LDS 1-on-1: Rager Pie’s Founder Wilson Hailey

Posted: June 6th, 2015 | Author: LumDimSum | Filed under: Foodies & Dining Scene, LDS Interviews | Tags: 3rd Wave Coffee, American pies, barista, Bulletproof Coffee, cafe, Chunky Punkin’, coffee, Colombia, Costa Rica, Don't Rage Alone, Empie儿, Farm to Neighbors Organic Market, Folgers, Frito Pie Pie, JAKA 扎咖, Jeremy Wood, JUE 觉 Creative Market, Kenya, Lamburger, Mandeling, Maxwell House, Minotaur, nitrogen cold brew coffee, Pecandrogynous, Pie Day Fridays, Rager Pie, Ragerhaus, Starbucks, whole wheat crust, Wilson Hailey, Yirgacheffe, 狂聚派 Rager Pie | 4 Comments »

Drool-Worthy Homemade Pies & Ice Cream by Rager Pie

The most popular person at last year’s Thanksgiving party was the girl who brought a Rager Pie in hand. And she wasn’t the only one who turned up with a Pumpkin Pie or some kind of sweet dessert, but after sampling through everything, Rager was all anyone talked about.

What is Rager Pie? When did it open? How did she know about it? Is she friends with them? How can we get more?!

Along with everyone else who was lucky enough to snag a bite before it was devoured, I was hooked.

It was love at first bite

Since that first brief encounter, I never forgot about Rager Pie. Though I’ve seen and tasted more of their pies since Thanksgiving (thanks to fun community events like JUE 觉 Creative Market and Farm to Neighbors Organic Market), I had yet to visit their storefront on Fensiting Hutong (next to Zhang Mama, just west of Fangjia Hutong after crossing Andingmen).

Pie Master Wilson Hailey (L) & Barista/Ice Cream Genius Jeremy Wood (R)

But after seeing these two very catchy videos all about their 3rd wave coffee and new JAKA 扎咖 nitro iced coffee (and surprisingly nothing about pies), I decided to pop on in to Rager Pie to chat with Master Pie Founder Wilson Hailey to find out what’s been brewing at Rager Pie.

LDS Snapshots of Rager Pie:

Cozy Pie & Coffee Shop

Pie Display Showcasing both Savory and Sweet Pies

Art on the Wall Promoting Local Artists Available for Purchase

Trying to avoid the unexpected summer showers, I quite happily settled in at Rager Pie, ready with both my appetite and a list of 20+ questions for Wilson to tackle over coffee and pies. And after warning Wilson up front that I’m not a coffee drinker (aside from my occasional Bulletproof Coffee aka coffee butter shake) and was surprised to hear a reply I’ve never heard before – “Perfect, that’s exactly what we want”.

 

As I carefully watched Rager Pie’s Barista Jeremy Wood prep the coffee equipment, I quickly got out my camera to document Wilson in coffee-action. I don’t speak coffee lingo (and, boy, is there a lot of lingo for coffee), but they thoroughly explained where their beans are sourced, how they’re purchased through a bidding process, what 3rd wave coffee means, and the importance of giving their coffee pours TLC – checking exact temperatures, wait times, pour speed and pour amount levels that all must be precisely measured. All these elements affect the taste and effect of the coffee and I knew then and there that I was in the presence of truly professional, passionate baristas.

The result was shocking and completely unexpected. Nothing like the coffee I always saw my dad drinking every morning growing up, this coffee was more like a more potent red tea in both appearance and taste. Though the Kenya beans we tried started off with a sharper taste while it was piping hot, it got a lot smoother as the temperature cooled.

During the cooling process, in-house barista Jeremy Wood poured me a petite glass of their recently released nitro ice coffee cleverly named JAKA扎咖. Smooth and refreshing, this took coffee to a whole new level for me. There’s no sharpness like the hot coffee and apparently the nitrogen helps the high-levels of caffeine better absorb into your bloodstream. But be careful, it’s been nicknamed liquid cocaine after an avid coffee consumer downed two glasses far too quickly for his own good and freaked out after feeling the strong caffeine kick.

 

Barista Jeremy Wood Pours a Perfect Glass of Nitro Iced Coffee, JAKA扎咖

Between sips of the cooling hot coffee and the nitro cold JAKA Wilson gave me the whole background of his transition from Austin, Texas to Beijing, how he supplemented his studies with translating jobs and script writing for a Chinese TV series (his fluency in Mandarin is astounding) and how a few rounds of raging Thanksgiving dinners with friends somehow took an unexpected turn into a brilliant entrepreneurial concept started by himself (狂聚主) and his wife Emilie (派主) that just keeps growing and growing as Beijingers can’t seem to get enough of that coffee and those pies.

Pie Master Wilson Hailey Shares his Rager Pie Story

LDS 1-on-1 with Rager Pie’s Wilson Hailey

LDS: What is your earliest pie memory? 

