Craft beer entrepreneurs to launch Tasting Tuesdays series at ESU
East Stroudsburg. Tasting Tuesdays events will feature food, beverages, confectionaries, and condiments made in the Poconos. Each event will showcase the product's story and include a product sampling and time for conversation.
| 28 Jan 2020 | 03:44
Alison Feeney (
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East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania is launching its Tasting Tuesdays series with craft beer entrepreneurs.
The program will be held at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 11, at the ESU Innovation Center, 562 Independence Road, East Stroudsburg. The featured speaker is Alison Feeney, Ph.D., professor of geography and earth science at Shippensburg University. Feeney is the author of "For the Love of Beer: Pennsylvania’s Breweries," published by Atlantic Publishing in 2018. Her work on the state’s brewing industry has also been featured in publications such as The Pennsylvania Geographer; Cartographic Perspectives; Cities, Culture and Society; and Middle States Geographer.
Dr. Feeney earned her Ph.D. in geography from Michigan State in 2001, her Master of Science in geography from Portland State University, and obtained bachelor’s degrees in geography and history from the University of Connecticut.
The breadth of her work at Shippensburg has included teaching mapping and general education courses, researching the history and current growth of breweries in Pennsylvania, historic cartography of European settlements in the New World, and invasive lionfish in the western Atlantic Ocean and their impact on coral reefs. She has received thousands of dollars in research grants for her endeavors in brewing, geographic information systems, lionfish populations, and coral reefs.
Also presenting during the event will be regional craft beer ,entrepreneurs Trip Ruvane of Barley Creek Brewing Company; Michael Albert of Shawnee Craft Brewing Company; and Linda and Randy Rice of Mountain View Vineyard, Winery, and Brewery. They will share their creative and innovative approaches to entering and sustaining their participation in the brewing industry.
The craft beer program is supported by an Out of the Box grant funded by the Office of the Provost at ESU. The grant was awarded to Dr. Nancy VanArsdale, professor of English, Dr. Andrea McClanahan, professor of communication, and Dr. Stanley Li-Ming Chiang, associate professor of hotel, restaurant, and tourism management.
Tasting Tuesdays events will be scheduled throughout the year and will feature food, beverages, confectionaries, and condiments made in the Pocono Mountains. Each event will showcase the product's story and include a product sampling and time for innovative conversations.
For more information or to register for this event, visit esu.edu/tastingtuesdays or contact Dr. VanArsdale at npva@esu.edu or 570-422-3622.
Presenters:
Joseph “Trip” Ruvane is the president and co-founder of Barley Creek Brewing Company. A graduate of Pocono Mountain High School and Hartwick College, he began his career in Manhattan as a corporate banker. He garnered the business and financial skills needed to plan his full-time return to the Poconos. He broke ground on Barley Creek in 1995, bringing the micro-brewing industry back to Northeast Pennsylvania. Barley Creek has won numerous awards, including yearly recognition from the Pocono Chamber of Commerce. He has led Barley Creek in its support of a wide range of charities, including the United Way, Pocono Medical Center, Make a Wish, Christopher Reeve Foundation, The Red Cross, Monroe County Hospice, Junior Achievement, Pocono and Barrett Township Volunteer Firefighters, Tri-State Troopers, Barrett Friendly Library, Penn Security Charitable Foundation, Brodhead Water Shed, and Friends of Big Pocono. Ruvane is the president of the northeast chapter of the Pennsylvania Restaurant Lodging Association and a board member on the state level. He serves on the board's Alcohol Advisory Committee and is also a member of many professional and community organizations, including the Institute of Brewing Studies, the Pennsylvania Microbrewers Guild, Pennsylvania Distillers Guild, The Association of Master Brewers, the Pocono Mountain Chamber of Commerce, and the Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau.
Michael Albert is the chief operating officer of ShawneeCraft Brewing Company. Born and raised in Prince Edward Island, Canada, he holds a bachelor’s degree from McGill University in Montreal and a master’s degree from the University of Oslo in Norway. He pursued a career in the international health and human services sector, gaining over a decade of senior leadership experience with several organizations including Child Haven International, Right To Play International, the MENTOR Initiative and the United Nations, in countries such as Bangladesh, Mali, Azerbaijan, Malaysia, Liberia, Haiti and Thailand. In 2013 he moved stateside with his wife, Amy, a member of the Kirkwood family, owners of the Shawnee Inn and Golf Resort and ShawneeCraft Brewing Company. In 2015 he took on the leadership of the United Way of Monroe County as the organization’s CEO, a position he held until last year, when he organized a non-profit merger between United Way and Pocono Alliance, forming the Pocono Mountains United Way. His current work is overseeing the brewery side of his family’s businesses. Albert has taught as an adjunct professor in the department of public health at ESU. He is an active member of the Rotary Club of the Stroudsburgs, sits on the Smithfield Township Planning Commission, coaches youth soccer with FC Pocono, and plays in a rock-and-roll band, Lonesome Found, in bars and venues across the Poconos. He also sits on several non-profit boards, including as vice chair for the United Way of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, and treasurer for Come Alive Outside, an international non-profit based in Rutland, Vermont, dedicated to promoting an active outdoor lifestyle for children and adults.
Linda and Randy Rice took a trip to the Finger Lakes region of New York in 2003 and fell in love with grape growing and wine making so much so that they decided to try it on their own. They planted six varieties of grapes on a split rail fence on the driveway of their home in Stroudsburg. When those 70 vines flourished, they cleared four acres of land on their property and planted a vineyard. Linda, a graduate of ESU with degrees in business management and economics, had held positions in the financial services industry and pharmaceutical sales. Randy, who graduated from Temple, taught electrical technology at Lehigh Career & Technical Institute and Monroe Career & Technical Institute. They were ready to make Mountain View Vineyard their full-time work, and in 2009 they had enough grapes to start their business. Four years later they expanded their offerings, opening a distillery on property. In 2017 the Rices moved their business out of their home, and onto a nearly 100-acre farm. They've since planted an additional 12 acres of vines and have built a beautiful new winery with a tasting room with more than four times the space their home offered. That same year they opened a brewery on property. Linda serves as co-chair of the Women in Business Council of the Pocono Mountains Chamber of Commerce, is the former president of the board for Pocono Alliance, and received the Business Person of the Year Award through the Chamber in 2015. Randy serves on the board of the Monroe County Conservation District and the Lions Club, was named Conservation Farmer of the Year in 2018 through MCCD, received the Save Our Planet Award from the PMVB in 2014, and a number of other awards through the chamber from 2013 through 2017.