that they have the time to really sell the drink the way you might like it, so moving into that more cocktail bar scene it’s possibly the best way to go.
Brendan: Yes, I’d agree. Then gosh, I think that time savings that you mentioned by pre-mixing a martini in a keg or if it’s some whiskey drink or whatever it might be, if you can tell somebody, “Hey, you can pre-mix this. Five gallons at a time or however much you want to do at a time. Put it in and just put it on draught.” Gosh, the time savings that I think places could realize by doing that, would be just astronomical over the course of a week or even over the course of a night.
Alex: Yes, oh huge like the numbers that we’re getting back now. We’re seeing 10 to 15 martinis being served on tap a night and then you multiply that by let’s say, a really experienced bartender. Three to five minutes, but then if they are pouring the espresso shot as well, that’s another three to five minutes. By the time a ticket comes onto the rail, you’re already talking 10 minutes by the time the drink’s made.
Then it’s got to be given to a server to take out to the table versus the ticket comes on the rail, pick up a glass out of the fridge, pour it on tap, 30 seconds later it’s on the serving station ready to be taken out. Each drink you’re saving in the regions of eight to 10 minutes and from there you multiply that out and the numbers get really quite ridiculous.
Brendan: Yes, I have got to imagine. That’s actually just quick tangent, that’s one of the comments that we get from a lot of people is, people come to us to buy a nitro coffee kegerator they want to sell and serve nitro coffee. We typically try to sell them a kegerator that’s got two faucets, one nitro and one flat. We’ll get a call back from nine out of 10 of our clients saying, “I’m so glad I go this one because now I’m doing my mixed drinks like my coffee over ice and these other stuff and it takes me a third of the time.”
Alex: Yes, I think people underestimate just getting a bottle that’s in the fridge, pulling it out, cracking the lid, measuring it and then–
Brendan: Yes, there’s steps involved there.
Alex: Yes, it’s all time and 20-30 seconds, each time you do that definitely adds up.
Brendan: Sure. Yes and especially if you’ve got a busy place where coffee shop with a line out the door or whatever it might be. If you’re able to keep that line moving and keep people in and out, you’re potentially serving more customers there.
Alex: Yes. Well, I think even coffee examplars– although the Starbucks cold brew isn’t amazing, I think they are doing the right thing there in terms of demand. They are doing that self-serve in some cases too, so I can’t see that being a negative thing. I think that they are on the right track there.
Brendan: Yes, absolutely. All right, moving on a little bit. You mentioned you’re restructuring your business to protect some IP, you mind sharing what that might be about? Should that just be a teaser? Should we go on to cold brew tea for a little minute?
Alex: Yes, we can talk about the IP. I think you’ve really got to stick to what you know and for me what I know is cold brew. Over the last 18 months or so I’ve got to know that beverage quite intimately and I think to expand, you really need to use partnerships. I was concerned with the way a sole tradership was structured, which is what I am now and I was concerned with the exposure that that provided to potential business partners.
Also the liability as an individual that that risk posed as well, so what I did was I restructured to a company with trusts and I did this for a few reasons, the first was expansion. I can see this growing into a full-time business, right now I do this on the side. I think it’s far easier to expand now while it’s quite than it would be when it’s 100% necessary just because you’ve got so much going on as a business owner.
I don’t think that having to go through a corporate restructure while you’re expanding and growing rapidly– it’ll be so difficult.
Brendan: Sure.
Alex : The second was tax benefits and the wealth distribution options that a company with trusts provides. My wife, I can distribute income to her for tax benefits and potential kids later down the track. You can also distribute wealth to them even though they are underage, so that’s also pretty good in Australia. It also removes most of my personal liability.
Although with the food business in Australia the individual is still liable for any litigation on food safety based claims, but other than that you’re pretty much safe in terms of bankruptcy and that stuff. That was the main benefits. The other benefit is it provides a really low-risk option for working with business partners. What essentially happens is the contracted relationship that occurs is usually between the business itself and the partnership business.
