SEASON 2, EPISODE 3

 

[LIFE IS LIKE A BUCKET OF CHOLACA]

 

[00:00:00] TT: All right, welcome to another wonderful episode of The BrewDeck. You know one of the many beautiful things about craft brewing in the industry itself is the freedom to choose your own adventure and kind of play around with different ingredients, and in doing so achieve desired flavor profiles and recipe developments.

 

Today I’m absolutely pleased and honored to have two special guests here on The BrewDeck who have worked together to make chocolate more simpatico, if you will, and brewing. I’d like to welcome first, Tim Matthews, VP Brewing for CANarchy Craft Brewery Collective. If you could tell us the story of Death by Coconut from Oskar Blues who, sure everybody’s well aware of. And then also, Ira Leibtag, founder of Cholaca, who started out in the coffee industry and then found himself crossing into the craft beer industry, which I might add, by the way, guys, is something that most of us can heavily relate to is kind of start the day with coffee in the day with beer. So, good combinations. How you all are doing?

 

[00:00:57] TM: Doing good.

 

[00:00:58] IL: Doing great. Thanks, Toby.

 

[00:01:01] TT: Yeah, no problem. Appreciate the time. So, Tim, let’s lead off with you. Tell us the story of how you discovered Ira and Cholaca? Or was it vice versa and how they found you and became an answer to your ingredient. He’s over there at Oskar Blues at the time.

 

[00:01:15] TM: Yeah, of course. The story definitely starts with a great beer formulated by a great brewer, who recently passed and just wanted to shout about in remembrance of him, Mr. Jason Buehler. He was the Lyons Innovation Brewer and Head Brewer over there for about three years and came up with that beer in collaboration with Shamrock Brewing down in Pueblo. And it just focused on a huge amount of coconut and chocolate and they called it Death by Coconut for a very good reason. And after he had raked in a silver at the GABF, we all thought about ways that we can make more of it. Of course, Oskar Blues has a good distribution plan for package beer and getting it into the package and bigger production. It was a big challenge and Jason was the one who initially started that up. And eventually, he moved. and it passed on to me. And I really didn’t know how to do it. I just did it the exact same way we were doing and in Lyons. I was very hands on. I’m talking lots of desiccated coconut in game bags. At River City, the largest game bags we can possibly get.

 

[00:02:28] TT: Wait, Tim, let me stop you there. Are you talking about like, elk game bag or –

 

[00:02:32] TM: Exactly. Elk game bags.

 

[00:02:33] TT: Wow, really? Those are big.

 

[00:02:36] TM: The cacao was actually initially baker discs from a local company, but then also nibs. And we didn’t really know how to get any kind of surface area. We even just throw them in a fermenter and said, Hey, we’ll deal up. Do we have a rocking arm we’ll deal with that later? And when the later did come, it we almost had half our seller team walk because of a monstrosity. I mean created and forced upon them.

 

So, let’s just say we ever trying to create lots of lots of beer but just not having a way for it to be executed on a bigger production. Because we had ordered this for thousands and thousands of barrels and we were kind of just like what we do. And one day the story goes, I was actually in Lyons working there one day and I decided to walk up the street to a local coffee shop. I think it’s the something, The Barking Dogs or something and –

 

[00:03:34] IL: Barking Dog.

 

[00:03:35] TM: Yeah, I’ve walked in and ordered up my coffee and a breakfast burrito. And I was just sitting there at the register when I just saw the sign for something called Cholaca. And, you know, you could actually order it and get it in your coffee too. And I didn’t actually, but I went ahead and we know that later that night started researching Cholaca, I think it was like 9 pm. I was on my couch and decided to email info@cholaca.com or something like that. And interestingly enough at 10 pm, I got an email back from Ira. And I think we actually might have even spoken that night. It was between 10 and 11. I just remember it being dark and just talking about chocolate in the darkness was something intriguing.

 

[00:04:25] IL: But I spoke to him. I think we spoke.

 

[00:04:25] TM: Yes.

