Last night after beer chasers, we sat down for our normal post-run social gathering. We do this each week, and while the faces come and go, the core is always the same. People show up. People run, walk, barrel roll, swim, bike, or do something for 30 minutes. People drink the beer of our host, the Palouse Falls Brewing Company. People (eventually) go home. It’s a great excuse to go run.

But unlike each of well over a hundred previous weeks of this, this time it ended with an announcement. Announcements are nothing new, but normally they come at the beginning of the evening, not the end.

Normally, they are good news.

As of December 22, 2012, the Palouse Falls Brewing Company is closing its tasting room. Their lease expires in 2013 and without the option to buy, they cannot justify capital improvements needed to make the brewery really work.

As a beer drinker, this is devastating. There are two breweries in town today. Next year, there will only be one. It is not the one I would have chosen.

There’s a social aspect to beer. I have watched a local brewery fold before (Coeur d’Alene brewery closed just a few years ago under similar circumstances). This one hurts more. Perhaps it’s because I know the owners so well. Perhaps it’s just because their simple approach of making a good beer and letting it stand alone appealed to me. Perhaps it was just because when I was there, I was in like-minded company. While I can easily replace the beer with other alternatives, I won’t be able to replace the tasting room or the regulars within it. The closure leaves a hole in my life. I know I will eventually find a way to fill that hole, but for now I can’t even contemplate what it means.

All I know for sure is that I’ll be drinking less beer.