Forgive me for feeling a bit deflated.

After working feverishly (or as feverishly as possible considering my "real" responsibilities) for a year and a half as a member of Pop the Cap, the North Carolina legislature passed a bill raising the alcohol limit on beer from 6 percent to 15 percent. This means that all but a handful of beers are now legal to sell in my fine state. And since I live in one of the most educated and affluent metro areas in the nation, most of those beers will be available right around the corner.

But that's not why I'm bummed. I'm bummed because the governor signed the bill on Saturday, when I was out of town. I didn't get to go out and celebrate our final success with all my Pop the Cap pals.

The reason for this confusion is that we didn't expect the governor to sign the bill. In North Carolina, a bill that passes the legislature becomes law with or without the governor's signature, as long as he (or she, theoretically) doesn't veto it. There is a 10-day waiting period (or a 30-day waiting period if the legislature adjourns before the 10 days are up), and we were all set to celebrate on Tuesday, August 16. And then the Guv threw us a curve.

Ah, whatever. In a month or two, almost the entire world of beer will be at my doorstep. No more trucking in six-packs from Virginia or Tennessee. This new law won't eliminate all beer runs, of course. Not all small breweries will send their beers to North Carolina, even with our more accommodating laws. But if I fancy a nice trappist dubbel or tripel, I no longer have to drive to Richmond to find one.

The story of Pop the Cap is long, involved and not particularly interesting to those uninvolved. The founders saw a need, they created an organization, they recruited people (like me) to join, and we all raised money to pay our lobbyist to convince the legislature to change the law. And then, lo and behold, the law was changed.

There were a few bumps in the road. We'd wanted the cap to be eliminated, and we got a modified cap with a labeling requirement. But 15 percent is okay, and I'm in favor of labeling beers with their alcoholic content (something that was illegal nationwide just a decade ago). I do pine for some of the still-illegal brews, of course, but they're legal in Virginia. One more reason to go on a beer run.

Still, for all the mundane facts surrounding Pop the Cap, our little crusade became something of a cause celebre. Every major newspaper and many of the smaller ones wrote multiple articles, and our bill received a number of editorial page endorsements. Most strangely, almost all of the press was strongly positive. We kept waiting for the media backlash, and it never came.

Maybe that's because we're all real people with real jobs that don't involve making or selling beer (though craft brewers and distributors of craft beers were among our strongest supporters). In other words, we were doing this for the love of beer. We are unusually passionate--evangelistic, some might say--about the virtue of "high gravity" (a brewer's term for "high alcohol") brews. And we opened our beer cellars to the world. We held tastings. Lots of folks came to find out that there's more to beer than Bud, Miller Lite and Coors. Not that Belgians, barleywines and bocks are everyone's cup of tea. They're not. But they're a fine counterpoint to the complaint (completely unsupported by facts) that raising the alcohol limit on beer would mainly result in a flood of malt liquors to the state.

Yeah, there were a handful of folks (the "Christian Action League" and a few--though not all--Anheuser-Busch distributors among them) that worked against us. But those people, with all their supposed clout, failed to completely derail the bill. We had a few setbacks (one of which saddled us with the cap and label requirements), but we survived. "It's about taste," we (and our lobbyist) kept saying. And, astonishingly enough, the legislature and the governor listened.

So I arrived home today to find my work finished and the parties over. I get a big hole in my life, and no final bash to officially mark the end of my work with Pop the Cap.

Or maybe not.

A number of Pop the Cap members are working to keep the organization together as a beer appreciation society and state trade organization. We haven't worked out the particulars yet--obviously. But keeping PTC alive does mean that we get to stay in the business of publicly promoting beer, something that a lot of us have come to enjoy.

Though thanks to our own work, one order of business will be much tougher to accomplish. In pre-law change days, members attending meetings were asked to share a bottle or two of beer that was not sold in the state. That list has just shrunk dramatically. Maybe we'll just ask people to bring a beer or two, regardless of legal status.

I think I can live with that.

Jon Worley is rapidly drinking down his stock of "not available in N.C." beers. He hopes to have plenty of room on his shelves when the first "new" beers start rolling into town in two weeks.