I Won’t Run Far — Saying Farewell to Massachusetts’ Cambridge Brewing Company
“I hope in 10 years I miss it all terribly, but I think regardless what I’ll feel strongly about is not only the joy we created in 35 years of the brewpub but the fact that we were very lucky to be able to choose to leave.”
— Will Meyers, Brewmaster and Co-Owner, Cambridge Brewing Company
Friday, December 20, 2024 — 11:40AM
Light snowflakes drift listlessly through the Friday afternoon air in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A thin film of white coats the sidewalk in a snowy blanket. Christmas and Hanukkah are less than a week away. Empty city buses are winding through the dense streets in patient silence, passing unlit windows, one after the other. The vast majority of this usually bustling neighborhood is wrapping up the year’s final tasks. There’s a dreamlike quality to the day.
The short walk from the street to the front door of Cambridge Brewing Company reveals a hum in the air. Voices are audible against my damp footsteps, and though the office park looks all but deserted, light emanates from a small corner on the Northeast side. A spark among a grey landscape. It is the brewpub’s last day in business, and the community has come to say their goodbyes.
Beginnings are much to be spoken of and celebrated. Grand openings, expansions, all the anticipatory excitement of what might be is always welcomed with fanfare. What of the endings, though? They are transitions all the same, yet they move in a different way—sometimes solemn, sometimes angry, others silent or even triumphant.
Where do we put the feeling of something coming to an end? Can it be celebrated? Can something be saved in a form that truly captures how it existed, especially when that thing belonged to many different people in many different ways? These questions sat heavy in my mind over the fall of 2024, in light of the knowledge that the storied Cambridge Brewing Company would be closing their doors permanently just before Christmas.
To frame the story of Cambridge Brewing Company (affectionately known as ‘CBC’,) we have to rewind 36 years to 1989. The world of American Craft Beer was barely a living thing, and certainly one that hadn’t yet found its sea legs. With the exception of pioneers like Ken Grossman of Sierra Nevada, Jim Koch of Samuel Adams, and a handful of others, there was very little happening in a country that drank largely for utility over intrigue.
Photography by Gene Buonaccorsi
Phil Bannatyne, a California balloon salesman with a homebrewing passion decided to go all in on a brewpub and restaurant. His aim was true: serve exceptional food and innovative beer in a modest, welcoming environment; do it with humility and intention. For his project, he set his sights across the country to Cambridge, Massachusetts—home of the internationally renowned educational institutions of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT.) What Bannatyne couldn’t have known at the time was that he and his team would quickly have to juggle two impressive, overlapping personas simultaneously—one as pioneers of countless American brewing innovations, and the other as cultivators of a uniquely timeless community space.
The years have made it hard to summon an exact memory of the first time I set foot inside CBC. I could conjure up a romantic false narrative, but the honest truth is that my early memories of it are amorphous. More of a feeling than a distinct occasion.
I moved to the Cambridge area from a rural town two hours away in 2009 to attend college. Although I was 18 and legally prohibited from drinking, a few older friends helped facilitate my growing interest in the world of craft beer. When I reached the magical age of 21, my excitement exploded just as the industry did the same in America. My thirst for knowledge and new sensory experiences was insatiable. I would walk into the beer shop with no concept of what exactly I was looking for, then walk out with an armful of bottles with little clue of the lifelong path I was setting myself on.
““It’s always been about more than just the beer.””
What I remember most about my early visits to CBC is how versatile of a space it was. A brewery, but also a restaurant and a bar. A place to enjoy incredible beer as much as it was a place to bring a date or gather with friends on a night out. Most of the time I spent there during my early 20s was spent drinking massive, affordably priced “towers” (an oversized, communal plastic serving vessel with a plastic tap at the bottom) of whatever the cheapest beer on the menu was. It was the consistency and approachability that first stuck with me.
CBC’s General Manager of over 10 years Laura Peters found a similar path to the business. “I'm old enough to say that my background is in beer, but I started here when I was 22. So at the time all I knew was that Pabst Blue Ribbon was $2 a bottle,” she tells me. “But it’s always been about more than just the beer.”
