Tasting Tuesdays Series Begins with Craft Beer Entrepreneurs

East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania is proud to announce the launch of Tasting Tuesdays. The inaugural event, “ESU Innovates and Educates with Craft Beer Entrepreneurs” will be held on Tuesday, February 11 at 6 p.m. at the ESU Innovation Center, 562 Independence Road, East Stroudsburg.

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 story, a product sampling and ample time for innovative conversations.

The featured speaker for the inaugural event will be Alison Feeney, Ph.D., a professor of geography and earth science at Shippensburg University. Dr. Feeney is the author of For the Love of Beer: Pennsylvania’s Breweries, which was 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 has served as a member of the faculty at Shippensburg since 1998. She 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 impacts on coral reefs. She has been the recipient of thousands of dollars in research grants for her endeavors in brewing, geographic information systems, lionfish populations and coral reefs, and has presented at dozens of annual meetings and workshops.

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.

Joseph “Trip” Ruvane is the president and co-founder of Barley Creek Brewing Company, the Pocono Mountains’ original brewpub and restaurant. A graduate of Pocono Mountain High School and Hartwick College, Ruvane began his career in Manhattan as a corporate banker for National Westminster Bank PLC. While at NatWest, Ruvane learned to appreciate a “proper pint.” He also garnered the necessary business and financial skills to “stop the commuting” and plan his full-time return to the Pocono Mountains. Following his dream of creating a unique attraction in his hometown, Ruvane broke ground on Barley Creek in 1995 and built a new career by bringing the micro-brewing industry back to Northeast Pennsylvania. Thanks to Trip’s vision, Barley Creek has grown into one of the Pocono Mountains’ leading attractions, winning numerous awards for its food and beer including yearly recognition from the Pocono Chamber of Commerce. Ruvane is actively involved in numerous charitable endeavors. In 2019 he and his wife, Eileen, were named citizens of the year by the Tannersville Lions Club. In 2012 he served as the campaign chair for the United Way of Monroe County. The previous year, he was honored at the National Philanthropy Awards Dinner, where Barley Creek was given the Outstanding Corporation Award. Trip was the co-founder of the Great Pocono Wing Off in 1996 and has led Barley Creek in its support of a wide range of individual and organized 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. He is a frequent guest speaker for business, recreation and hospitality classes at Northampton Community College, ESU and Montclair State University.  He was appointed by the Monroe County Commissioners to serve on the Monroe County Workforce Investment Board, which plays a role in promoting economic development in the area.  Ruvane is the president of the northeast chapter of the Pennsylvania Restaurant Lodging Association and a PRLA board member on the state level.  He serves on the PRLA’s PLCB’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, Albert 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 Albert 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. This provided the perfect opportunity for Michael to step down and shift to his current work, overseeing the brewery side of his family’s businesses. Albert is an active member of the community. He 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 Pocono Mountains. Albert 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 alike.

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.

Both Linda and Randy are active in the community and support local organizations through volunteering and fundraising. Linda currently 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. Some of the community organizations they support include the Tannersville Lions Club, Chamber of Commerce, the Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau, Women’s Resources of Monroe County, Pocono Mountains United Way, Lehigh Valley Hospital-Pocono, St. Luke’s Hospital, Meals on Wheels, Camp Papillon, Quiet Valley Living Historical Farm, 1% for Nature, Sherman Theater, Summit School of the Poconos, Brodhead Watershed, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and Kettle Creek Environmental Education Fund.

“ESU Innovates and Educates with Craft Beer Entrepreneurs” 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.

Additional Tasting Tuesdays initiatives will be announced soon. 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.

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