By Adam Lane
Ever walked into a coffee shop and felt overwhelmed by how many ways you can get your cup of Joe these days? You know you love good coffee, but how exactly do you narrow it down? Should you order an espresso-based coffee, but then if so, which one? Cappuccino, Americano, Flat White?! Do you get adventurous and go for a pour over? AeroPress? Siphon? What even are these!? Or do you opt for old trusty, the Volkswagen of Coffee…the drip? 
Drip, batch brew, filter, whatever you like to call it, one thing remains consistent: it is a crowd-pleasing staple on every coffee-shop menu. Batch brewed drip often invokes thoughts of old school American diners, serving up the most bitter of all dark roasts, and topping up your cup until your heart is content. At Yellow Brick however, we believe this notion is somewhat outdated, and that batch brew has come a long way in recent years within the specialty coffee industry. You no longer have to feel bad about your love for drip; it has evolved.
This brew method may lack the theatrics of a fancy pour over, or the lab-like process of a siphon, but there is something about the simplicity of a well prepared cup of drip that has a special place in our hearts. A good cup of filter is easy drinking, clean, and does a great job of highlighting the nuances of each single origin in a way that can sometimes be overwhelmed with other brew methods such as espresso.
Don’t get me wrong, we love our slow bar here at Yellow Brick. There is something incredibly therapeutic and individualized about the love and care that goes into a well-prepared pour over. But it is time we give some love back to our humble, yet amazing alternative, the drip. Until mastered, hand brews are subject to the inconsistencies of human error, are somewhat time consuming to make, and can also vary depending on weather, bean profiles, water temperature, and pour speed. Batch brews, on the other hand, allow us to automate this process and produce a flavorful cup that can serve the masses with limited training.
At Yellow Brick, we roast in order to highlight the natural flavors of each individual coffee. Once that bean is roasted to perfection, it is all down to the brew. Traceable from farms across the world to our shop, having a sip of drip is like tasting the journey from bean to cup in its purist form. We love how this brew method accentuates the flavor profile and diversity of each bean. It gives us, and the customer, a guarantee: the coffee will be of exceptional and consistent quality, day in, day out.
There should no longer be a negative connotation attached to batch brewed drip. We're all about increasing interest in specialty coffee, and arguably, drip coffee allows us to do this the best. With a good recipe, auto drip machine, and grinder, you can produce all the wonderful flavors and mouthfeel that you can get from a hand brew, and it allows us to do it in a way that home brewers can see themselves doing. It opens the doors of specialty coffee to more people, and does so in an unpretentious way.
To any of you drip curious home brewers who are interested in exploring this a little further, check out some staff favorites we like to use as our daily drip here, or test your taste buds and try a variety! And if at the end of the day you still find yourself longing for a pour over, or the creaminess of a latte, then go for it! Just remember, there is always a drip for you.