Rahr & Sons Brewery plays April Fool’s joke on its fans

Rahr & Sons, Fort Worth’s wildly popular craft brewery located on the near south side, decided to play an early April Fool’s Day joke on its unsuspecting fans Friday —and had the last laugh.

About mid-morning, the brewery posted on its Facebook page that it would be hosting its final Tour & Tasting at the brewery, 701 Galveston Ave., on Wednesday, April 1, then shutting down its operations in a few weeks. Within an hour, some 300 fans had posted comments such as “It almost made me cry,” “I nearly had a heart attack,” and, “I just died a little inside.”

Rahr will have a commemorative going-out-of-business pint glass at the event, but it won’t be their last, assures owner Fritz Rahr.

Honestly, Rahr said, the idea to do the April Fool’s joke almost gave him a heart attack.

“My heart was pounding” when the post went online, he said Friday. The joke was the work of Jeff Wood at the brewery, who Rahr describes as their “goofy guy.” Rahr said he was just hoping the prank wouldn’t backfire.

“They all convinced me and told me people will notice the date, and if they didn’t right away they would later,” Rahr said. He said his blood pressure dropped 50 to 100 points within a few minutes of it going on social media when some of the Facebook comments started pointing out that the date was April Fool’s Day.

The brewery is doing just fine and expects to increase production by 20 percent this year to 22,000 barrels of beer, Rahr said. Rahr beers are sold statewide, but about 75 percent of its sales are in North Texas, he said.

Rahr said the brewery did notify its distributors about the April Fool’s prank, but word didn’t get to all of his investors, including one in Minnesota who was jolted by the news from a friend who saw the post.

This story was originally published March 27, 2015 at 2:12 PM with the headline "Rahr & Sons Brewery plays April Fool’s joke on its fans."