Entrepreneurs / Small Business  June 23, 2015

Oskar Blues enters coffee biz with launch of Hotbox Roasters

LONGMONT — The entrepreneurial spirit at Oskar Blues Brewery keeps churning out new ventures.

The company that shook up the craft-beer industry by canning its beer is officially unveiling its latest offshoot Wednesday. But Hotbox Roasters coffee beans already started hitting local shelves at places such as Alfalfa’s Market and Lucky’s Market last week, with a Bolivia Newton John light roast, a Frank Sumatra medium roast and a darker Kenya Dig It.Hotbox Roasters

Oskar Blues founder Dale Katechis is co-founding Hotbox with John Ralston. Although technically a separate business entity, the company will roast and package imported beans at Oskar Blues’ headquarters in Longmont, taking up a small corner of the 100,000-square-foot brewery.

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Hotbox Roasters formed out of what started about two years ago as a hobby within the brewery, with Katechis and other employees ordering coffee beans, roasting them, and brewing up java to drink at work.

“I don’t think Dale was planning on this being a business opportunity initially,” Ralston said Tuesday. “He was just having fun with it and making great coffees. … So he wanted someone to come in and help out and help drive it forward. That’s where I came in.”

Ralston came to the venture from Crested Butte, where he’d started the Teocalli Tamale burrito shop, as well as a couple in Washington, D.C. He’s since sold the burrito shops and been serving as culinary director at Gunnison Valley Hospital.

Derek Palmer, meanwhile, joined Hotbox in December as head roaster, while Katechis’s son, Pate, is the third employee of the Hotbox team.

The crew began quietly packaging and selling its beans at local markets a few months ago under the name OBeans before officially changing the name to Hotbox Roasters.

The beans will come in the same large “Crowler” cans the brewery packages some of its beers in, with cans of beans going for between $13.95 and $16.43. Ralston said a blended variety will be coming out soon, in addition to the first three roasts to help supply Oskar Blues’ Lyons and Longmont restaurants. A canned cold-brew coffee will be on the way. And Hotbox, on its website that will launch Wednesday, will also feature a subscription service where people can order the coffee beans to their door anywhere in the country on a weekly or monthly basis.

The rise of Hotbox, Oskar Blues spokesman Chad Melis said, has been similar to other ventures that Katechis and Oskar Blues have been a part of, such as the Hops and Heifers Farm, where Oskar Blues sources hops for its beers and beef for its restaurants, and REEB Cycles, which makes custom mountain bikes.

“We’re really creating this great energy between the companies, but they’re separate as their own entities so they can take on a life of their own,” Melis said.

Hotbox Roasters will have a “Hotbox Dock” area at the brewery where customers will be able to interact with the new brand and get their bean cans refilled. Ralston said there have been discussions about opening a Hotbox Roasters coffee shop, much like Oskar Blues has done in opening brewpubs and its CHUBurger and CyclHOPS restaurant concepts. But he said that’s not the focus as Hotbox Roasters gets off the ground.

“Right now, we’re focusing on the coffee,” Ralston said.

LONGMONT — The entrepreneurial spirit at Oskar Blues Brewery keeps churning out new ventures.

The company that shook up the craft-beer industry by canning its beer is officially unveiling its latest offshoot Wednesday. But Hotbox Roasters coffee beans already started hitting local shelves at places such as Alfalfa’s Market and Lucky’s Market last week, with a Bolivia Newton John light roast, a Frank Sumatra medium roast and a darker Kenya Dig It.Hotbox Roasters

Oskar Blues founder Dale Katechis is co-founding Hotbox with John Ralston. Although technically a separate business entity, the company will roast…

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