Red Hat Coffee taproom in San Diego’s East Village. All photos courtesy of Red Hat Coffee.
Strengthening San Diego’s reputation as a center for icy beer production, Red Hat Coffee opened its tasting room and coffee roastery, offering a wide range of icy brews in the East Village.
The airy and cheerful 2,000-square-foot café — Red Hat’s first brick-and-mortar location — primarily serves icy brew drinks, either still or nitro-infused, that can be flavored with natural ingredients and made creamy with local oat milk, available exclusively at Red Hat.
Red Hat owner James Darenkamp told DCN the store is ditching dairy entirely in favor of oat milk, a decision made based on Red Hat staff preferences.
“We don’t drink dairy and find almond milk to be too runny in consistency,” Darenkamp recently told DCN. “Oat milk, on the other hand, is a dairy-free alternative that also provides a creamy consistency that goes well with coffee.”
Red Hat partners with local San Diego company Mulk Co. for the oat milk served at the Red Hat Bar. Mulk worked with Red Hat to develop pristine, flavor-enriched oat milk for menu items like Red Hat’s Churro, Caramel and Matcha icy brew oat milk latte.
In the bar, the green fern-patterned wallpaper references real potted plants, while the fibrous lampshades and wall decorations reference the jute bags in which green coffee is transported around the world.
Red Hat CEO Ryan King and COO Luis Salgado are teaming up to lead the company’s black-focused coffee roasting program Diedrich IR-5 and almost exclusively a certain Colombian Excelso from Antioquia, certified by the Rainforest Alliance.
“We look for beans that have minimal earthiness with a medium roast and have notes of chocolate, caramel and a bit of nuttiness,” Darenkamp said. “We’ve experimented with Guatemalan coffees in the past and weren’t cheerful with the results, so we stuck with Colombian Excelso beans, which met our requirements.”
Things can get pretty scorching at Red Hat sometimes. In addition to darkening green coffee to brown, the shop also offers scorching, hand-poured brews.
Red Hat, which began distributing icy brew kegs in 2017 and expanded into 12-ounce retail cans last year, currently has products on shelves at Target and other independent grocery stores in San Diego County. While it is also researching and developing additional icy brew products, the company hopes to distribute in the Los Angeles area within the next two quarters, according to Darenkamp.
Red Hat Coffee Taproom & Roastery is now open 440 16th St in San Diego.
Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is the deputy editor of Daily Coffee News at Roast Magazine. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
