Cold treat for coffee lovers

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/07/2023 (1113 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Sugar and cream or liquid nitrogen?

For Sheepdog Brew Co., it’s the latter.

That’s why, beside the company’s metal tanks holding cold brew coffee, there’s a nitrogen tank at the ready — the nitrogen drops into servings of Sheepdog Brew Co.’s coffee on canning days.

“(It) gives the coffee the same feel and texture as a Guinness beer,” said owner Shawn Black. “It almost tricks your mouth into feeling like there’s cream.”

The cold-brew cans are new. So is the Oak Bluff facility, with a taproom-like storefront officially set to open on Saturday.

Black walked through his 2,500-sq.-ft. space, pointing to tanks for brewing — tanks that can hold 15 barrels, or 1,755 litres each — and a cooler room filled with cans of joe.

“Before we built this… I would just buy fridges off of Kijiji to store all our product,” Black, 32, said.

He’d also brew the coffee in a small tank in the corner of a Headingley warehouse. It wasn’t sustainable, now that Sheepdog stocks roughly 100 retailers, Black said.

“It’s weird when you start your own business,” he added. “You don’t think some stranger is going to buy your stuff, (but) then you see a stranger showing up and buying it.”

The booming operation is still, as it was in the beginning, a side hustle for Black.

He’s an army veteran and current first responder. He and a work partner wanted a lighthearted hobby to balance some of the day-to-day hardships they’d encounter.

They leapt into coffee, Black said. First, they sourced beans from abroad, selling packs of the roasted product at farmers markets beginning in 2017.

“I brewed everything in that little pot over there,” Black said, motioning to a small, out-of-commission pot in the new brewery.

Just like in Headingley, it stood in the corner.

The entrepreneur roasted beans while working his day job, selling at large markets like Third + Bird and Scattered Seeds.

“The coffee market got kind of competitive,” Black said. “We felt like we needed to do something new and fresh.”

Enter cold brew.

It was a trend in California — why not bring it here, Black mused. The Sheepdog crew bottled its first cold brew batch in an Elmwood church basement roughly three years ago, he said.

“We had these little hand fillers, and we had our own glass bottles,” he remembered, speaking in the Oak Bluff site.

Steps away stood the bottle-filling machine — hopefully “a relic,” Black said.

Sheepdog Brew Co. began selling the bottled cold brew at farmers markets alongside its coffee beans. The drinks took off, Black said.

However, so did the cost of bottles. Goods’ costs skyrocketed during the pandemic and the escalating price of glass bottles made it near impossible to do business, Black said.

Sheepdog Brew Co. was already stocking its cold brew in local shops, eateries and chains like Sobeys. Black wrestled with closing the business or going “all in” to make the product better.

He recalled driving down Corydon Avenue in the spring of 2021. He saw a woman leaving The Pennyloaf Bakery with a Sheepdog Brew Co. drink in hand, looking happy.

“I was like, ‘OK, we’ve got to do it,’” Black said. “(That was) the defining moment… some random lady with a stroller.”

He and business partners began discussing a Sheepdog facility — what it would look like, where it would be — and different ways to produce the drink. They travelled to several Manitoba municipalities and landed on a new building at 70 South Landing Dr.

“The vision for it was to build what looks like a beer brewery,” Black said.

Meantime, he was meeting with local breweries to learn how they operated, and tweaking Sheepdog’s brewing process as he went.

Sheepdog Brew Co. tested creating cold brew in cans — with drops of liquid nitrogen — at a local brewery. It launched its first batches at Vic’s Market on Pembina Highway last spring.

“I couldn’t keep it on the shelf,” said grocery manager Nick Mostert. “People were going crazy.”

Mostert said a can of Sheepdog cold brew and an energy bar are his regular midday fuel. He’s been putting Sheepdog Brew Co. products on shelves for years and believes the cans are better than the bottles were.

“I’m probably one of his biggest fans,” Mostert laughed. “I (take) whatever he can give me.”

Sheepdog Brew Co. sources Guatemalan, Colombian, Ethiopian and Indonesian beans, said Cam Kaye, the company’s head brewer.

A broker helps Sheepdog find ethical farms, Black said.

The brand has become familiar to Olivia Santiago — she’d pass by the new building often on her way to train at the Rink Training Centre. Now, she’s a Sheepdog barista.

She and Kaye said it’s a “great spot;” it has a few seats for customers. A 12-pack of nitro cold brew cans at the brewery costs $48. Four dollars covers a single can, while the drink on tap costs $3.50.

Black estimates the company will produce 5,000 cans weekly. Sheepdog Brew Co. also sells its own roasted coffee beans.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com