In 1989, Phil Bannatyne opened Cambridge Brewing Company in Cambridge, Mass., with a monumental mission “to teach people what craft beer could be,” he said.

Over the next three decades, Cambridge Brewing introduced patrons to spiced pumpkin ales and robust barley wines. Regulars filled seats from lunch to last call, sometimes visiting four times per week.

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But as the brewpub grew older, its clientele dwindled and wasn’t replaced by younger drinkers. That, compounded by declining foot traffic, fewer office happy hours and growing competition, spelled the end for Cambridge Brewing. On Dec. 20, Mr. Bannatyne, 68, closed the business and retired. After a 35-year run, “we accomplished our mission,” he said.

Robinson’s history of comments that have been widely criticized as antisemitic and anti-gay made him a deeply polarizing figure in North Carolina long before his bid for governor was upended last week by a CNN report that he had called himself a “Black NAZI” and praised slavery while posting on a pornographic website between 2008 and 2012. Now, some of his allies are abandoning him. Most of his senior campaign staff members have resigned. The Republican Governors Association said that its pro-Robinson ads would expire tomorrow and that no new ones had been placed. And former President Donald Trump, who endorsed Robinson in the spring, calling him “Martin Luther King on steroids,” did not mention him once during his rally in the state over the weekend.

The creativity and proliferation of craft breweries has permanently expanded America’s beer fridge, from bland lagers to bold I.P.A.s and barrel-aged stouts. Today, the majority of Americans live within 10 miles of a brewery, according to the Brewers Association trade group, with the number of producers ballooning from just 89, in 1978, to 9,906, in 2023. As a result, the craft brewing industry employs around 460,000 people nationwide.

ImageAt Cambridge Brewing Company, the brewmaster, Will Meyers, left, and founder, Phil Bannatyne, helped introduce beer drinkers to barrel-aged barley wines, spiced pumpkin ales, Belgian-style ales and other boldly flavored beers.Credit...Sophie Park for The New York Times

“What better story of the American dream is there than all these breweries?” said Josh Deth, who founded Revolution Brewing in Chicago in 2010.

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