As she reflects, Laura moves quickly to talking about the unique warmth the space created for the people of the community. She tells stories of students from the local universities that found the brewpub and became regulars, then came back as professors with their own students in tow. She mentions a couple who met at the brewpub then eventually went on to get married, holding their rehearsal dinner at CBC surrounded by friends and family. When Laura and I spoke, the brewpub was just a week from closing, and the mood was reflective.
“I always knew it meant a lot to a lot of people, but now every day people are telling me their stories,” she says. “This is where they came to meet friends, to go out for drinks in college, and then built relationships around people they met here.”
Her words resonate with me in ways I couldn’t have imagined. I sink into the memory of being a young adult with hardly a path in life, looking for spaces that felt like they had meaning. Every visit to CBC was like coming home to somewhere that was always in motion but hardly changed. As I began my career in the local beer industry my visits continued but with a broadening perspective. In time, I grasped the importance of what I had been experiencing.
***
“Every chapter comes to a close, and this one is coming, so there's satisfaction in that.”
— Phil Bannatyne, Founder and Co-Owner, Cambridge Brewing Company
Friday, December 20, 2024 — 11:58AM
I pull the door open and enter the room along with a gust of snowflakes. The clock reads a couple of minutes before noon, and the bar is already full. The beer list remains robust, despite Bannatyne and his co-owner, brewmaster Will Meyers, telling me that they weren’t sure what kind of inventory would survive the final week. Flower Child IPA, CBC Amber, and 2024 Cerise Cassee from Meyer’s solera project are still pouring, along with a few other selections across the spectrum of styles. I rest my jacket on a hook and survey the faces in the crowd. A few familiar ones from the local beer industry stand out. Among them I sense a weight that nods to the milestone of the day. An undercurrent to the muted waves of joy that fill the room.
In the weeks leading up to CBC’s final day of service I’ve seen many a heartfelt social media post about making a final visit, having a final pint, and singing a few final praises for what the CBC team has created. Pictures on a digital bulletin board speaking together in a chorus: “we came to say goodbye.” To be here on their final day feels like witnessing a celebrated athlete’s retirement. A communal send-off, and a collective raising of glasses. Over the years CBC’s space felt largely timeless, even permanent. Imagining that it will be gone in mere hours imbues a need to capture it before it’s gone.
Days before CBC’s last day in business I sat at a table in the back of the restaurant with Phil Bannatyne and Will Meyers. It was just after lunch and the brewpub was about half full. A reserved sense of contentment mixed with nostalgia hung in the air, thanks to the constant influx of fans and peers that had come through in the month prior. “We just had our second best week in the history of the business,” they tell me. So why shut the doors now? The answer is as simple as it is challenging: it’s time. After 35 years in service, the team was ready to take a step back, feeling that their job is done. The consensus was to hang their hats on what they’d achieved and walk away proud.
Ever since announcing their impending closure in August 2024, CBC had been on the receiving end of much praise for their impact on the beer industry locally, nationally, and internationally. At the brewpub they had been reflecting by reprising fan favourites from Chef David Drew’s menu over the years, and releasing celebrated beers like Will’s Great Pumpkin Ale.
“I walk around and I'm feeling very nostalgic,” Phil says. “The idea that, in fact, this is coming to a close saddens me. Because what we’ve built here is really kind of special. Over all of the years, the relationships that have developed here, the ideas that have been shared… it’s community, and that’s what Will and I are most proud of.”
Whether they’ll sing their own praises for it or not, CBC was a constant in a neighbourhood and city that seemed to be in a perpetual state of reinvention. Their marquee goal of providing excellent beer and food at a reasonable price has never faltered. Laura recalls it in Phil’s words: “At every front of house meeting we've ever had, he talks about his three pillars of what makes this place go. It's having quality, integrity, and value.”
Even early on, the company grasped the importance of sourcing locally for their food menu, reducing their environmental footprint while celebrating seasonality by working directly with local farms and producers. Chef David’s menu became known for its exceptional quality without the frills or prices of fine dining. Behind the scenes, CBC supported local charities and hosted community organisations. They played a part in building up those around them, without the self-importance that often comes with those efforts.
““Over all of the years, the relationships that have developed here, the ideas that have been shared… it’s community, and that’s what Will and I are most proud of.”
”
“We always really sucked at self promotion in that way, but we always did it because we just felt it was the right thing to do,” Phil says. “Actions speak louder than words. These are good things, and we sleep better at night.”
