A well-placed source who knows their finances told me that MacLeod Ale, which has been in business at 14741 Calvert St. in Van Nuys since 2014, will soon shut down for good.

I was an early supporter of the brewery, having found out about its impending opening when I worked at the Hollywood Farmers Market and saw someone walk past with a “MacLeod Ale, Van Nuys” t-shirt.

I lived in Van Nuys. I published a blog about Van Nuys. I stopped the man wearing it and asked.

“My friends Alastair and Jennifer are opening it next year. Do you want to meet them?” he asked. 

I went with him to their house in North Hollywood and met them. They served me their British cask ale, unlike anything I had drunk before. It was warm, nutty, dark, low alcohol. I wasn’t sure I liked it, preferring higher alcohol, IPA, cold beer. 

But I was enthusiastic about MacLeod Ale. It was a light development in the darkness of Van Nuys, a new place making something, a spot for community, a birthplace of a unique Van Nuys institution. 

I saw some of the grueling hard work that went into building it. The concrete, the machines, the tanks, the labor, the building up of something where there had been nothing. 

When they opened there might have been five beers, all brewed on cask, maybe some nitro, I can’t remember. I just remember that there were people socializing, everyone nice, amiable, good-natured, throwing darts, eating peanuts, coming into the brewery every night for a pint. 

There were families with kids eating pizza or food from trucks, and drinking beer, and kids running around, and parents enjoying themselves. There were old people, young people, people of every background, nobody was an outsider. 

I told Jennifer, one of the owners, about a brewery in Minnesota where customers bought “memberships” and soon she had a beer for life program, now memorialized in chalkboard, hanging on the wall, of all the founders who spent $1,000 each to fund MacLeod Ale. 

Despite my enthusiasm for the brewery, I honestly don’t drink that much. I went there once or twice a month and drank a couple of beers. But every time it seems I had a great time, a thoughtful conversation, a chance meeting, a human experience. 

The exhausting work that went into the enterprise, the hours that made this brewery possible, which created a destination for music, games, food and culture cannot be duplicated anywhere else in Van Nuys. 

MacLeod Ale survived the pandemic. They opened another restaurant in Highland Park which didn’t last long. They went into debt. They have loans. Even though they do bring in crowds, in recent months, the writers and actors strike has doomed their business which is down 20%.

Why do fine things like MacLeod Ale have to die? Is there nobody with a lot of money and a lot of heart who can step up to rescue them?

We need MacLeod Ale more now than ever, as a communal, kind place to talk to human beings face to face.