What I do is– all the IP for the business which is brew methods, filtration methods, delivery, storage, essentially my whole business construct is owned by the trust and then leased by the trust to the business itself. There’s a layer of protection there between the partnerships.
Brendan: Interesting. Very interesting. I’m going to have to look up the Australian corporation model and compare that to how it is in the US and see where the similarities are because I’m sure I’m going to get questions about this after this podcast there. I don’t know.
Alex: Yes, I think it’s fairly similar. I think there’s some different rules with the food safety components, but it’s almost identical I think. I did a little bit of research on it.
Brendan: Okay. Well, cool. That seems like a very smart move especially if you– You mentioned that you’re talking about moving into doing this full time potentially. Yes, I would fully agree with you as a small business owner myself. Do it before you’re just running around with too many skewers in the fire.
Alex: Yes. It’s hard too, to justify. For me it was the decision between getting a professional website made with a proper store and a cart and restructuring the business. It took the best part of $5,000 to do that. Which was essentially all the cold brew capital that I had from the last 18 months, so I just went all in and did it. Instead of waiting and getting a e-store up and that sort of thing. I took a bit of a risk and gamble on that side, so it can be hard to justify I think.
Brendan: Yes, definitely it could be hard to justify for startups,. If it’s something you see yourself pursuing pretty adamantly then I think that’s probably the right choice for obviously, you and anybody else who’s in the same position.
Alex: Yes. Most people who are doing cold brew pretty well infatuated with it, so it makes sense.
Brendan: Yes. I’ll tell you what, most probably 99 out of a hundred people I talk to who make cold brew tell me that theirs is the best and they’ve never had anything so good, so I would have to agree.
[laughter]
Alex: It’s good they got faith in their product.
Brendan: Yes, and that’s one of the probably key points to selling [unintelligible 00:23:03] places is– If you’re passionate about it and you love it, then I think it’s easy to make other people see that and love it as well.
Alex : Yes. That leads to a really good point with the marketing and go on with cold brew coffee cocktails, I think it’s so new that you can really pitch it as a– Even if they’re not like the other value proposition points about the time and keeping that nice margin, you’ve always got the marketing angle which is like, “This is new. It’s interesting. It’s very unique” The customer is essentially saving money.
Instead of buying a $20 espresso martini, they’re buying a $10 or $15 martini in the end. They’re getting essentially the same thing, but they’re saving money.
Brendan: Sure. Yes, I think there’s a lot of positive selling points for cold brew especially in mixing it into cocktails.
Alex: Agreed.
Brendan: All right. Well, our last bullet point I have here is cold brew tea. Cary and I, we brewed a batch of– I think it was a passion fruit black tea, about a year ago now and we both loved it. It was awesome. What are your experiences with cold brew tea so far?
Alex: The first experience I had was through my wife. She’s been brewing tea for a few years now, cold brewing tea that is. It never really– I never really link the two before, but I noticed while I was at the Farmers Market that there were heaps of potential customers who were drawn to the stand by the taps and the coffee concept, but weren’t actually coffee drinkers or usually only drank decaf.
I really felt like I was missing out on a sector of the market. I remembered you mentioned very early on in the episodes of Drips and Draughts that there was a cold brew tea option and I never really– It never clicked at all and then I asked my wife and I said, “What do you think?” She’s like, “Yes, I could definitely do that.” I had a spare tap on the stand and then we started playing around with some recipes.
We had to do some technical things to the regulator, we added a second splitter to the still regulator– the sides so I could run a 60 Psi and a 20 Psi. Then I split the 20 Psi regulator side so I could run an additional line to a keg. Yes, we ran with straight nitrogen and we came out with a cold brewed white tea with mint and lemon.
Brendan: Sounds refreshing.
Alex: Yes, super refreshing. Really light in flavor and really clean and crisp as well. We grew mint in our garden and we get pretty cheap lemons from the markets because we are a store-holder as well, so we get a bit of a trade there. Yes, it worked out really well and it turned out to be a very profitable component to the sales offering because the tea is so cheap. You only have to use a little bit for the ratio that we were using.