 

[00:04:27] TT: And it doesn’t surprise me because Ira is very quick on the drawing. Definitely doesn’t waste any time communicating, getting back with customers, so it’s good.

 

[00:04:37] TM: Well, I’ll tell you what, we did not waste any time to get the show rolling. I believe this is 2016 or early ’17, and I think it was late ’16, and I hopped in my truck like within the next five days. Actually, no. The very next day I went to like Natural Grocers and picked up some Cholaca and you know, started dosing it in beer and it was exactly what we wanted. It was the flavor, but like just, it’s instantaneous and such. We compared it to what we had from loads of nibs and baker’s discs, and it was right there. If not, even better for us because we were able to mix it more thoroughly and just control that extraction.

 

So, within the next five days, I called him up and he said, “I’ll take whatever you got. As long as it’s not like little containers.” And they turned out, I believe it was half-liter or liter containers and it was a full pallet. And I loaded up the truck with that and drove it back and our seller manager hopped on top of a fermenter and I just went back and forth on the lift, just bringing up the container to the Cholaca and we use this just poured into a 200-barrel fermenter, got it in there. It took a few hours, of course, but we got it in there and recirculated it and the next day, we didn’t know what to expect, but it was already there, which was not what we expected, but we expected, like, “Well, it’s going to take some time to gel and the like.” And the rest was history. We’ve worked together in many different ways to find even other processing and packaging ways to make this more optimized for us and our product. And yeah, we haven’t looked back.

 

[00:06:34] TT: Yeah, that’s great. Before we move on here, because I know Ira is probably chomping at the bit, but I do want to thank you for mentioning Jason. I did have the honor of meeting Jason, spent some time with him in the past, and yeah, thoughts for sure to his family.

 

Ira, I know you’re not ever at a loss of words here, you probably just chomping at the bit. So, yeah, tell me about that moment, when you got the call from Tim and you had the opportunity to put some of your Cholaca in the hands of a brewer. It must have been pretty exciting or interesting, say the very least.

 

[00:07:08] IL: Well, it was. It was kind of funny, because maybe a few months prior to this, I had started getting calls from brewers saying they want to use chocolate in a beer. And I remember going and dropping off some bottles to these brewers. And then I was busy and I never I never heard back from them. And it was like, maybe a couple months later or something. I called him up and said, “Hey, I dropped this stuff off. And what would you do with it?” And they said they all said the same thing, “Yeah, we tried it. It didn’t work.” I just let it go.

 

Then when I got that email from Tim and I called him back. And I do recall, it was a funny moment for me because they explained to me these other brewers, how they use flavors in the brewing process, meaning adding it in, in the boil or in the mash and cooking it up and then fermenting it for two weeks and extracting these flavors. And I just kept saying, you know, so I turned to Tim and I said, “So, how long are you going to ferment my chocolate for Tim?” And he just looked at me, he looked at me, he told me in response, he said, “Well, why would I want to do a thing like that?” And I kind of choked up my words at that point in time. And he said, he started to know we’re going to do it. We’re going to boil it and then ferment it, and then we’re going to stick it right in the Brite tank and add it in afterwards. And I say, “You know that can work.” And he goes, “Dude, I know it can work. I’m calling to orders some of your Cholaca.”

 

So, that’s how he got started. He ended up, we sent him that pallet, I remember it was 35 or 40 cases 32 ounce, and he calls me up the next day and he goes, “Ira, this is not going to work.” And I go, “What’s happened now?” He says, “Well, just imagine, a kind of a fire train of people up a 60-foot ladder, dumping your 32-ounce jugs into the top of our Brite tank.” He says, “Can’t you put it in anything bigger?” And of course, my response was, “Well, how big do you want it?” Of which that’s how we got into a 50-gallon drum. And then from there, we kind of optimized with the five-gallon buckets, it seems like that’s the one that most brew houses seem to use.

 

[00:09:39] TT: I can only imagine all the folks you had up and down the scissor lift, the forklift or the ladder. It seems like a lot of work. I’m glad you guys made the move to the big cans if you will.