WH: Thanksgiving. Chocolate Pecan Pie. 30+ family members. Pies are generally tied to holidays and gatherings and dinner parties, and thus emotionally nostalgic. I love that aspect of what I do.

LDS: Tell us about the best pie you’ve ever had.

WH: That’s hard to say. I recently visited my brother in Maine, and he made me a vegetarian version of my Frito Pie Pie. It was an awesome surprise, and that sentimental value so tied in with pies may make it the best I’ve had. 

LDS: What inspired you to create Rager Pie? 

WH: At first, it was friends pestering me into it since they couldn’t get their hands on affordable, quality, American pies during the holidays. But really, it started in earnest last September once I realised my old Rager Pie inbox was filled with requests from strangers, and that there may be something to this crazy concept.

LDS: What is your mission for Rager Pie?

WH: I suppose we should come up with an official Mission Statement. For me personally, I hope to not only bring more pies to the expats in Beijing and more pie awareness (my new favourite phrase) to the Chinese market, but also to create a space where people can walk in and feel comfortable enough to chat with strangers. That’s the main appeal of having such a small space — bringing people together, and over pies and coffee no less!

These Guys Are on A Pie Sharing Mission

LDS: Where does the name Rager Pie come from? And your logo?

WH: Well. I used to live in your classic Beijing hutong bachelor pad — 2 stories, rooftop patio — which was aptly dubbed the Ragerhaus. That’s where this all started, and the name just stuck. 

I need a better story for the minotaur logo, but, it amounts to a mistake. I clicked the wrong button on the website I was looking at. I think the juxtaposition of a greek-mythlogoy-slash-slightly-satanic-punkish minotaur head with premium pies and coffee works out pretty well though!

Minotaur Totally Goes with Pies & Coffee

LDS: What sets your pies apart from other pies? 

WH: We use whole wheat crust. It throws some people off because they expect the average flavourless fluffy nonsense. Whole wheat adds a texture and a depth of flavour that’s much more difficult to attain with your average pastry. We use vodka in all our crusts. One of those “tricks from grandma” that makes things a lot easier. We source local and organic when possible and feasible, although we refuse to use that as a selling point because it’s too misleading these days with all the marketing hype behind those words, and there’s no way for all our ingredients to be local or organic. Suffice it to say, we use the highest quality ingredients we can get our hands on. This is my business and my reputation at stake after all.

That Crust Though… 

LDS: A lot of your crafty pie names sound like they come from inside jokes. Can you fill us in on the stories behind “Empie儿”, “NTKo Banana/Coconut Cream Pie and “Chicken is a Color” Pie? 

WH: Empie儿 (Empire) was the name chosen from a whole slew of punny pie names (Your Pieness, Pie in the Sky, etc.). NTKo is a sophomoric joke. It stands for “Not That Kind of”. I’ll let you fill in the rest. Chicken is a Color is more embarrassing. “Red is a Color” was the filler text on a menu design I had purchased, so we used “Chicken is a Color” as a proxy name, but, unfortunately, had to go to print before we could decide on something better.

Not That Kind Of…

LDS: Which is your best selling sweet/savory pie? 

WH: Sweet: Pecandrogynous or Chunky Punkin’. Savory: Empie儿 or Lamburger

The Savory Empie儿

Inside Peek Reveals a Pie Packed with Flavour

LDS: Which is your personal favorite sweet/savory pie? Why? 

WH: Chunky Punkin’ is perfect. I wouldn’t change it if I could. I really enjoy the Frito Pie Pie. It reminds me of home, but in a bizarre new form that I take a strange pride in having made.

LDS: Always experimenting with new pie recipes and creations, what pies can we look forward to seeing on your menu next?

WH: Peach Cobbler? Cherry? Some kind of Chinese inspired pie? A CakePie? A PieCake? It’s all up in the air right now.

Testing a Batch of Blueberry Pies (aka Blue Balls)

LDS: What is PieDay Friday and why does everyone have pie on their face? 

WH: We wanted to do something more interesting than your average Buy One Get One special, so we figured we would let people pie each other, film it in slo-mo, and call it Pieday Friday. We had no idea it would take off like it has, but it makes sense. We’re toying with the idea of selling it as a therapeutic treatment for feuding couples!

 

Pie Day Fridays!

LDS: More than just passionate about pies, tell us about how you’re able to convert non-coffee-drinking people into coffee ragers? 

WH: Coffee has a lot more depth to it than most people realise. That depth also lends itself to being incredibly pretentious. We try to ride the fine line between, by challenging people who don’t like the taste of coffee to explore a few different single origin pour overs. Every region, every variety, every roast has a different flavour profile that a skilled barista can pull out, and the sad thing is that most coffee on the market these days uses over roasted beans because they last much longer. Those without the taste for charred muck shy away from something that has so much potential. It’s pretty fun to see people go from “Oh… I don’t drink coffee…” to “Holy shit! This is good! Almost like tea!”

