{"id":249937,"date":"2026-04-28T17:53:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T17:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/249937\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T17:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T17:53:10","slug":"bulls-and-brews-by-the-bay-celebrates-one-usf-the-crows-nest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/249937\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulls and Brews\u00a0by the Bay celebrates \u201cOne USF\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 \u2013 The Crow’s Nest"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Cole Maines<\/p>\n

Brews and eats set a jovial tone on the USF St. Petersburg campus as President Moez\u00a0Limayem\u00a0addressed students and alumni at the Bulls and Brews\u00a0by the Bay event on April 17.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This marked\u00a0Limayem\u2019s\u00a0fifth trip across the bay,\u00a0a concerted effort from the university\u2019s new leader to try and understand the tasks that lay ahead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI promised to hit the ground listening, so listening on three campuses and just hearing the good things that we do and some of the concerns and challenges,\u00a0and we\u2019re addressing them,\u201d\u00a0Limayem\u00a0said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bulls and Brews by the Bay emphasized \u201cOne USF,\u201d bringing together and celebrating scholarship recipients, current\u00a0students\u00a0and alumni.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not just a fundraiser. This is a celebration,\u201d President\u00a0Limayem\u00a0said. \u201cThis is something that brings all of us, all of us are here to celebrate, to be together and to send a message to our community, to our state, to the world, that USF is stronger with the three campuses.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The significant alumni presence included association leaders, co-leaders of the LGBTQ Alumni Society, Ronald\u00a0Kennedy\u00a0and Robert Wallace. They\u00a0seek\u00a0to attend events like these to organize and\u00a0establish\u00a0a community of current and former USF students that can share their experiences.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to try and organize and get alumni more involved in understanding that\u00a0there\u2019s\u00a0a sense of community that they should appreciate and try to become involved with.\u00a0Because we come from\u00a0different backgrounds,\u00a0engineering\u00a0and medicine, we also offer some perspectives on what those schools looked like back then and what\u00a0they\u2019ve\u00a0evolved into, and what the school has evolved into,\u201d Kennedy\u00a0said. \u201cWe try to tell everyone, tell the alumni who are interested in belonging, of course, there is value in feeling like you\u2019re part of a USF family.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Current student and scholarship recipient Victoria Phan appreciated the alumni involvement at the USF St. Petersburg Waterfront and the connections and opportunities it offers students.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really nice to put name to face, just to see how the local community has come to support specifically the St. Petersburg students,\u201d Phan said. \u201cI\u2019m\u00a0really appreciative.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0great seeing how people invest into the future of students and academia. I really love the beautiful community.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of the vendors at the event was the brewing bulls of\u00a0Mastry\u2019s Brewing Co. and the USF Brewing Arts program. At their booth, they poured the new USF Pilsner and \u201cGreen and Gold Lager\u201d in support of alumni and to contribute to the St. Petersburg craft beer community, as well as highlight the opportunities they offer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s community involvement,\u201d Matthew Dahm, brewing arts instructor and founder of Mastry\u2019s Brewing, said. \u201cIt\u2019s a way to support and give back to the program and the university.\u201d Professor and Director of the Brewing Arts program, Joe Askren,\u00a0described how the university came together with the craft brewing industry to create the program and why they wanted to be at Bulls and Brews by the Bay.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe program was jumpstarted by USF connecting with local breweries here in St. Pete. They wanted to have people coming out of a program that were educated on the brewing industry,\u201d Askren said. \u201cYou have your craft brewing companies that are here today that really help to spark other industry. Brewing helps create culture in cities in towns\u00a0all across\u00a0the world.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Program alumni and current Mastry\u2019s brewer Brian Brown sought this opportunity to share his interests with others at the event.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBeer is a social gathering. Even people that drink lightly, everyone has a few beers and starts talking and hanging out,\u201d Brown said. \u201cCraft beer brings people together to either try new things or to try things you love.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other vendors included local breweries like 3 Daughters, Green Bench, Grand Central, Bayboro Brewing, Great Bay Distributors\u00a0and Mother Kombucha.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything is welcoming. The culture is welcoming, everyone is super nice,\u201d Abraham Barnes of Green Bench Brewing said. \u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0nice; a little hot, but\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0in Florida.\u00a0Can\u2019t\u00a0complain.\u00a0Good food. Good Beer. Everyone\u2019s chilling.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n


\n\t\t\t\t Post Views: 63 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\"More<\/a>
Written by: Cole Maines<\/a> on April 28, 2026.
Last revised by: Julia Ferrara<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Cole Maines Brews and eats set a jovial tone on the USF St. Petersburg campus as President…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-249937","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-st-pete","9":"tag-st-pete-headlines","10":"tag-st-pete-news","11":"tag-st-petersburg","12":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","13":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}