Joyride brings cold brew coffee by the keg to US offices and cafes

The company has also made its way into several cafes in select cities.

Founded in 2013 in New York by three brothers, David, Adam, and Noah Belanich, Joyride Coffee is looking to make its mark on the quickly evolving craft coffee culture. The company supplies cold brew coffee kegs and specialty office coffee throughout New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

“The third-wave coffee market is growing rapidly,”​ Joyride Chief Operating Officer Paul Toscano told BeverageDaily, referring to the demand for high-quality, artisanal products.

“Each year, we see their high-quality methods of roasting and sourcing becoming part of the broader mainstream craft food culture, and cold brew coffee is a big part of that.”​

Joyride cold brew coffee comes in 20-liter kegs that have a six-week shelf life; 84.5 oz and 8 oz ready-to-drink sizes are also available.

Craft–on-draft​

Joyride’s original cold brew kegs use a rotating blend of locally roasted, fresh beans, which are cold-steeped for 16 hours before brewing.

“We're huge believers that simply calling a product ‘premium’ or ‘gourmet’ and selling it in a well-designed bottle is extremely easy... but making a truly great product is the hard part,” ​said Toscano.

“The mentality for excellence is what drives us and what has always separated Joyride (as well as our roaster partners) from the near-entirety of other cold brew producers in the country.”​

Crafting a quality brew was essential for the Joyride team as well as getting the cold brew recipe just right. To develop the product, Joyride brought in a chemist who did “thousands of tests, measuring every variable imaginable – and even creating new ones,”​ according to Toscano.

Next, Joyride needed to standardize its cold brewing system. It took nearly a year of development for Joyride to create its patent-pending brewing system, which allows the company to maintain quality and consistency while staying ahead of the curb in the craft beverage market.

“We believe it's simply the best possible option for serving cold brew - not only for quality and consistency, but for ease of use, avoiding messy on-site preparation and the ability to offer differentiated products, such as Nitro,”​ Toscano said.

“We are also constantly upgrading our facilities, and we've brought on board a real heavy-hitter from the craft beer industry to ensure that our production process is always at the cutting edge of the craft beverage market,”​ he added.

'Natural progression' to kegs​

Joyride originally made its mark in coffee by selling glass growlers filled with local roasters’ coffee but saw a need for expansion to keep up with an escalated demand.

“It really was a natural thing - we read the market and our customers were demanding it,” ​Toscano said. “Even more natural was our progression into kegs, where a New York office customer was ordering enough 1-gallon glass growlers of cold brew to fill up a normal refrigerator. Eventually, that was too much, so we started producing kegs for them... which other companies started wanting as well.”​

Untapped opportunities​

“For us, servicing cafe customers is a big next step in our evolution,”​ Toscano said.

Wanting to follow in the footsteps of other coffee companies such as Blue Bottle and Verve that are opening up cafes in Japan, Toscano believes that the demand for cold brew coffee will eventually be worldwide.  

“It's only a matter of time before third wave coffee truly invades the Asian Pacific Rim and Europe.”​