Owners of Cosmic Cup to Start Brewery in the West Ward's Mt. Vernon Ale House

The Mt. Vernon Ale House, on the corner of S. 6th, 

Walnut and Northampton streets in the West Ward.

Posted by: Noël Jones


How many times have we all walked past this beautiful early 1800s ale house, peeked through dust and film on the windows to make out all the cool historic details like the curved wooden bar, the vintage cash register, or the antique telephone operator's switchboard from the days when it was a hotel? And how many times have we said to ourselves and each other, I wish someone would buy this place, restore it and turn it back into an ale house...

Troy Reynard behind the bar at the Mt. Vernon Ale House

Well our wishes have come true! Troy Reynard and his wife Kathy, owners of Cosmic Cup on College Hill, closed on the old ale house recently after bidding on it at a sheriff's sale, and they plan to start a brewery and call it the Two Rivers Brewing Company. "It's high time that beer was brewed on this hill again," says Reynard, referring to the history of brewing on the hill, from the Kuebler Brothers who owned the Mt. Vernon for decades and served their own brew, to Dan Weirback who opened the Weyerbacher Brewery in the '90s in its first location just behind the Mt. Vernon, in what is now a warehouse belonging to Dyke's Lumber, before moving out to their current Line Street location. Reynard does not look like your typical businessman, with his many tattoos, and his mohawk neatly tucked beneath a baseball cap. But he understands the value of marketing, and he is sporting a brand new Two Rivers Brewing Company t-shirt, while his hat reads Cosmic Cup.


How did this all happen? Well, Troy and Kathy were at the Ommegang Beer Fest in Cooperstown last summer with their friends of many years, Brad and Judy Nelson, "just bullshitting--we've been friends for 20 years, traveled with them many times. Everywhere we ever went, we would go looking for brew pubs--we've probably been to over 100 pubs together over the past 20 years." Brad Nelson is a prolific home brewer, and over the years the friends had seen the good and the bad, the successful, and the special. So it was perfectly natural when someone said in Cooperstown, "You know, we should start a brew pub."
"But that was just talk," says Reynard. "Over the fall, Kathy and I were actually focused on trying to open a second Cosmic Cup in Allentown...but something just didn't feel right. The City of Allentown didn't show us any love, and it's 15 miles away, which would mean a lot of driving back and forth. So after we started having second thoughts--sometime in December--Kathy said, 'Let's open a brew pub!'--and so we started learning as much as we could, and writing a business plan." 

Part of their research included a three-day seminar in Chicago at the Siebel Brewing Institute, one of only two brewing institutes in the U.S. Their friends Brad and Judy agreed to be partners in the endeavor, and they started looking for possible locations, originally considering the Eagles Club in Forks Township. "We entered preliminary talks but couldn't come to an agreement with the owner...and then this place became available," Reynard says, gesturing up at the intricate 1920s tin ceilings, catching the early evening light. "I'm a firm believer that if you can really visualize something, you just have to wait for the pieces to fall into place."

"When this came up on a sheriff's sale, I couldn't believe I was the only bidder." Troy and Kathy bought the four-story building for just $125K. "But we'll probably have to put in three times that, over time." 

 He takes me upstairs on a tour of the building, and everything is covered in a thick coat of dust, both from age and from demolition. The walls have been gutted to the studs by the previous owner, and rubble is everywhere. "It's actually a great starting point," says Reynard, surveying the floor, "because all the plaster was already removed, and he kept all the good doors and stuff." I ask him if he only feels excited when he looks at the upper floors, or whether he ever gets overwhelmed, because I am both fascinated and overwhelmed as I take it all in. "Excited, mostly, because we've put together such a good team. Kenny Porter is the 'construction liaison'--he has a lot of experience restoring old buildings and will be overseeing everything--and finding the contractors. Jeff Martinsen, who's on Easton's Historic District Commission, will be our architect, and Caitlin Laskey who helped Kelly Jo Ditze with Black and Blue, will be handling the interior design part, and she has a master's degree in historic preservation." They have also incorporated the local talents of Preston Hindmarch at Aardvark Graphics, who designed the brewery logo.


So when might it open? I ask, standing in the the stained glass turret looking down on the intersections of Northampton, Walnut and 6th Streets. The sinking sun is beginning to glance off the buildings at the crest of the hill, and I realize that here in this turret, must be one of the highest points in Easton. "We're hoping to phase it in--we're back to square one--we're going to have to go through codes, zoning and planning. The second floor will hold the brew kettle, which cooks the wort, the lauter tun which filters it, and the hot liquor tank, which just flushes hot water through the other two. Then the  first floor will have the fermentation tanks, where the beer will ferment for seven to eight days until it's ready to serve.We're in the process of getting a liquor license through the LCB, and it could be six to eight months before we can sell a pint of beer here. In the meantime we will begin installing HVAC, electric, sprinklers, as soon as the plans are approved." In six to eight months I will drink a beer here...


I ask him what, specifically, the new brewery will offer. "I think all our beers will be named something to do with Easton's history--like our flagship beer is going to be Getter's Island Pale Ale," he explains, referring to the infamous hanging of Charles Getter on Gallows Hill, near where the ale house sits. "In addition to the pub, we will have a restaurant serving as much farm-to-table food as possible from local farms. It will be a brew pub, not a bottling facility, so we will brew beer for consumption here, and we will also put it in kegs, which we could sell to other local pubs like Porters' Pub, Black and Blue and Pearly Baker's to sell on tap." Troy and Kathy are good friends with the Porter brothers, as well as Kelly Jo Ditze, and he says they are excited to become part of a triangulation that will be good for all three pubs, and good for the West Ward and downtown as well, because the Mt. Vernon anchors the midpoint between the downtown and West Ward restaurants and pubs. "Easton is a beer town--we have a great history of brewing here--we've had the Kuebler Brothers, the Seitz Brewery, and the Bushkill Brewery--then came Weyerbacher in 1995, continuing the tradition. And we've always been known for having great pubs."


I had heard that previous entrepreneurs had had trouble with the building because of a lack of parking--does that concern him? "Not at all," Reynard shakes his head. "That's what everyone said when I opened Cosmic Cup, and we've experienced growth every year. If you offer a quality product and great service, people will find you. Craft beer is the largest sector of growth in the beer industry--up 5% last year, while the major breweries were down 3%. There were 20 more openings than closings of craft beer pubs in the country last year. The great thing about the location is that it's totally walkable from either direction, from downtown and the West Ward, and it will be an attractive destination for people who like craft beer."


I tell him how glad I am as a resident that he picked the Mt. Vernon in our neighborhood, instead of the Eagles Club in Forks. He shrugs and says, "The best pubs have a tendency to be in historic buildings. It's an honor to be a steward of this building--because you never really own it, you just have it for as long as you have it. Our goal is to restore it...I'm happy to have the opportunity to make this a focal point of the neighborhood again."


As I'm leaving, I notice one of his tattoos, on his lower leg--a branch with leaves and what looks like red berries. Coffee beans, I ask? "Coffee cherries," he corrects me. So will he be getting a tattoo of hops now? "I think I may just have to," he smiles, pulling up a sleeve to show me some unmarked skin, "I've got a bare arm here."