After a months-long expansion project, Pier Coffee announces it has co-located with Odin Brewing, a Seattle-based craft beer company. The combined beer and coffee brewery makes both cold brew coffee and craft beer on separate, dedicated systems and the two companies are exploring combined products. The brewery is located at 402 Baker Blvd in Tukwila, WA and features a restaurant and taproom.
Rooted in Erin Willliamson’s background in specialty coffee, Pier Coffee is brewed by marrying the principles of coffee extraction with beer brewing science. The colocation with the Odin Brewery allows the overlap between coffee and beer to explored more fully. Dan Lee, owner of Odin Brewing Company, say, “Aside from the obvious benefits of shared overhead, equipment and labor, the Odin/Pier relationship benefits our company in two ways. First, by co-locating with Pier Coffee we are sharing space with another craft brewery that is not a competitor. Pier has the same dedication to craft as a high quality beer brewery but, because they make coffee, our success will not come at the expense of theirs or visa versa. Second, there is tremendous potential for synergy with Pier Coffee. The new product and distribution opportunities that will arise because Pier and Odin are so closely connected will unlock the true value of the relationship.”
Pier Coffee, an exclusively cold brew coffee company, was founded in 2014 by coffee veteran, Erin Williamson. The move into the co-located facility represents Pier Coffee’s third expansion in less than two years. Inspired by the possibilities of cold brew, Erin started Pier Coffee in 2014 in a 90 square foot “nano-brewery.” Pier Coffee’s flagship product is a single-origin, seasonally sourced cold brew concentrate. In the early days of the business, Pier Concentrate was delivered to Seattle-area cold brew drinkers on a weekly delivery route. As Pier Coffee grew from a home delivery service to a wholesaler with placements in local grocery stores, Erin expanded from the 90 square foot nano-brewery to a 1600 square foot micro-brewery and began canning 100% certified organic cold brew. Pier Coffee’s recent move into the Odin Brewing brewery represents a tenfold increase in capacity and will support new product development.
At the Pier Coffee, attention is paid to time, temperature, pressure, agitation, atmosphere, grind size as well as water conditioning and grain beds. Specially designed brewing vessels were built to bridge the gap between coffee and beer brewing. These unique brewing methods allow Pier Coffee cold brew to have a fruit-forward, origin based initial flavor as well as the chocolatey finish that is typical in cold brew. The resulting products have been called the “best packaged cold brew on the market” by Andrew Caldwell and received 90+ point rankings in Coffee Review. Pier Coffee Founder and Head Brewer is extremely excited about her company’s latest move and says, “Every day, I am thrilled to walk into our new space that we share with Odin Brewing! The team of Odin brewers are so creative and smart. Working with them each day lends so much to my process and products and I can’t wait to delve more deeply into the spaces where coffee and beer overlap.”
In addition to a focus on the unique science of cold brewing, Pier Coffee is also committed to sourcing coffee from women owned farms and cooperatives whenever possible. Erin Williamson notes, “80-90% of the field work of growing coffee is done by women but often women only own 10-20% of the product grown or the land on which it is grown. Gender equity in sourcing is a key focus of ours and something we consider along with flavor profile whenever selecting green coffee for our cold brew.”
Pier Coffee is available in grocery stores, restaurants and bars in Washington and Oregon. Odin Beer can be found in Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia. The taproom is open Monday – Thursday 11 – 10, Friday and Saturday 11 – 11 andSunday 12 – 8. Both beer and coffee are available.
More information about Pier Coffee can be found at www.piercoffee.com
More information about Odin Brewing can be found at www.odinbrewing.com