 

Hey Tim, for all the statistics out there, obviously, in brewing, there’s probably some skeptics out there, and you talked a little bit about the ease and kind of the difference between Cholaca and using cacao nibs or discs, any other info that you can provide that will kind of sway folks off of the old school method?

 

[00:10:12] TM: Well, the ease of use, especially on the cold side, it was a huge variable to craft the beer and get as much flocculation out as possible. But whatever other solids that are out there, we’re able to get those out. I’ve always taught that chocolate, vanilla, you know that some of these other non-add junction such, that you do need a little bit warmer to go to get some kind of extraction. I was to say the extraction is already get done, I have all the surface area because of how the Byron’s team are making it and it’s exactly what I would do is – everybody wants to crush it up and you know, get it in there. But it’s, it’s already done. But it’s in liquid form and there’s other things that make the liquid form positive for us. But the ease, getting it in the cold after some kind of solid removal gives us control and predictability at the same time. Because that was the number one issue, we had in some of the early batches, the chocolate took forever, took up to two weeks sometimes a pop out. They just pop out sometimes. It was all over the place and this was repeatable and natural and predictable, and such.

 

[00:11:35] TT: So, before we move on here, Tim, I’m curious, so you guys are still brewing that Death by Chocolate in one particular location or is there several – I mean, I guess we should back up here. So, CANarchy Craft Brewery Collective is fairly large. You guys own or have a partnership if you will in several craft breweries, large craft breweries, correct? So, are you just producing that one beer at one facility or?

 

[00:11:59] TM: Well, historically, we have just brewed Death by Coconut in Longmont. But this was the year we actually extended and brewed it in three different places including Longmont, but we have brewed it before in Austin, Texas, mainly because Austin is in Texas. And anytime you want to serve a beer at the taproom, you have to have brewed it at that facility.

 

So, Austin, Texas does brew all the beers. Brew Reward in North Carolina have little bit different rules. So, we have traditionally sent the beer there from Longmont. This year, we actually utilized the network in Cigar City, actually brewed a batch there the first time. So, it was just intriguing seeing how the beer comes out in various places. Very, very close, but of course, one of the things we do celebrate in the collective is, each facility has its own unique things. We get very close, sensory, very uniform sensory acceptance, but not without its little intricacies and such. But that is, it is fun this year and who knows, how many local facilities will brew it again next year.

 

[00:13:08] TT: Yeah, absolutely. Ira, any thoughts there?

 

[00:13:12] IL: Well, for us, it’s been that growing and learning experience. We’re now, and jeez, upwards of 2,000 breweries, if you can believe that. What we discovered, as Tim was saying, is that we basically, we were able to build a better mousetrap, as you were mentioning earlier on, it wasn’t by design. But it turns out that Chaloca is really, really good for making beer. Part of that has to do with the nature of our cacao and the quality of our cacao. And what has made us a differentiator in the marketplace.

 

There are, just like everything else, is you know, all kinds of different levels of quality of ingredients that you can get for us to make our mark in the industry, the best of the best is all we’ve ever gone for. And oddly enough, we are in the process of scaling right now, the quality of the top 1% to 2% of cacao in the world.

 

So, we are making the very best cacao in the world right now. And we figured out how to make a lot of it which is difficult. Most farms, cacao farmers one and a half, two and a half hectares is the size of their farm. Maybe they can put out a half-ton, maybe a ton of cacao a year. You have to have really a collective of many farms in order to get that kind of volume that you need to work with everybody from the small brewery to the you know the CANarchy, all the way up to you know, the Coors and the InBevs. You got to be able to deliver on the back end. And to be able to scale, that kind of quality is unique and we’re doing some pretty incredible stuff now.

 

And so, when you add those things together, along with the consistency you’re going to get, as Tim was mentioning, from batch to batch, you kind of have the advantages of Cholaca.

 

[00:15:24] TT: A lot of C’s you guys mentioned, along with Cholaca, consistency, convenience, contact time, there’s a lot a lot of reasons, a lot of positives of using that product. It seems like certainly something to look at for those in the craft brewing world are not currently using or currently going old school with nibs and discs. So, appreciate the info.