This sense of morality and purpose emanated from the brewpub for years, and the undeniable truth is that people noticed. As other restaurants came and went, CBC kept steady guests, often from all walks of life thanks to the combination of academia and industry that surrounded the brewpub.
“There’s something really special about our clientele. There is a certain level of quirkiness to a lot of them,” Laura tells me. “You know, there's no pretentiousness, so you don't feel like you need to be a certain way to start talking to someone. We try to just welcome everybody in, and it's like, well, what do you have to say?”
As my conversation with the owners slows down, Phil jumps from his seat to hit the service floor (“they’re getting slammed out there.”) Over the course of the next hour I watch him running full trays of dirty glassware, checking in on guests at tables, and hustling a ladder through the tight space behind the bar to change a lightbulb. Laura tells me that Phil is a constant in the restaurant, even at times when an owner would be well within his right to rest.
“On Fridays he plays a round of tennis in the morning, then he’s here from the lunch rush through dinner,” she says. It’s often said of the best leaders that they’ll never ask their people to do something they themselves wouldn’t. There is a trusting care evident in the leadership mindset of Phil, Will, and Laura. Even as guests spill in to congratulate them on their achievements, they’re looking to do the next job, and do it well.
***
“It feels good knowing that we always worked our asses off and did our best to make sure that we did everything the right way.”
— Will Meyers, Brewmaster and Co-Owner, Cambridge Brewing Company
Friday, December 20, 2024 — 12:30PM
I slowly savour my way through a glass of Flower Child IPA, hoping that my pace will cause the afternoon to stretch on a bit. Like so many others who have sat at this bar, I feel the subtle guiding hand of a slight buzz put me into an introspective and observational state of mind. Laura has three taps pouring at once, holding two glasses and keeping a watchful eye on the third while laughing through a conversation with someone sitting a few seats down. She’s working the bar alone, sticking paper ticket after paper ticket onto damp glasses waiting to be poured as she moves through a seemingly endless backlog of orders. All the while she’s masterfully holding three conversations at once with bar guests: “I expect it’ll be this busy through the end.” “Are you ready for another one?” “You can take your time, I’ll check back in.”
Phil brushes past with a pizza in each hand, headed for a large table of what can only be office workers from one of the pharmaceutical companies that has gradually moved into the neighbourhood. The room is full of conversation, fewer faces shoved into phones than you might expect, and a mild aura of escapism. Meyers stands at the end of the bar and a small huddle seems to follow him as he moves from conversation to conversation. Fellow brewers and long time fans longing to give him one final compliment, despite what I can only imagine is a hesitance to be celebrated on his part. An acquaintance of mine walks by and we catch up for a moment. “I moved to my apartment more than ten years ago so I could be around the corner from CBC,” he tells me with a laugh. “What am I going to do now?”
It feels absolutely essential and yet simultaneously daunting to write of Will Meyers’s impact on the world of North American brewing. He joined Phil’s operation in the early 1990s when CBC was just getting started. At the time he was a homebrewer with a desire to learn and seek feedback. His drive was levied with a curiosity that translated to how he shared his beers with others.
“I don't think there's any conflict between running a brewery that tries every day to make world class beer and running a restaurant that serves as a focus point for the community,” Will tells me.
That’s exactly what he did over the past three decades, introducing countless guests and drinkers across the country to his groundbreaking recipes. “I think one of the reasons we were successful in getting people to try and maybe even embrace a lot of those beers is that we always worked hard to make everything accessible,” he says. “We always worked to make sure that everything was of value. If we were trying to explain to people what a spontaneously fermented fruited lambic was [...] our staff were always really well educated on how to explain that this barrel-fermented very sour beer with cherries was not a cherry-flavoured beer in the way that people may be expecting.”
The breadth of Will’s accomplishments over 30-plus years is far too vast to list in full. His numerous awards from beer competitions adorn the brewpub like trophy room decorum. In 2017 he was presented with the Russell Schehrer Award for Innovation in Brewing by the Brewers Association for his creative efforts, most notably in the realm of wild fermentation. A part of that recognition, no doubt, was due to his work establishing the country’s first consistently maintained solera project, then fostering its growth for over 20 years.