I think the keg ended up costing us like a party keg, nine and a half liter. Party keg, I think ended up costing us about 20 or 30 bucks to make. If you sold every glass in that keg you were going to clear over 250 bucks there. It worked out to be a really really profitable offering.
Brendan: Yes, no kidding. I think that was one of the things that shocked me the most is when we cold brewed tea, I think we did a batch to yield 10 gallons total. Two of our corny kegs here and the amount of tea we put in– I want to say it was like 12 ounces of tea. Whereas, if we were doing coffee, we’re going to be using nine to 11 pounds maybe.
Alex: Yes. [laughs]
Brendan: It was just– It was remarkable.
Alex: Yes, so we went and got the best green tea we could find which is– It was like $400 a kilo or something ridiculous. We were still into using that one ounce per gallon and it was just– It was unbelievable.
Brendan: Yes, it’s incredible the ratio. Especially when you’re used to doing coffee.
Alex: Yes. It’s not even comparable. It’s such a cheaper commodity as well.
Brendan: Yes, it really is. You said you did that as a still tea?
Alex: Yes. We did run a still tea. The experimentation, I did with nitro and that particular blend didn’t work that well because it was so light and refreshing. Having that creaminess on nitro with a green or white tea just didn’t blend well with the palette. I’m experimenting now though with a nitro tea using a berry based black tea and I’m doing that two and a half, three times stronger than the green tea.
I’ll probably will end up putting some sweetener in that to bring out the flavor a bit because it is completely over brewed and it comes out a little bit bitter. I think I’ll run that, but it does need to be much stronger for the nitrogen pull because it meets those where this–
Brendan: Yes. I’d agree that mint tea– that lemon mint tea might be good with carbonation if you did a sparkling tea.
Alex: Yes. I did think about that and I’ve been exploring those options with probably a beer gas, but–
Brendan: So it’s not too heavy?
Alex: Simplicity– Yes, simplicity wise though, I already had the Nitrogen keg and I just couldn’t– I actually couldn’t get bothered.
Brendan: Sure
Alex: Renting another Carbon Dioxide keg or a beer gas keg and getting them confused in the– All my regulators have Nitrogen adapters on them and it was just a little– it was just all that. It was a little too hot. [laughs]
Brendan: Yes. More tanks, more hoses.
Alex: Yes, basically.
Brendan: Got it. Any thoughts or recommendations on cold brewing the tea or is that your wife’s domain? Just in terms of steeping times or temperatures or any of that.
Alex: Yes. I took the same approach as I did to coffee. For those of you, I guess you don’t know I brew all my cold brew cold. Close to– in the 30, high 30s, early 40s in terms of temperature Fahrenheit.
I had to bring the tea back a little bit because I was finding it was over brewing a little bit with a full 24 hour brew which is my cold brew coffee brew time. I brought it back to 18 hours and that created that really a light and refreshing with a lot of inherent sweetness from the mint as well. Which definitely came out quite prominently in the brew in it’s final product.
Brendan: Good. Well, man it sounds good. I need to get down to Australia and try this sometime.
Alex: Yes, man. You could do a–
Brendan: We should get some closeup.
Alex: -A [unintelligible 00:30:28] on the road tour.
Brendan: [laughs] Well. I think this is a good point to end, but before we do, this is going to be part of a Australian cold brew series. You mind just giving us you thoughts on where you see cold brew in Australia? Where it is now versus where it was when you started? You see any changes?
Alex: Yes, I think we– Did we record that episode back in January or something like that?
Brendan: Yes, I think we recorded in January and then it didn’t air until March.
Alex: I was right in the middle of the summer and it was hard to assess the market because it does get quite hot here in the 80s– high 80s all the way up to 100s during summer. It’s hard to assess.