 

Let’s talk about Cholaca versus nibs. Does Cholaca help prevent contamination from beer spoilage and microorganisms? It’s a question for either one of you, really.

 

[00:15:56] TM: If anybody thinks that chocolate doesn’t have anything on it, they’ve never actually – they don’t really know how to make chocolate or cacao. There’s fermentation involved and there’s definitely microorganisms on that. The experience with Cholaca has led to a product that is much more reliable in terms of contamination than using a regular cacao nibs. These microorganisms aren’t necessarily considered beer spoilers, but they live in the beer. And that is seen and such, we’ve actually seen under scope. But the work that Cholaca does on the product, it gives us a lot more faith and rely, to say, peace of mind when it comes to using it and such, especially in cold side and packaged beer and everything.

 

[00:16:49] IL: And you know, the product being pasteurized allows for us to have a kill step for those microorganisms. Like Tim was saying, a cacao is dirty. It’s lying out there on the rocks, it’s drying, it bugs and birds, and all kinds of stuff as it’s going through its initial process. So, for us, in order to get it into a bottle, it’s got to be clean in order to have any kind of shelf life out of it. We’ve been working for many years as we continue to improve that process. But to date, we seem to be the only guys that are out there that are actually doing stuff in this particular fashion and we haven’t had very many issues that are coming back to us with regard to the cleanliness of the of our brewer’s beers.

 

[00:17:40] TT: Good to hear you. Well, you mentioned shelf life. Can you tell us what that is and if there’s any particular necessary temperature conditions, this stuff needs to be stored at?

 

[00:17:49] IL: Well, Cholaca, having two ingredients, or sometimes three, Tim uses a sweet version, but two ingredients and one of them being water. As we know, when you add water to stuff, life finds its way. And a part of what we’re trying to do is there’s a lot of good organisms in there and there’s some bad organisms. We have primary concerns in a few of the nasties. They require us to pasteurize the product. We have done a particular hot-fill product that has allowed us up to 18 months shelf life on the product before you open it, of course. Once you open, it’s good for about a month. I think we’ve noticed something an organism’s count somewhere around 38 days. But typically, it’s a refrigerated product. There are no emulsifiers, chemicals, or anything like that. So, there’s going to be some separation in the bottle or the bucket or the drum. So, we recommend to everybody to circulate, to kind of embrace the shaking of it, that kind of thing. But shelf life is good.

 

[00:19:05] TT: Good. Well, Ira, you guys recently kind of filled another void with the new product, liquid coconut. How did you guys come up with that idea? How did that come to be to kind of replicate what you guys did on the on the cacao side with coconut against fillet coconuts, if you will?

 

[00:19:23] IL: Well, we got a lot of brewers who are going to be listening to this, they’ll know that if they call up our phone number, I typically pick up the phone. And that’s because I’m always looking to talk with our brewers. And I’m always asking them, how can we do it better? Is there anything else? What are you looking for? And among other things, coconut kept coming back at us over and over again. We didn’t learn until we had started down that path, how much of a challenge coconut flakes are to work with and we figured, well what if we go and create a product that has the same characteristics as Cholaca and we do that as a white liquid with coconut. I wonder if that would work.

 

So, what do we do? We get on the phone with Tim and say, “Hey, idea. I’ll meet you up and you’ll have some coconut.’ And of course, I started delivering little mason jars over to Tim’s house to say, “What do you think of this? And what do you think of that?” And I don’t know how many times we did it, Tim. But once again, Tim steps up to the plate. And next thing you know, we’ve got this liquid coconut coming into play.

 

[00:20:39] TM: Yep. A couple times.

 

[00:20:42] TT: Tim, you have a whole refrigerator full of various stuff that Ira brings over, want you to try or what?