Inspired by Spanish winemakers, Will began the CBC solera in the early 2000s. This meticulous process involves removing a specific proportion of liquid from a set of barrels of various ages to blend and serve. The removed portion is then replaced with freshly made liquid that will age along with the remainder of the barrels. The solera itself becomes a living thing; an ever changing blend that captures a moment in time that will never be replicated every time it is sipped. CBC’s annual solera release, Cerise Cassée, is one of the cornerstones of American wild beer production.
With Phil off attending to customers, I asked Will to show me the notorious barrel cellar. For years, I’d heard of this nature-defying space—a small corner of a basement where some of the industry’s most mind-bending beers fermented and matured. We exit the dining room through a door towards the back and enter an industrial white-walled staircase with faded metal handrails. He leads me down to the lowest level, where we emerge into a low ceilinged room with fluorescent lights that (at first glance) illuminate a set of dry goods storage racks and the unmistakable shining silver door of a refrigerated keg room.
“It’s a bit tricky from here,” he tells me. “You have to step up but also duck so you don’t hit your head.” I nod and follow him in stepping onto a knee height wooden ledge, revealing a section of the room that is shaded in darkness. We move backwards into the building and I carefully follow his instructions to avoid the black pipes that weave in a puzzle at forehead level. Within a few seconds we emerged into the small, completely hidden alcove where so much history of American wild beer was born.
By now all but six barrels are gone, leaving a dirt floor partially covered by wooden pallets, spelling out what once rested atop them. Meyers recounts the way they built out this barrel ageing fortress to include rows of oak stacked two high—over 80 barrels in total—meanwhile I try to take in the magnitude of the space while admiring the history of it. It was here that beers like the award-winning Brett Grisette and their legendary bourbon barrel aged barleywine, Blunderbuss, were born. Though there’s nothing awe-inspiring about the cellar space itself, I can easily picture the creative energy that the room would take on in its heyday.
Even as I consider the weight of the lore that the space around me holds, I find myself in awe of the effort that must have gone into it. Imagining how one would even get a heavy oak barrel through the course we just navigated bends the mind a bit. I can’t help but think of the contrast drawn by CBC’s peers, some of whom have entire buildings dedicated to barrel ageing with ceilings and roll up doors high enough to drive a scissor lift through. It’s not to say that one is better than the other, in legacy or in liquid, they simply tell of different journeys. And CBC’s journey makes sense when hearing Will talk about the perspective on growth that he took over the years.
“We kind of intentionally kept the CBC brewery as a small, manual, hands on, craft-driven space,” he says.
““We always worked to make sure that everything was of value.””
When I ask about the remaining barrels, Will explains that they hold the beer from his 20 plus year solera project, and there is not a final plan for them as of yet. As North American beer culture has matured, the term “solera” has grown to be used liberally—describing beers that are produced using similar or loosely inspired processes. In his calm, direct tone Will affirms to me that the solera at CBC has always followed the specific standard outlined by the wine producers that pioneered the method. Tracked and measured to a tee.
I offhandedly ask how the data is kept, fully expecting that it’s an Excel spreadsheet. “Notebooks,” Will replies. “And there must have been a year when I lost my notebook.” He gestures to a structural pillar in the basement where a series of figures and notes are scratched in black pen
Meyers’s path to creating the cellar at CBC is one of resilience, of resisting the temptation to let a few confines stop your motion forward. His ingenuity and curiosity led him to experiment with barrel aging and to start a solera program. The fact that his only option for doing so was by occupying the corner of the brewpub’s basement was never grounds to slow down. After all, if you want to get there, you have to be willing to step up and duck at the same time. There is much in CBC’s story that echoes the mindset of process over outcome. Like barrel-ageing, the best result comes when there is a curiosity and intentionality in the steps along the way. A willingness to face challenges or to fail, and a love of the opportunity to learn while pushing forwards.
It’s this mentality, perhaps, that has made CBC a jumping off point for so many successful brewers in the United States.
“I think about our extended family all of the time,” Laura tells me. “If you were to try to draw the genealogy, or that family tree of CBC and you're like [she reaches both arms out and points in various directions] and then you go over here, and then you go over here, and there's all these branches.”
Megan Parisi spent over seven years brewing at CBC in the 2000s before forging on, eventually landing in her current role as head brewer at the Samuel Adams Boston Taproom. Like most who have come through the doors, she speaks highly of her time at CBC.
