Eleventh Stop - Rahr & Sons Brewing Co.

One visit just wasn’t enough for me. Monday afternoon I went by the brewery in Fort Worth to interview and have a few beers with Fritz Rahr, the brewery’s founder. Although wonderful I had to be sure to make it back Wednesday evening for the open house brewery tour.

In the interest of full disclosure before anything else I should mention that I harbor an extraordinary bias when it comes to anything Rahr. While in college at TCU in Fort Worth I was a regular at the Saturday afternoon Rahr brewery tours and a frequent “sampler” of their products. Rahr’s was also my first American brewery tour when I was of legal drinking age. Because of that, the fact that Rahr is “proudly brewed by a Horned Frog” (fellow TCU alum), and my nostalgia for college nights drinking it on my apartment’s patio with friends, Rahr will always be one of my favorites. There you go; I’m a big, biased fan.

Monday the focus of much of my conversation with Fritz was on the last ten months of Rahr’s operations. Or rather, non-operation for much of it. On February 11th 2010 Fort Worth received 12.5 inches of snow in slightly under 24 hours. I wasn’t keeping track but I would be SHOCKED if that didn’t double how much snow fell in Fort Worth in my four years there. North Texas is used to the occasional sleeting, maybe even a little ice here and there on cold nights. 12.5 inches of snow though? Even a seasoned Iowan like me thinks that would be miserable.

Fritz was supposed to be meeting one of his brewers to get a new batch of beer going on that fateful morning but in light of the snow called and told him not to come in. While still in the five o’clock hour a call came in from Rahr’s alarm company to alert Fritz that the brewery’s sprinkler system had activated; he needed to get to the brewery as soon as possible. Worried about his business he hopped in his car and turned on the radio. On the way he heard reports of damage around the city and started putting two and two together. Massive amounts of snow. Sprinklers running. A flat roof. It could only mean one thing, the roof had collapsed overnight under the weight of the snow.

He arrived at the brewery he had poured so much of himself into over the last five and a half years and was greeted by firemen who were ripping down the overhead door to get in. The damage was catastrophic. In some areas the only thing holding the roof up at all were the fermentation tanks.

The call he received about sprinklers had been more than accurate. They, along with a broken water main, had poured over a foot of water into the brewery. The cooler was crushed. The bar was destroyed. Their bottling line was ruined. Some fermentors were damaged. The list, of course, goes on and on, and on.

Despite how it sounds so far, this really isn’t a tail of defeat. Rather it is a story of rebirth. Rahr worked with Farmers Insurance (about whom Fritz only has the best things to say) and rebuilt. In the four/five months of non-production the brewery created a new identity for itself with new labels and a new logo. They also changed some things about their overall brewing setup they would have liked to have done anyway and a new tasting bar was built that backs up directly to their new cooler.

Even when not producing beer the staff of Rahr was hard at work with one of their partners, CGC marketing, to create a viral video series titled “what brewers do when they’re not brewing. It stars Fritz, and Rahr brewers Austin Jones & Jason Lyon and if I may say so myself, is very funny.

Here is a link to view all ten of the videos.

Now Rahr is happily back in full production and is continually expanding capacity. I’ll be talking about all things Rahr in the book. That will include the rest of my non-roof related conversation with Fritz, A bit of my chat with a former plumber/current Rahr employee, the origins and history of Rahr, and tales of my trip out to the brewery Wednesday night with some old college friends.

Up next I’ll be at the Diamond Bear Brewing Company in Little Rock, Arkansas.