LDS: And what do regular coffee drinking fiends think about your coffee vs Starbucks or whatever it is that they normally drink?  

WH: Most coffee fiends have already started branching out and learning more about the stuff they’re addicted to, and the general consensus seems to be that we go toe-to-toe with some of the big names in major western cities. We’re lucky in that we have access to amazing beans and amazing roasts. We appreciate these fiendish customers, and make sure to suggest other coffee shops in Beijing that we respect, because they’re already on that path of exploration. The most fulfilling though, is watching that lightbulb click when people try our stuff, and our excitement about coffee infects them.

LDS: What is 3rd Wave Coffee?

WH: 1st wave is WW2 mass produced stuff given to soldiers for that caffeine kick. Think Maxwell House or Folgers. 2nd wave is the consumerism model. Think Starbucks, Tim Horton’s, and other large chains. They can’t improve their coffee due to size and scale restrictions, and therefore must over-roast the beans in order to make them last longer and maintain a standardisation of flavour. Enter 3rd wave coffee, your small batch, scientific approach to the growing, roasting, and brewing of coffee, with the ultimate goal being to bring out the natural fruit flavours of any given variety of bean. 

Forget Folgers & Starbucks, it’s all about the 3rd Wave Coffee

LDS: You give the coffee you serve a whole lot of TLC. Can you walk us through the steps of each coffee pour? 

When coffee beans get into the hands of a barista, there’s only so many things she can manipulate to bring out what the growers and roasters intended, in terms of flavour. These are: 1. water temperature 2. fineness/coarseness of the grind 3. length of extraction 4. ratio of water to grounds. 

Pour over coffee is generally regarded as the method for brewing that gives the most control over these 4 aspects, although they exist in any form of coffee brewing, from espresso to aeropress to cold brew, etc, etc. Each of which has their own nuanced methods for achieving the best brew.

LDS: Sourced from all over the world, currently where are your coffee beans from? Why particularly from those places and are you looking into beans from other parts of the world? 

WH: The roaster we use have a founder whose sole job is to travel the world visiting coffee farms and bidding on raw beans to bring back to Shanghai for roasting. As of today, we have beans from Kenya, Mandeling (Indonesia), Yirgacheffe (Ethiopia), Costa Rica, Colombia, Nicaragua, Brazil, and Sidamo (Ethiopia). These change from season to season or even month to month depending on what our roasters are able to get their hands on. I wish I knew more about what they look for in their growers, but I know the geographical location and altitude play a big role, as well as whether the growers are willing to adhere to more stringent methods than those used by larger, more commercial farms.

Though they’ll almost always have the Mandeling, Kenya and Yirgacheffe, this Coffee Bean List will change seasonally

LDS: What is this new crafty iced JAKA coffee? 

WH: JAKA扎咖 is a term we coined for cold brew coffee, put into a keg, and then tapped with nitrogen, so it comes out almost like a nitrogen beer, such as Guinness. In the rest of the world, it’s known as “nitro cold brew” and is a truly fascinating method for consuming coffee. Cold brew is already at a high concentration compared to other methods of extraction, and the nitrogen apparently helps the body absorb more caffeine. Plus, the cascading body looks awesome and has a smoother mouth feel.

This JAKA 扎咖 Video Explains All!

LDS: Where do you see Rager Pie in 2 years time? 

WH: We are looking to expand, but the last thing we want is to overreach. We plan on taking things slow and nailing our core products and services. That being said, there’re always new opportunities cropping up, so who knows what we will look like in 2 years!

LDS: Top 3 drinking/eating destinations in Beijing?

WH: Was Park, Homeplate, Dan Wei. I’m a dirty huntongster through and through. There are too many places that do good work though. I actually bounce around a lot when I have the time and energy.

Pies are a Delightful Treat when You’re on the go!

Head over to The Hutong’s Summer Fayre this Sunday, June 7th to sample Rager’s Nitro Iced JAKA Coffee and signature pies along with a bunch of other local crafty foods!

Also! Word on the street is that Rager Pie is planning some pie giveaway deals in celebration for the Fourth of July! Stay tuned for deets! In the meantime, head over on Fridays for your pie face-off and their awesome 2-for-1 pie deal!

Rager Pie Contact Details:

• Address: West of Andingmen where Fangjia Hutong turns into Fensiting Hutong. Fensiting Hutong #10 (neighboring popular Zhang Mama Sichuan restaurant)

• 分司厅胡同10号

• Tel: + 86 18600031390

• Email: ragerpie@ragerpie.com

• Website: www.ragerpie.com
  

• Daily Hours: 7AM-9PM (but closed on Wednesdays!)

DON’T RAGE ALONE!

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