Today we’d like to introduce you to Gabrielle Rosenberger
Gabrielle, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
We started roasting coffee in February 2013 on a small sample roaster we purchased off of craigslist. Initially we were just roasting coffee for our oatmeal coffee stout, Black House, but quickly we realized that there was an interest in expanding our business to include coffee in addition to beer. One year later we began brewing and selling cold brew. Eventually we outgrew our tiny roaster and in 2016 we upgraded to a 15 kilo Giesen and began experimenting with different roasts, blends and even started to barrel-age our coffee. Since then we have expanded our footprint throughout San Diego county and sell our whole bean and cold brew coffee all over! At our core we place a heavy emphasis on innovation, experimentation, collaboration and education.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Every business experiences their share of bumps in the road and we are no different. We have learned a lot during our nearly 11 years. Operating a coffee roastery within a brewery comes with a very unique set of challenges but ultimately has allowed both sides of the company to collaborate in some pretty cool ways. Our barrel-aging program being my favorite example of that teamwork. We also went through a period of pretty rapid expansion across California and into Oregon, and unfortunately with the unanticipated effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, we had to close most of those spaces and found ourselves in the midst of an ownership change. Fortunately for us every we have chosen to look at every obstacle as a learning opportunity and we are excited to continue roasting incredible coffee.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Modern Times Coffee?
At Modern Times Coffee we specialize in delicious and fun coffee! We are excited by wild blends and intentionally sourced single origin coffees. One of the more unique processes that we utilize is barrel-aging coffee. Most often we get our hands on bourbon barrels but we have used wine, gin, mezcal and even some of our special projects teams beer barrels. We allow the green coffee to age inside of dry barrels and soak in all of the remaining aroma and when the coffee is roasted there is a very pronounced barrel flavor present. There aren’t too many roasters experimenting with this technique and it is so cool to be able to play around with different flavor profiles. One of the other products we offer that I am so proud of is our cold brew. Being located within a brewery we are able to utilize tank space and the canning line to make some fantastic cold brew right in house! We currently can our Black House, Nitro Idea Machine, and a rotating set of Single Origin cold brews. We spend a lot of time sourcing the perfect coffees and making sure our grind distribution and dilution rates are just right. They are all so different and delicious and really pack a punch with 250-300mg of caffeine per can!
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I grew up in San Diego and have always been pretty outdoorsy. It’s pretty hard not to be when you live in a place with near perfect weather all year round. I worked in coffee while I was attending SDSU and really fell in love with how much there was to learn. After graduating I thought I would look for a fun summer coffee job before diving into the work force and found myself at Modern Times. I fell in love with the products we were creating and the people I was working with and 8 years later I am still here!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.moderntimesmerch.com/collections/coffee/coffee
- Instagram: @moderntimescoffee
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/moderntimescoffee/