“It was all about [...] becoming your own brewer but being able to put your stamp here as well,” she says, remembering her first original recipe under Will's tutelage—a bitter, piney IPA that clogged the heat exchanger due to over-hopping in the kettle. With a laugh, she remembers the joy of figuring out how to adapt and to use the brewery’s historic and labour intensive 10 barrel system.
By all accounts it has been Will’s generous teaching mentality that fosters this growth. As Phil says: “This has always been very important, and something that he considers paramount in his job description is to spread the gospel of good here and to teach people.”
Will, in turn, sees inspiration in what has sprung forward from his cellar, knowing that much of it will continue to live on beyond the last brew at CBC. “I'm happy when I feel like the people that have gotten their start here in CBC have gone on and surpassed what we do here,” he tells me. “Whatever path they've chosen, whatever beer style they've made their personal grail.”
***
“You know, there's yellow fizzy beer; there's dark, barrel aged sours; all of that in between. And we feel the same way about whoever walks through the front door. They should feel welcome. You don't need to be a beer snob to be in here.”
— Phil Bannatyne, Founder and Owner, Cambridge Brewing Company
Friday, December 20, 2024 — 2:30pm
My glass is nearly empty, and try as I might to justify another round, I know that there are other commitments pulling me away. In the hours I’ve spent sipping through my final beers at CBC, the room has continued to stir around me, and a crowd now hovers one or two people deep along the entire bar. Phil, Will, Laura and their staff seem unfazed, still moving with purposeful ease between pouring, serving, laughing, and giving attention to the many wide eyed guests.
I can’t help but imagine that there is no better note for them to go out on. A swan song played out over an afternoon and evening. What is happening here showcases everything that was beautiful about the brewpub; everything that made it special. The conversations among strangers that spring up thanks to proximity, and the joy shared by friends reconnecting. The excitement and appreciation for each balanced, delicious sip of beer, and each plate of wonderfully crafted food from Chef Drew’s kitchen. In theory, these things could happen anywhere, but it’s the consistency and approachability with which they happened at CBC that made for a special place.
I pay my tab, giving a quick goodbye to Laura and a wave to Will. I come from a family of long-winded farewells, and I choose to resist that urge. I want to exist in a world where this is just another day; to imagine that I’ll be back. It feels right to leave without ceremony. To let sadness win in the moment would cloud my final, pleasant memory.
It’s hard to put a finger on exactly how Cambridge Brewing Company’s legacy will take shape. There are many different ways that a lasting impact will be felt, after all. While Will is unsure of what his personal future holds, the world of brewing will miss his innovations through the CBC brand. A small piece of his work will live on, though. In the final days of the brewpub’s life, the word came out that Boston, Massachusetts based Castle Island Brewing Company had acquired the intellectual property of select CBC brands to continue producing them for the public.
I followed up with Phil, asking how this extension of CBC will compliment the feeling of satisfaction he had around the closing of the brewpub. “Now there are beers that will continue on and are an enduring example of that job well done,” he says. “I hope the beer is delicious and that it reminds [people] of all the great times they had in our pub.”
Catching up with Castle Island Brewing Company CEO and founder Adam Romanow he told me how excited to keep the Cambridge brand alive. “I'm a big believer in the strength of the Cambridge brand overall,” he says. “I love how the brand was built on quality, innovation, and community; three values they adhered to at an almost monastic level over their 35 years in Kendall Square.”
As for the enduring mark that the CBC brewpub will leave as a third space—a place of community and hospitality—one can only imagine that the lead-by-example paradigm rings the most true. Throughout decades of service, CBC, its founders, and their numerous team members lived the values that they wanted to see in the industry and community around them. The challenges of their labyrinthian brewing and cellar space, the wide variety of ages and demographics that made up their clientele, the explosion of the American craft beer scene and the eye-catching local competition that followed—these potential roadblocks were all just opportunities for the CBC team to double down on what they did best. Quality, integrity, and value. Keep it manual and hands on so that you can do it right.
To close the doors for the final time with those directives still intact feels like the ultimate victory for a brewery that was unlike any other, while inspiring and paving the way for so many. To put it in Phil’s own words: “I feel like we've done pretty much all it is that we set out to do, and done it really well, and that's a job well done.”
