Colorado’s Carabiner Coffee is Climbing at a Brisk Clip

Carabiner Coffee/Photo by Andy Earl

Dogs, yoga, cycling, guitars — whatever your thing, there’s a good possibility there’s a coffee code that reflects it.

For stone climbers and other wanderlustful outdoorsy types, Carabiner Coffee has been fueling a tour for some-more than dual years, portion primer pourovers, Aeropress and cold decoction coffee out of a refurbished VW outpost affectionately called Ol’ Blue. While struggling to find a suitable brick-and-mortar plcae for Caribiner, owner Erik Gordon eventually opted to add to his mobile swift with dual some-more VWs: a white one named Pearl and a yellow one named Daisy.

“I was like, we know what? The thing that I’m still stoked on and am means to control myself is shopping another outpost and expanding a goal of a business that way,” Gordon recently told Daily Coffee News.

Erik Gordon of Carabiner Coffee/Photo by Andy Earl

Then, while looking for a venue only to theatre a one-night launch for a coffee drink partnership with Portland, Ore.’s Base Camp Brewing, a initial still home for Carabiner many rappelled into his path from inside The Rayback Collective, a new food lorry pod and room bar in Boulder.

“We were unequivocally psyched on a space, they were psyched on what we do,” Gordon said. “We motionless to open a emporium there and it’s only been super well-spoken ever since.”

The Rayback is an expanded 4,000-square-foot trickery with an L-shaped bar with 25 taps behind a prolonged end, and Carabiner will shortly be occupying a brief end. Offerings will be as basic as they are from a road.

“We’re only psyched on elementary coffee,” Gordon said. “For us it’s some-more about a people that we get to speak to and what happens by a coffee than spending 20 grand on a appurtenance and carrying to highlight out super tough when it breaks or when we have to compensate a bills.”

Coffees for Carabiner’s 3 tack blends — a Business, on a dim side; a Skooch, browned to a medium; and a Dream, roasted easily — come by approach of spit Matt Kay during Silver Canyon Coffee, a association whose 30 years in a business make it demeanour easy, and positively facilitate a believe as distant as Gordon is concerned.

Carabiner Coffee/Photo by Andy Earl

“They’ve got some badass knowledge,” Gordon pronounced of a roasting partnership, that Gordon described as more collaborative than a standard private tab deal. Even as Carabiner continues to grow, Gordon doesn’t prognosticate himself going full on into roasting.

“I adore tour and we adore being unequivocally giveaway and assembly people and everything. Coffee roasting as an art is, we feel, like a totally opposite genre of business life,” pronounced Gordon. “I’m stoked to be sitting in my outpost and creation pourovers rather than in a roastery and being inside a lot.”

Such mobility is an constituent aspect to a life of a brand. Carabiner Coffee has done a symbol by appearing during trailheads, outside events and in front of outdoors stores. They’ve toured a array of REI store openings opposite a country, yet Gordon pronounced he prefers to sojourn stretchable and equivocate any disdainful code partnerships.

“We’re promulgation samples to a REI buyers to see if they’re meddlesome in carrying us around a country. We’re really during a front porch of that whole ‘expansion’ deal, and we’re only watchful to see what comes behind to us,” pronounced Gordon, observant that Carabiner-branded bags are now on shelves during climbing gyms and outdoorsy retailers in Boulder, Denver and Seattle. Said Gordon, “Whoever has a balls to incidentally email us and ask us ‘hey, could we send us coffee?’ We’re psyched to send it to those people.”

At a same time, event has knocked some-more than once for Carabiner by the sturdily gloved palm of outside apparel-maker Patagonia, whose goal and suggestion align precisely with a coffee company’s. Portable solar row builder Goal Zero, too, is a likeminded code that has entirely given Carabiner’s coffee vans with renewable appetite resources, forming a partnership Gordon is unapproachable to mount by.

Carabiner Coffee/Photo by Andy Earl

“Those are a dual brands that are doing things in a outside universe that we totally endorse, and those are a dual that we work with a many heavily,” pronounced Gordon. Therefore if one of those dual came to Gordon seeking a permanent in-store designation vis a vis a Stoked Roasters bars inside The North Face flagships, Gordon said, “I’d speak about it during least.”

The subsequent Patagonia-linked try is the Spring 2017 Worn Wear College Tour, a 21-stop debate of college campuses opposite a U.S. using from Feb by April, during that a Patagonia outpost offers to correct weathered Patagonia apparel. The association asked Carabiner to tab along as an concomitant coffee purveyor for a journey.

The bar inside a Rayback Collective during 2775 Valmont Road in Boulder is slated to soft-open Feb. 20.

Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is a associate editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. He is formed in Portland, Oregon.

Tags: Boulder, Carabiner Coffee, Colorado, Erik Gordon, North Face, Patagonia, REI, rock climbing, Silver Canyon Coffee, Stoked Roasters, The Rayback