We've always been big fans of Topeca Coffee.
In many ways, their coffee has fueled our
production directly so we thought rather than
just drinking it, we might use it in some of
our recipes.
So we really started this conversation with
"Hey what would it look like if we wanted
to can cold brew coffee?".
Topeca Coffee actually started in it's current
form back in around 2002.
My wife's family is from El Salvador and they
have been producing coffee since 1850.
We have two farms in El Salvador.
One of them is the Aya Topeca Farm.
The other one is just above it called Montano,
and then we have another farm in Brazil called
Thinka Santana.
Topeca is a fully vertically integrated company
meaning we are in control of the process from
seed to cup.
Direct trade - the word to me - what it means
is that the middle guy is cut out.
That's allowing a bit of a revolution in the
sense of putting the power in the hand of
the producer.
The quality of the coffee is way higher.
There is one middle man between you and the
producer - and that's us.
We plant the seed, grow the trees, we export/import,
roast, brew - everything.
Utilizing these cans will help for us to be
eco-minded.
With the Micro-ACS from Cask we're able to
nitro dose cold brew coffee cleanly and consistently,
every time.
Not only does it package beer in an excellent
fashion it also has the capability to do still
beverages like coffee.
We decided to go in together essentially on
buying a larger canning line that was capable
of doing not only what they needed to do but
was more capable for what we needed to do
with beer as well.
So it was really something about a collaborative
project that shared costs and also in sharing
costs we shared some of the liabilities and
risk.
There's actually a software built into the
Micro-ACS line that allows the canning line
to sense how rapidly cans are coming through
the carousel.
What it does is it mimics the amount of time
it took to dose, apply and seam the can previous
to the one going into the line.
Right now we're packaging cold brew coffee
in 8.4 oz or 250 mL cans which are tall and
skinny and by all measures, incredibly different
from beer cans and the line adapts to that
and it does it exceedingly well.
We can go from packaging beer, to packaging
coffee, back to packaging beer in the same
day.
There's just a million reasons for us to be
in cans - you can take them basically anywhere
- to the lake, to water where glass can't
go.
They get colder faster, stay colder longer
and so we really couldn't imagine doing it
any other way.
We actually have a coffee oatmeal stout that
we're releasing in cans for the first time.
What we have in the can is an incredibly complex
layered set of flavours, not only with the
oatmeal stout but with coffees as well.
Whether it's with different beers or brewing
styles, the relationship that we've already
sort of developed - we'd really like to see
where this can take us.
Right now things are just going really, really
well for us and we're really thankful for
the opportunities we've been given not only
with the canning line that we have but also
with the friends we've made with Topeca.
Cask has made that equipment accessible to
us not only with the line we're currently
running but at a price point that allows us
to compete with a bigger companies.
