CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio - By day, Zach Tracy teaches chemistry. By night, he applies the science to a hobby.
It's not a new spin on "Breaking Bad." What Tracy, an award-winning home brewer, and two friends are doing is unique: They are carefully blending coffee with hops for a non-alcoholic drink that will launch at the Wine Spot on Lee Road in Cleveland Heights on Thursday, March 5.
The idea of coffee and beer is nothing new. Many brewers blend the two, usually in stouts and porters.
Stone Brewing Co. made an 11 percent Russian Imperial Stout with espresso. Great Divide Brewing Co. of Colorado makes Yeti, an espresso-oak-aged stout at 9.5 percent. Pat Daniels of Market Garden Brewery in Cleveland recently created Midnight Vorlauf, a coffee porter crafted with Rising Star Coffee. With a moderate 6.5 percent alcohol, the black-as-an-iPhone ale is deliciously smooth.
But this is different. This is not alcoholic. It's like craft beer in that it will be best served fresh, poured in a small snifter. It looks like a Russian Imperial Stout and tastes like coffee with a hoppy kick.
"There's so much going on when the coffee hits you," said Tracy, a former intern at Fat Head's Brewery.
It all started when a pal in Traverse City, Michigan, "approached me about doing some research," he said. "Then we started doing it, and I thought 'Why can't I do this in Cleveland?' "
The idea: "Take cold-brewed coffee - it never sees heat - and infuse it with hops and put it on a nitro tap."
The partners are friends and neighbors - Tracy, Adam Fleischer and John Hubbard of Restless Coffee. And each brings a different skill set to the venture: The Wine Spot sells Hubbard's coffee. And when Tracy was getting serious about the idea, he asked if Fleischer had a source for coffee.
"I said, 'You've got to be kidding.' " Fleischer said. "It's been fun."
It's also been a team effort, Tracy said.
"John handles the coffee; coffee is not my strong suit," he said. "Adam gives us the (business) platform to do the things we want to do. He does so much. ... John is like 'it needs more coffee'. I'm the beer guy so I'm 'it needs more hops.' And Adam is the buffer."
It doesn't appear that many places are crafting this type of drink, Tracy said, mentioning a business in Colorado, one in the Pacific Northwest and someone in Columbus. But it appears to be new for Northeast Ohio.
With the help of Cleveland Culinary Launch and Kitchen, which offers shared space for various food endeavors, the coffee will launch at Wine Spot, which Fleischer opened four years ago. The hop-infused coffee will take over one of the taps, sharing space with craft beer and wine bottles.
The trio's goal, Tracy said, is to "cross that bridge" of hopheads who like coffee, or coffee drinkers who appreciate an India Pale Ale. It's both a morning drink, or a non-alcoholic alternative later in the day.
Tracy calls the company 46 and 2, a reference to a Tool song and a theory in evolution. The numbers refer to chromosomes, with 42 and 2 indicating where we were, 44 and 2 where we are, and 46 and 2 signifying the future, Tracy said.
"To go from one level to another you have to be willing to take it somewhere new, somewhere different, essentially to evolve it."
How it's made
That evolution Tracy is aiming for starts with green coffee beans that are roasted, ground, and steeped in water. Steeping time can differ, 12 to 24 hours, roughly. Then the grounds are separated from water, and hops are added. The result is cold-brewed, hop-infused coffee.
"It's a much lower ratio of water-to-coffee so it's stronger. We dilute it down from there. It's still has some oomph to it, more than a hot cup of coffee," said Tracy, who said he is not sure of the exact amount of caffeine but said it's more than a cup of Joe. From start to finish a batch takes about a week.
"It's really just cold-brewed coffee. We didn't want the heat because we didn't want the bitter side of coffee coming through. The hops give enough of that."
Those hops are Centennial and Simcoe and the coffee is a blend, but different varietals and beans can be used, just like brewers change up yeast strains and hops.
"We wanted the more subtle types of coffee," Tracy said. "The drink would remain a smooth mouthfeel. It's beautiful when you pour it. It looks like Guinness. You get that cascading (effect)."
And yes, that degree in chemistry comes in handy for Tracy, who graduated from Bowling Green State University in 1999. He teaches at Cleveland Heights High School.
"For me," he said, "it's very procedural and systematic."
Trial and error
For a drink that is simply three ingredients - coffee beans, hops and water - no additives - it has taken five months of testing to perfect the process. The try-and-taste phase is ongoing.
"There's no doubt it's simple - in theory," he said. "It's been a labor of love."
It took hundreds of tastings, with 20 to 25 different hop varietals used. Some gave a medicinal taste, some herbal. Others resembled tea, or over-the-top "hop bombs."
"The spectrum of flavors ran the board," Tracy said. "You can drive yourself crazy trying to create the perfect combination."
The future
But the kinks were smoothed - or ground out, as the case might be.
They are following a beer calendar, and plan some one-offs and even barrel-aging. Tracy is eyeing seasonals. "How cool would it be to do a pumpkin (brew)?" he said. "Anything you can do with beer you can do with this."
And an incredibly natural-sounding venture with Brewnuts, the Cleveland business that makes fresh doughnuts with craft beer, is in the works. Getting in craft-beer-bars also is an idea.
"To have this on tap at a brewery is a home run," Tracy said. "It's another option for a designated driver. For the hops person, it's something new. ... Certainly there's a novelty side - it truly is different. We're banking on that."
For now, it's in kegs. Nitro cans might come down the line. The public gets its first taste to determine the drink's longevity, and Tracy and Fleischer are optimistic.
"It's coming, and it's gaining traction," Tracy said. "We want to be the first in Cleveland to have it happen."