Trip Report: Four Barrel Coffee
Posted by TheShot on 21 May 2008 | Tagged as: Café Society, Local Brew, Machine
Jeremy Tooker, co-founder of Ritual Roasters, had a bit of a falling out with Ritual’s co-owner, Eileen, and he’s pursued his own vision of a quality coffee business in Four Barrel Coffee: no Wi-Fi, no squatting start-ups that can’t pony up rent, just no-frills retail coffee plus a roasting and distribution operation.
We admire the pursuit of good coffee without all the groan-worthy trappings. Except things have opened early at this location. Real early. There is no storefront café (it’s woefully under construction at the former Ideal Upholstery shop), the hours are semi-random, and the coffee comes from Stumptown (as when Ritual first opened, they plan to open a roasting operation later). They currently sling their coffee out of an open garage door along an unmarked Caledonia St. back alley (save for a “4B” sign), so some ask if it is too early to review Four Barrel Coffee.
Well of course it’s never too early for CoffeeRatings.com. If you serve espresso in SF, we don’t care if you’re some guy named Joe running a cart with a mobile Verismo machine connected by extension cord to the downtown Sherman Clay piano shop. We don’t even care if money exchanges hands.
Money exchanges hands at Four Barrel Coffee, but that’s about as legit as this location gets. As with the Hayes St. Blue Bottle location and echoed in the likes of Trouble Coffee, SF coffee geeks strangely crave the Malaysian street food experience when it comes to their espresso: serve it from a cart in an alley near an open sewer, and somehow your street cred shoots the moon.
Four Barrel Coffee clearly delivers on those criteria. But we have to ask: is it just us, or is it getting harder to enjoy top-notch espresso in SF these days without the odd pretense of feeling like you’re part of some low-budget, ghetto chic conceptual art project? (Here’s a telltale sign: if you have to guess if and what furniture might actually belong to the place, it qualifies.) Their arrangement consists of a simple counter (on wheels, no less) surrounded by stacks of burlap coffee bags and simple, colorful artwork. For seating, there are two randomly placed chairs on a sidewalk across the alley.
Yet for all the ridiculously stripped-down surroundings, they serve espresso from a three-group La Marzocco Mistral — which is like buying a Bentley and driving it in a tractor pull. The last time we encountered a Mistral up close was at the Honolulu Coffee Company in Waikiki four years ago. And even inside the luxurious Sheraton Moana Surfrider Hotel, we had to wonder if the Mistral’s owner went out of his mind with the expense.
Serving an 8-day-old roast of Stumptown’s Hairbender blend (which still runs quite well into 12 days), barista Chris (a former Ritual barista and genuinely friendly guy) performed a lot of deliberate prep work — unburdened by the long lines and crowds common to his previous employer. After pulling the shot, he spent a few moments to tap it down and release some gas even with an 8-day-old roast — rapidly thinning out the crema from an overly bubbly froth to a surprisingly scant medium brown, textured coat.
Flavorwise, the shot is supremely bright: mostly a sharp pungency of spices and some herbal elements, but there are traces of honey, nuts, and even orange peel. Served in classic brown Nuova Point or ACF cups.
Milk-frothing is where things seem to break down a little, however. The microfoam texture and consistency is just better than average, despite the touch of a latte art heart. (This is reflected in the correction score, which is also buffered by a correction for an abnormally soft crema rating.) Because of the low retail sales volume, they even get by with small metal kitchen pitchers that are typically reserved for home use.
Read the review of Four Barrel Coffee.
10 Comments »
on 22 May 2008 at 9:00 am +00:00T 1.Christian said …
Hey Greg, glad to see you finally got there! You should also try to get back when Jeremy’s at the helm if you can. And thanks for the nod in my direction as well. I’m glad you’ve finally put some numbers to their operation. I debated long and hard about scoring them, but I decided that it wasn’t quite the right approach for my blog since I don’t do the capsule reviews you do and don’t revise as often. I applaud your no holds barred scorring approach. Personally, I’ll just wait and repost once this coffee death star becomes fully operational.
on 22 May 2008 at 10:53 am +00:00T 2.TheShot said …
Thanks, Christian. Your blog post was a good motivator (and good information) for me to finally make a more legitimate review myself. I first visited FourBarrel a month ago, but, like you, I wasn’t sure there was much to report on — given the state of things.
The review here will be certain to change once they notch up their operations.
Talking with barista Chris a couple days ago, it sounded like things were progressing well after a number of permit and logistical snags. But these higher-profile café openings universally seem to be months behind their announced opening dates. We’ve seen it with Coffee Bar, with Blue Bottle Cafe, etc. I’m no contractor, but in those cases I could just look at where they were and see that they were in no position to open on schedule.
And in FourBarrel’s case, from what I last saw there this week, I wouldn’t put an actual open date of July/August out of the question.
on 22 May 2008 at 2:03 pm +00:00T 3.Christian said …
Based on what it’s taken to get a relatively minor, but fairly important electrical/contractor problem fixed with my house, I’d put Four Barrel’s opening at sometime around the year 2016!
on 22 May 2008 at 8:05 pm +00:00T 4.George said …
Hi Greg,
I am confused, the thread for the espresso machine at four barrels shows a mirage. I thought they have a la marzocco mistral there.
on 23 May 2008 at 8:21 am +00:00T 5.TheShot said …
Mirage, Mistral — call it Kees van der Westen’s mood of the moment.
But I hadn’t actually seen nor seen any mention of a Mirage per se. Not that I got a really good look behind the counter, but I haven’t heard any mention of a Mirage before. Perhaps in their to-be-opened café?
on 23 May 2008 at 8:41 am +00:00T 6.George said …
Learn something everyday! Did not know Mistral was made by Kees van der Westen before La Marzocco bought the line.
on 23 May 2008 at 9:18 am +00:00T 7.TheShot said …
It’s his design for sure:
http://www.lamarzocco.com/mistral.html
But I have some real gaps in my knowledge of La Marzocco’s operations. For example, more and more I’ve noticed how La Marzocco USA out of Seattle seems to be in the distribution business for more than what I’d consider the Florence, Italy La Marzocco line.
on 23 May 2008 at 10:21 am +00:00T 8.George said …
Yes, La Marzocco is more of an american company now than an italian company. Just heard Kees Van der westen will be debuting their one group machine – the speedster. would be interesting to see how it compares to the gs3
on 01 Jun 2008 at 3:36 am +00:00T 9.AlecGold said …
speedster? did anyone say speedster?
I plan to visit the factory somewhere next week orso…
any requests?
It’s only an hours drive for me and I wanted to get my chubby hands on a decent machine, finaly, but can’t find a price anywhere.
Back on topic, I think it is cool that the guy is still making coffee, even if it doesn’t show like much of a nice shop. After all this is what it is all about: how does it taste, what does he deliver!.
on 05 Jun 2008 at 11:30 am +00:00T 10.George said …
“speedster? did anyone say speedster?
I plan to visit the factory somewhere next week orso…
any requests?”
saw the pictures on Kees van der Western’s website:http://www.keesvanderwesten.com/at-the-workshop_new-speedster2.html
but no specifications. How about getting some specifications and expected price (in Euro)?