The proverbial “Last Call” for a popular Akron brewery will be March 3.

But truth be told the end of the line for R. Shea Brewing in Akron’s Merriman Valley and Canal Place came months ago.

The smell of beer and the fermenting process still lingers in the air inside R. Shea’s cavernous manufacturing facility and taproom and restaurant inside Canal Place in downtown Akron even though they stopped making craft beer some two weeks ago.

Owner Ron Shea said he tried to trim costs where he could and even launched a GoFundMe campaign to try to save the business, but in the end it was simply time to call it quits.

The one thing he didn’t want to do was close the doors abruptly and leave his loyal employees and customers in a lurch.

So he notified everyone over the weekend that the two locations would close in two weeks − giving workers the chance to begin to look for jobs elsewhere and customers the chance to raise a glass of their favorite brew one last time.

“A lot of our workers are students and they live paycheck to paycheck − I had to give them two weeks notice,” Shea said.

What led to R. Shea closing its two Akron locations?

Business was brisk back in R. Shea’s humble beginnings as a small brew pub in Akron’s Merriman Valley.

When it opened in 2015, the craft brew business was booming and on an upswing with more and more brew pubs popping up across Ohio.

Shea said he was riding the boom, too, with all the bar stools and tables full and demand stretching the limits of just how much beer he could make.

Back then there was a growing demand for R. Shea’s beer to be canned and sold in stores and even in other bars.

With the economics back then it simply made sense to take on more debt and expand to bigger digs in Canal Place where he could have a second taproom and produce more craft beer.

Shea said things continued to hum along nicely and then the COVID-19 pandemic hit and everything was out of whack.

First there was the uncertainty of when the taprooms would be able to safely reopen.

Then came the labor shortage and a demand for higher wages to keep workers.

And at the same time, there were crazy price fluctuations for everything from toilet paper for the restrooms to groceries for the restaurants and supplies to make the beer.

Shea said something else was amiss.

It happened slowly, but customer tastes started to change, too.

The demand for craft beer at grocery and liquor stores dropped off.

He said his craft beer found itself crowded off the store shelves by other products like pre-mixed alcoholic drinks.

The distribution side of the business has fallen by as much as 30% in just one year.

For a while, the taprooms and restaurant side continued to hum along nicely.

But starting last year, it too began to slide.

By last month, the taproom and restaurant slice of Shea’s business pie was down by some 40% compared to the year before.

This all caused him to do some soul searching to see if maybe he was the problem.

In talking to others in the craft beer business, Shea said, his financial concerns are not unique as others are seeing softness in demand.

And in the end, Shea said, after many sleepless nights the numbers just didn’t add up to be able to stay afloat.

Why is R. Shea going completely out of business?

In spite of the difficult numbers, Shea said, the Merriman Valley location was still operating at a profit.

But it too will still have to close.

In order to get the business he started in the garage of his home off the ground, Shea said, he had to take out a series of loans.

It was these same loans that helped him grow the business that ultimately led to its demise.

Shea said the loans have variable interest rates that have continued to climb at the whim of the economy.

So as revenue from the distribution and taproom side of the business shrank, the interest rates climbed, pushing his monthly loan bills higher and higher.

The tipping point came in January when it became clear he was no longer going to have enough money to continue to make payroll and his loan payments at the same time.

Since both locations are tied to the same loans, Shea said, he is forced to shutter the entire operation and brand, liquidate everything and declare bankruptcy.

“I feel bad I couldn’t figure this out,” he said. “There just was no solution.”

What’s next for Ron Shea and his beer recipes?

Although he holds biology and chemistry degrees and is a self-proclaimed “almost” masters in polymer chemistry, Shea said, he doesn’t expect to don a business suit anytime soon.

It will take a while to dismantle the business that took some two decades to build.

After that is all settled, Shea said, he’d like to stay in the craft beer business.

He has some 1,000 recipes for craft beers R. Shea has produced over the years so he isn’t discounting the possibility that some of these brews might be resurrected under another label some day.

“I’d like to stay in the industry,” he said. “I like to think I’ve learned a lot over the years.”

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Why did R. Shea Brewing shutter Akron operations