Brendan: [unintelligible 00:31:22] This will be an Australian series here.[laughs]
Alex: Okay, we do get the high 30s some days in Celsius. It’s hard to assess because cold brew sells itself in those temperatures. I was doing pretty stupid numbers at the markets in four hours in the higher 40-50 letter-mark, so it’s a lot of cold brew going out the door in four-five hours.
Brendan: Amazing.
Alex: I think it’s going to be big. We’re seeing that follow on from the craft brew industry. The Australian market in craft beer is moving towards IPAs. Then from what I’ve assessed from the US market, following that IPA trend that opens up a lot of other options for other craft beverages because people are starting to explore more. I’ve definitely seen a less of a downtime this winter than I did last winter which is very positive. Means people are consuming–
Brendan: Yes, that’s good news.
Alex: Yes, consuming more cold brew later on into the season. We just hope that it gets to the New York standard where it’s in the lower single digits and people are still running outdoor with cold brew. That would be really nice.
Brendan: [laughs] Awesome. You see a definite upswing in the cold brew market and where that’s going at least within Australia?
Alex: Yes, yes. It’s becoming more prolific in cafes and even restaurants. I say we are definitely not in that third wave that you see in the States now of cold brew coffee where we are still– we are probably about halfway through that first wave where people are starting to understand it. They’re starting to get hooked on it and they’re starting to buy it all year round.
We’re very early on, but I think there’s going to be big things happening for all the cold brews down here. They just need to pitch themselves right and keep themselves on top of where the market is and we’ll all be in a good state.
Brendan: Right on. Talking about the waves of coffee real quick, do you find yourself doing a lot of education on cold brew and coffee?
Alex: Yes. That’s the main reason why I started at the Farmers Market, was that direct interaction. People in coffee shops don’t have time to sell your product and really give consumers the story. That’s one of the reasons I started the markets was to be able to spend three-five minutes with a customer and really tell them the story of cold brew and get them into it.
Get them hooked and really get them thinking about how they can consume coffee in a variety of different ways. That’s definitely helped I think. I’ve got a really nice repeat customer base. It’s really weird like every week there’s someone new who’s going, “Oh, what’s this cold brew thing? I don’t understand it. Can you tell me a little bit about it?” That’s always really nice.
That will continue to occur until the end of time. It’s definitely raising the profile of how coffee can be consumed and the ease in which it can be consumed as well. We see a lot more people brewing cold brew at home now and just buying beans off me for example. After I’ve given them a recipe to try at home which is great as well.
Brendan: Yes definitely.
[music]
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[music]
Brendan: Cool, Alex. gosh, anything else you want to mention before we wrap this up here?
Alex: I’ve got my canning happening soon which will be cool. I’ve got a outsource supplier who’s recently got one of the nitrogen doses brought into the country, so that will be really good. I’m planning to use those eight and a half ounce cans– the airplane cans. I don’t know if you get them over there for nitro and still. Then I’ll be moving on to teas which is cool.
Alex: Awesome. Nice.
Brendan: Yes, so I want to can all three. I’ve got a national distribution channel already. I just need a– obviously, got a product that’s got a ninety, hundred day shelf stable life in it to push into that market.
Brendan: Awesome, man. Well, that’s cool. Once you get some sample cans I’m going to send you a shipping label, so you can send us some.
Alex: Yes, that sound really good. We can share one over the next podcast if we get to.
Brendan: Absolutely.
Alex: We are also launching– I remember a few episodes ago you did a chat about MCT oil and butter coffee. A friend of mine who owns a nutrition supplement company pitched it to me and I said, “Yep let’s go in.” We’re– there are some labels at the printer now and we’re going to be launching a cold brew coffee with MCT oil for the fitness industry in Canberra, so we’ll see how that goes.
Brendan: Wow, that’s awesome. Well, cool man. Sounds like you’re keeping real busy.
Alex: Yes. It’s been good. Like if there’s a downturn– happens in the cold brew sales, you get a bit more time to work on some R&D stuff and that’s been pretty fun. I mentioned I heard you talk about last week the purging of nitrogen headspace?
Brendan: Yes.