 

[00:20:45] TM: Well, I have an entire fridge devoted to him. Especially, back in the spring, which is intriguing because I was also in the middle of the quarantine, everybody develops some, especially the stay at home period for Colorado, I think a lot of people will develop hobbies and my hobby was the Tiki world of different mixed drinks from the days of yore. And it was interesting that these are starting to get dropped off in my front doorstep, because of course, coconut does play a role in a few and I actually, on top of messing around with beer, I also used it in some painkillers, and trade wind cocktails, and [inaudible 00:21:29] and it was fun. But it is definitely like an interesting thing, we actually have brewed a beer with it that was inspired by the trade winds and painkiller cocktails.

 

[00:21:46] TT: Nice. Well, we mentioned a little bit about the liquid coconut, kind of how it might compare to the flake coconut taste and aroma. Is it similar dosing rates as the Cholaca?

 

[00:22:00] TM: Now, we’re finding is well – so, the typical dosage rate that we use with Cholaca is anywhere from a half to one and a half gallons per barrel. And of course, that’s going to be based upon the beer that we put it in. We’ve used that to a gallon and a half per barrel in big imperial barrel-aged stouts. But typically for the Death by Coconut, we’re in the half barrel. Of course, that’s a little bit different, because we do use a concentrated version of it that Ira and his team puts together, handle less drums, and such.

 

But yeah, first, I believe the product that is being distributed, for the most part, a half-gallon per barrel, and the coconut was a little bit more. I think it depends on the beer, of course, we used it in a wheat beer, most recently, and we actually used about a full gallon per barrel. It was 10 gallons in 10 barrels, and I did think that was like on the high end. But thinking, there are just lots of things going on in that beer, with nutmeg and apricot.

 

But that is the range and of course, anybody that uses anything, I fully suggest doing benchtop trials and dosage. At least this is a good starting point.

 

[00:23:15] IL: And that’s the good thing about, you know, we send out samples to our brewers, as probably a lot of them already know. What’s great about it is it gives brewers like Tim is saying, the opportunity just to go pull a pint of their stout or their porter or whatever they’re using it for. And then just start dosing in Cholaca. It may not look pretty out of the gate, but that’s the flavor profile you’re going to get, and you know it going into your brew, as opposed to waiting to come out the other side a week or two and see if you nailed it. So, that’s a big deal for us. We’re pretty proud that we have the ability to do that.

 

[00:23:55] TT: Well, you know what, the first thing that comes to mind when I think coconut is head retention, and that coconut is a giant oily seed, essentially. And I’ve heard coconut flakes tend to kill head retention due to that oil containing the flakes. What about the liquid coconut? What do you find there, Tim?

 

[00:24:13] TM: Well, I’ve especially seen when flakes actually in my cup, in my pint glass, that definitely kills head retention. I’ve seen that, but yeah, man it’s –

 

[00:24:25] TT: Kills the buzz, too, that’s for sure.

 

[00:24:26] TM: Yeah, but in this wheat beer that we have, we definitely have not seen any – I mean, I think there’s other things in there, but it definitely has foam. It has had a pretension. You don’t have a situation where it’s like plastered on top and such.

 

[00:24:42] TT: What about beer yield? Is it similar to kind of like hops where it obviously pulls in some of that liquid and your yield is less? Are you getting better yield using the liquid coconut or liquid cacao for instance, versus the flakes or nibs?

 

[00:24:57] TM: The biggest thing is using Cholaca or even the liquid, a coconut Cholaca is either technically putting it into emulsifier for you, and this just disperses it throughout your entire liquid. At any time you have any kind of solid that has to settle out, you will have lost the nature of how this incorporated into the liquid helps you have better yield. There are so many things that will affect yield. So, I’m not going to give any number, but if you’re struggling with yield with bigger materials, this is a great way to get it to challenge and improve your yields potentially.

 

[00:25:38] TT: And Ira, is the coconut concentrate similar as far as shelf stability or shelf life and storage conditions?

 

[00:25:46] IL: It is. Actually, liquid coconut in the 5 gallon and the 50 gallon, we have the ability to do that in a septic environment. They are shelf-stable for storage, and the utilization is pretty well the same. We have that adding liquid coconut after the crash, some people have been doing that. And there are some challenges with that. It seems like best practices, get it in a little bit on the warm side, it’s a little more sensitive to temperature than Cholaca.

