Alan Andrews brews a coffee revolution

Podcast Ep 248: The Limerick-based founder of Old Barracks Coffee Roastery and the Guji coffee chain Alan Andrews is grinding forward with plans to scale.

There is something restless about Andrews, the founder of the Old Barracks Coffee Roastery and the Guji boutique coffee chain. This year he will open Grumble, a gelato and crumble bar in Limerick City and through his retail strategy and branding consulting, he will assist in the opening of Aviso in University of Limerick later in the Spring.

Andrews will be 10 years in business at the Old Barracks in April and he will kick off the Birdhill Coffee Festival in June.

He is also in planning to open a large scale roastery on the Dock Roadd in Limerick at the start of 2026 with a beautiful vintage roaster he sourced from Berlin and architecture designs are currently being finalised.

From bean to cup

We spoke to Andrews about his entrepreneurial journey and why Ireland’s taste buds are becoming more receptive to quality coffee in bespoke venues over large quantities of generic chains.

After graduation, Andrews first worked in the world of wine at Wines Direct and in the restaurant business with chefs like Conrad Gallagher.

His fascination with the business of coffee was initially stirred through a friend whose father was importing coffee from Milan. When he and his wife Lisa bought a hotel in Tipperary in 2003, the flavour of things to come took root. “I felt that the hotel needed something new and innovative. So we got a big fancy coffee machine and started buying coffee from my friend’s dad and we started making cappuccinos and lattes. And this was new for the countryside in Tipperary back then. And that was where I had an interest in it really, a kind of very naïve interest in making coffee.

“I bumbled my way into it and kind of fumbled around in the world of hospitality.”

Andrews was only 24 when he and his wife fell into the hotel business. “A friend of my dad’s had bought a hotel down the country and was looking for someone to manage it.

“We went down originally as managers and ended up committing financially to it … and losing considerably, eventually. So, that’s how I got into coffee because when that project fell apart, our first foray into opening coffee shops was when we got out of the hotel and we wanted to do something more manageable during the day.”

They began by opening coffee shops in Limerick and this coincided with the arrival of their daughter. “The way I looked at it was we’re all just playing a game, trying to make money and keep ourselves alive. I knew hospitality and we knew that coffee was a route, but we weren’t quite sure how this would marry up.

“But over time, the deeper you get into something you get a stronger appreciation for it and then you start to hack these things and figure out better ways of doing it.”

A richer taste

Around 2012, the journey into coffee took on a deeper meaning when Andrews visited coffee plantations and invested in training and education

He also studied the Irish market and noticed gaps in the market between coffee roasteries, coffee distributors and coffee shops. The gap was quality.

“There were lots of people importing coffee and coffee shops trying to perfect the skill of creating a product in a cup And I felt that what we needed to get involved in was the training and education part. That meant having to go deeper and learn more about it than anybody else. I needed to be one step ahead and get deeper. So I felt there was a gap between the product being offered and the solution the customer was getting. And there was an inconsistency in terms of what the customer was getting in terms of quality.”

Andrews went to study at the London School of Coffee, trained with the Roasters Guild of Europe, and got involved in the Specialty Coffee Association. This was followed by judging competitions and a relentless focus on understanding the entire supply chain from bean to roastery to cup.

In 2011, Andrews ran his first barista classes in Dublin and in that time he has noted how people’s knowledge and appreciation of coffee in Ireland has evolved. “When we ran our first classes I’d ask people what their favourite coffee was and they’d answer cappuccino or latte or whatever. In 2015, I asked a lady in the class the same question and she replied ‘natural, Ethiopian.’ And I was like ‘oh, we’ve arrived’. Not only did people have a preference in terms of variety but also in terms of origin and also the style in which the coffee is processed. This was mind-blowing for me.”

The Guji Coffee Chain was born in 2015 and is now at five locations. In 2018 Andrews began the process of roasting beans locally at the Old Barracks Coffee Roastery in Birdhill.

The learning curve, was however, quite steep and after roasting the business’s first batch of coffee beans, things nearly went a bit sour.

“Basically coffee needs to be roasted to a certain degree of being cooked. Unlike cooking a steak where you can see if it is rare or medium, the beans might look cooked but if it’s undercooked then the coffee will taste acidic because you didn’t release the sugars. It’s very hard to distinguish in coffee unless you’re very experienced at roasting. If you’re sending out €10,000 worth of coffee every week, you need to be three weeks ahead.”

The first batch was nearly the business’s last batch as customers complained at the time that it was undercooked and was jamming up grinders in shops. It was a salutary and expensive early lesson. But, with his customary curiosity, Andrews discovered how to roast correctly by changing fan and drum speeds.

“The biggest thing for us was that our customers trusted us. They trusted that we had made a mistake but they also knew that they could trust us to fix it. I thought at the time that I was actually going to lose the business and we would be left with nothing. But since then we have grown the business.”

A stronger blend

Andrews will be 10 years in business at the Old Barracks in April and he will kick off Ireland’s destination coffee festival in June at Birdhill for the second year running.

As mentioned, he is in planning to open a large scale roastery on the Dock Rd in Limerick at the start of 2026 with a beautiful vintage roaster he sourced from Berlin. The business will have around 60 staff by April.

In the past decade he feels the Irish coffee consumer has evolved. This feeds into Andrews’ retail strategy – consumers can grab a coffee either as a convenience or as an experience.

“There are people who can brew coffee at home better than most cafes can and that’s amazing. That’s how good the Irish consumer is and that means there’s nowhere to hide if you don’t know how to brew an espresso. You have to give the customer that actual experience because they will call it out and they won’t come back.”

You could say the ideal customer of the Guji chain would be a discerning buyer. “Most places will ask you do you want your coffee small, medium or large. We will ask you do you want it rich, medium or light. We aim for consistency. It’s about delivering flavours in a cup. They want the variety that they’ve learned. They’ve travelled, they’ve been around the world. They know the difference between a natural Ethiopian and a washed Guatemalan. They are seeking out those flavours.”

Andrews’ plan for his upcoming large-scale roastery is to build what he describes as the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory of coffee. “We’re going to take this education nationwide. There is going to be a huge emphasis on open source education, so people can learn the difference between rich, medium and light and see the roasting process for themselves.”