Alex: It certainly does stabilize cold brew, I’ve done some pretty significant testing in that space. Doesn’t really– Nothing really happens within the first two weeks when comparing the purged headspace versus non-purged. After that first two weeks is really when you start to see the benefits of nitrogen. I think the non-nitrogen purged headspace cold brew tends to degrade very quickly.
Once with the nitrogen stuff, it tends to stay a lot more stable for the next two or three weeks after that, so that might be something for people to start thinking about as well.
Brendan: Very interesting because this thing starts with probably five ounces of oxygenated headspace for the course of the year. It did not taste good when we tried it. We’re going to do some more experimentation with that for sure.
Alex: Yes, I think that’s definitely the way to go. I think even with the still can they even purge the headspace, just not a high dose of liquid nitrogen. They use quite a load of that stuff, don’t they?
Brendan: Yes, basically just trying to remove any oxygen to prevent that oxidation.
Alex: It’ll be a fun journey for me because this company hasn’t done nitrogen canning before. They said they–
Brendan: You’re the guinea pig.
Alex: Yes. I should expect to lose a couple hundred liters. That’s not fun, but [laughs] we’ll work through it.
Brendan: Drink it fast.
Alex: Exactly.
Brendan: Just tuck some away for testing two weeks out, four weeks out, two months out.
Alex: How much cold brew can you drink in a day?
Brendan: [laughs] Exactly. I’ve done too much, but that’s a whole other story.
Alex: Me too.
[laughter]
Alex: You seeing sounds?
Brendan: Exactly.
[laughter]
Brendan: All right, Alex. We’ll– If anyone wants to go and find you online either on your website or social media where could they go to do that?
Alex: It’s just a bellerophoncoldbrew.co.au. Through that web link, you can also see the Instagram and Facebook handles. Just bellerophon cold brew– yes, that’s where I’m at.
Brendan: Good stuff, man. Hopefully, we’ll send some people your way. All you US people if you’re ever visiting Australia look up bellerophon cold brew when you’re down there.
Alex: That will be good man. All those recipes are on the website too if people wanted to check those out.
Brendan: Oh perfect. Good stuff man. I appreciate you carving out some time for us again. We will definitely get you links to this once it’s up. Gosh, best of luck as you move through your winter and back into summer. Really appreciate it, Alex.
Alex: Thanks, Man. Thanks, [unintelligible 00:40:40]
Brendan: All right, take care. [music]
Automated voice: If you’re looking to learn more about cold brew or draught coffee, make sure you check out Keg Outlet’s Ultimate Guide to Cold Brew Coffee and Serving Coffee on Draught. Hey, don’t just take my word for it, here’s Daniel Browning from the Browning Beverage Company in Marfa, Texas.
Daniel Browning: I got on the internet and started looking around and I found Keg Outlet’s Ultimate Guide to Cold Brew Coffee and read it a couple more times than I’ve read anything in my life. That was pretty much all the research I needed.
Automated voice: If you’re looking to start your journey with cold brew or draught coffee, check out The Ultimate Guide to Cold Brew Coffee and Serving Coffee on Draught. A free 34 page ebook offered at kegoutlet.com. You can get there through the Drips and Draughts website by going to dripsanddraughts.com/ultimateguide.
[music]
Brendan: All right, a big thank you to Alex from Bellerophon Cold Brew for joining me today. If you’re looking for links or show notes from this episode, you can find those by going to dripsanddraughts.com/65. Just another reminder, this is part of a series. It’s part of our Australian Cold Brew series, so we’ll have one more episode coming out in two weeks. That’ll be episode 67 and you can also go back and check out episode 61 and episode 63.
If you’ve got any ideas for future shows, future topics or if you want us to try to get a specific guest on the show, let us know. Reach out to us at podcast@dripsanddraughts.com or you can find us on social media under the handle @DripsDraughts. I think that’s going to do it for today. Thanks to Alex Leech from Bellerophon Cold Brew, I am Brendan Hanson. I will see you again next Friday on The Drips and Draughts Podcast.