 

[00:26:24] TT: Very good. Well, Ira, I know for any of those folks who have visited CBC back when we had CBC and came to where you guys were close to us presenting or whatnot, they always remember the rain forest, and the giant trees setup and stuff like that you have. And really, want to talk a bit or have you chat a bit about the environmental sustainability efforts that you’re leading, and your company is leading, can you talk to us a little bit about that?

 

[00:26:52] IL: Sure. I’ll try and keep it as brief as possible. It’s a big subject. But regenerative cacao is what we grow, and we are in, our mission is in the regenerative business. You have things like degeneration, which is pretty obvious. Sustainability, there’s no gain, there’s no loss. And then you have something called regeneration and we’ve defined that in a particular way, Toby, and pretty well, I’ve devised an economic and a business model that we have been working with. And the short story is, the more cacao that we sell, the more forests we get to grow back and that is a tall statement.

 

That is something that we live, eat and breathe all about here. We are down currently, in places like Ecuador, and specifically now in Colombia, we have our feet on the ground. I was saying earlier, we have just proven out and perfected our ability to scale top 1% quality in the world. By doing that, we are taking care of our farmers, we’re taking care of our distributors, we’re taking care of our processors all the way up and all the way down the line. And we pay more for our cacao, than pretty well, most everybody else does. And that is a great incentive to get the kind of quality that you’re looking for.

 

And if one farmer is down there somewhere in central Columbia, and he’s getting paid five times more for the cacao than the next guy because his quality is much better, you find that his neighbor now wants to grow great cacao. We have found that the neighbor who has stripped down his cacao farm so cattle can graze are getting paid more to let the cattle graze than they are to grow cacao and get paid for it, we have increased those prices for the quality of the cacao and land that has been stripped for cattle grazing is now re-growing cacao trees and we’re contracting to buy it all.

 

So, that’s our mission. We make this amazing stuff. We’re making it in volume, large volumes now and we’re expanding that whole operation. So, we say every sip of beer that you’re having with Cholaca in it, you’re saving a little bit of rainforest. So, drink up, drink up.

 

[00:29:35] TT: Great stuff, Ira. Very good stuff that you’re doing over there. Tim, I know you’ve always got a lot on your plate and got your hands and a lot of different things. Anything you want to chat about or anything you want to plug in what you guys are doing as a group?

 

[00:29:49] TM: Well, as a group, CANarchy, it’s been interesting having a network of breweries across the country in an era, like this right now, but it hasn’t slowed down innovation and the sharing of ideas and the work we’re doing there. We’ve actually taken the Death by Series and spun that off and just to show the adjuncts and paired with a really good porter or paired up with a really good white porter and a pair of good brown. And we even have one about come out called Death by King Cake, which we’ve decided to make even bigger than we did last year in terms of the amounts of those spices and vanilla and pecans that we’re using. And we’re going to have to do everything to have fun with beer. And a cool thing about CANarchy is you have a built-in microcosm of the community that craft beer is. So, a lot of fun things.

 

[00:30:48] TT: Yep. And I tend to thank you in the work you guys are doing probably every weekend with at least a six-pack. So, thank you.

 

Tim, Ira. Thank you, guys, for initially meeting at that coffee shop and kind of innovating together over the years, and taking the time to talk with us today. It kind of goes to show you how far a simple conversation can go to result in the full product development and putting ingredients into a user-friendly formats.

 

For those listeners out there, as Ira mentioned, he does send out free samples for brewers and I know a lot of folks have taken advantage of it. So, if you haven’t had a chance to give the liquid cacao or liquid coconut a try, reach out to him on his website at cholaca.com.

 

All right guys, I appreciate the time and be safe. If we don’t chat. Enjoy the holidays.

 

[00:31:37] TM: Sounds good. Cheers, everybody.

 

[00:31:41] IL: Thank you very much.

 

[END]