Irish Aeropress Championships coming to a Cork City café this week
Bakestone Café and Pantry on Perry Street will host the Irish AeroPress Championship brewing competition on Friday, August 29.
A new café in the heart of Cork city is set to host the Irish Aeropress Championships, marking the first time that the national event will take place in Cork.
Bakestone Café and Pantry on Perry Street will host the fast-paced brewing competition on Friday, August 29.
Now in its twelfth year, the Irish AeroPress Championship, organised this year by Badger & Dodo, will draw some of the country’s most skilled coffee makers to Cork.
Speaking to the about the upcoming event, Neil Muscheidt, general manager of Bakestone, emphasised the importance of hosting the event in Cork and positioning the city as a coffee destination.
“Badger & Dodo have hosted the national Irish Aeropress Championships for the last two years, and when I heard they were hosting it for a third year, I asked them could we host in our lovely new café, and more importantly, in Cork, because Ireland has been holding the competition since 2013 and it has been held predominantly in Dublin and a couple of times in Galway, so, never in Cork.
“Not only is it a massive win for the coffee community, which is a very engaging and informative group, but a great opportunity for people outside of Cork to get down and try many of the great coffee shops in Cork, to showcase what Cork has to offer.
“That's why we're going to run the event on a Friday evening, in the hope that anyone coming down to compete or to watch the event will spend the night in Cork or make a weekend out of it and not only to visit us, but all the beautiful cafés here in Cork.”
Explaining how the competition will work, Muscheidt said: “There are 36 competitors and they are sent a bag of coffee each by Badger & Dodo, because they're sponsoring it this year. They won't know what's in it, they’re just given a 250-gram bag of coffee and told to make their recipe from it.
“Generally, you can play around with the recipes. That's what this is all about. You'd be looking at around 15 grams of coffee. So, you know, you've got, like, 12 to 15 shots to make it right and that’s it and then the next time you get that coffee again is on competition night.
“So you come here, they give you the same coffee, and you're like, well, I know my recipe now, and I know what I need to do. So, it's three people going head-to-head at a time. They're given eight minutes to make their cup, and then it's put in front of three judges. They blind taste it, and choose the best, and that brings the next person on to the next round.“
The winner of the competition on the night will be selected to represent Ireland at the World AeroPress Championship in Seoul this December, and will have flights and accommodation for three days covered, which Muscheidt described as “a big deal”.
Bakestone officially launched its new location on Perry Street earlier this year, marking its first expansion into Cork city centre 12 years after first opening its doors in Carrigtwohill.
Founded by husband and wife team Joe and Maura Carey in 2013, Bakestone began with a simple idea: to create a space serving great food made with local ingredients.
The popular eatery in Carrigtwohill has expanded from a humble 55-seater café to a bustling 200-seater destination in that time and the new café on Perry Street features dishes that have become favourites at the original location, all made from scratch each day.
Muscheidt said the Bakestone team is “very happy” with how things have been moving in the past few months since opening their doors on Perry Street.
“Our midweek lunch trade has become very consistent. From 10am, the room is pretty much full, and then at 2pm, it kind of tapers off again. Saturdays are also quite busy, as well as Sundays.
“We invested heavily in a scratch bakery about two years ago. So a scratch bakery is exactly as it sounds. We're making everything from scratch, nothing bought in pre-mixed, nothing frozen. We are doing everything. So, our bakers are up at 3am, starting their day to get all the bits ready for here in the city at 8am - our beautiful croissants, pain au chocolat, all the pastry range, plus all our cakes.” Going forward, Muscheidt wants to shift more focus to the morning takeaway coffee trade.
“We are open from 8am and we have an excellent barista and excellent standards of coffee, so we want to see more people coming in for their takeaway coffee and our pastry range,” he said.
As well as creating a bustling lunchtime environment in the café, they have branched into the events space, recently collaborating with Opera Lane to host a fashion show brunch as part of Cork on a Fork festival, with the hope of hosting more events going forward, including the upcoming Aeropress Championships.
The opening of the café also brought 18 new roles to Bakestone’s growing team, led by head chef Pat Kiely and front-of-house manager Heather Doody.
“We’ve built a beautiful team here. We had a lot of people come in for interviews, and wonderful people, and we had 18 roles to fill, which we have. And I think we picked the best people, because everyone is brilliant, people from all walks of life, a very diverse group, and we're all merging well,” Muscheidt said.
Bakestone is open from 8am daily, serving speciality coffee along with breakfast, brunch and lunch seven days a week.
Limited spectator tickets are still available for the Irish Aeropress Championships at Bakestone this Friday evening.
To purchase tickets, visit here.
