One of the oldest operating craft breweries in North Texas, Franconia Brewing of McKinney, is gone. The lights may still be on and beer may still occasionally flow on weekend tours, but the local brewery that the craft beer faithful have known for years is no more.
Franconia Brewing opened in February 2008 to a Dallas-area market that had not known local craft beer for a decade, and would not know even the beginning of the current robust beer scene for another four-plus years. It was only the second craft brewery of this current generation, and with Rahr & Sons Brewing of Fort Worth formed the lone poles of craft beer for the DFW Metroplex for many years before other ventures began to fill in the urban centers and suburban gaps.
This craft brewery began as the passion of Dennis Wehrmann, legit brewing royalty who would be a local beer celebrity anywhere other than the young and fickle North Texas craft beer market. A fifth-generation German brewer, he came to the US in 2003 and worked at the TwoRows brewpub in Allen until the opportunity arose to open his own small brewery a few years later. His vision was to produce classic Franconian styles adhering to the Old World traditions of the Reinheitsgebot, which he did successfully for some time.
The McKinney brewery thrived for many years as competitors continued to pop up in Dallas and its suburbs, and it did outlast many of these startups. Franconia even entertained the idea of expanding to a new brewery complex by their tenth anniversary in 2018. Such a move might have worked in the brewery’s favor as they continued to brew out of the original facilities they opened with, an innovative custom build that was efficient enough to operate with minimal waste and occasionally sold electricity back to the public grid. However, the facilities were relatively small and did not allow for any expansion of brewing capacity, a vital aspect these days if a craft brewery expects to grow and survive.*
Franconia Brewing seems to be fading away slowly like an elderly relative with a chronic illness.
Where the decline in the business began is difficult to say. One fundamental mistake may have been not embracing packaging (bottles, cans) to a greater degree from the start, as Wehrmann initially conceived his brewery after the German model of fresher and more direct serving of tap sales. European alcohol consumption habits center more around the public environment of pubs and biergartens for several reasons, with cans or bottles for the home less of a consumer market share. Especially as canning operations fell dramatically in cost and scale these past few years, the American craft beer market has largely preferred packaged product over the bar or taproom.
Unfortunately, the North Texas craft beer fans themselves may be partially to blame as consumer tastes eventually evolved beyond the old standards. What once were the bread-and-butter beer styles initially carried over to US breweries from their European origins fell short of an audience that moved past them to embrace more nontraditional, more experimental beers like massively hopped ales, tart kettle sours and overly sweet pastry stouts with double-digit ABVs. Sessionable dunkels, festbiers and weizens could not compete for interest and sales, and even as Wehrmann tried to keep up by brewing new IPAs and stouts it was not enough to turn the momentum. An Old World brewery like Franconia, steeped in centuries of tradition although but a few years old, was ill-equipped to adapt to the rapidly changing North Texas public tastes for shiny seltzers and other near-beer products.
In 2017, Wehrmann took on new investors and Arvind Sharma became President and CEO of Franconia Brewing, with Wehrmann sharing an ownership stake and staying on as the head brewer. Despite a long career in the hospitality industry, Sharma lacked any experience or understanding of local craft beer markets and the brewery foundered despite efforts to revitalize it. Then came the pandemic restrictions of 2020, which devastated everyone in the service and brewing industries, and Wehrmann finally sold his remaining stake in the brewery he created and went to work for Brain Storm Shelter brewing for their local Truck Yard locations, where he can be found today.
As for Franconia Brewing, they have continued to limp along these past few years with variable taproom hours and limited presence on social media. Further muddying the waters have been several posts found on public auction and real estate websites for the whole brewery, the plat, the building and/or the brewing equipment up for sale without any formal announcement or accompanying explanation from the brewery owners themselves. Communication is currently at an all-time low as it appears that the brewery is being sold piecemeal, weekend tours or not.
Only a few days ago, Franconia posted an announcement on Facebook that lacked details of any type that the brewery would be relocating, with promises of more information to come. Rumors have circulated that Sharma may intend to move the brewery to another suburb as a cost-saving measure, possibly purchasing an entirely new brewhouse better suited to his own intent and business goals. Wherever Franconia Brewing ultimately relocates—if it reopens at all after a move—it will no longer be the vision that Wehrmann once had. It may have the same name or logo, but a relocation at this point means a new brewery in total (and a wholesale rebranding would not be unexpected).
Unlike most local brewery closures that have a definitive announcement and closing date for loyal patrons to grab one last pint and taproom experience, Franconia Brewing seems to be fading away slowly like an elderly relative with a chronic illness. Whatever your opinion of this pioneering North Texas craft brewery, it deserves a better ending than this. PH
* In 2012, Franconia Brewing experienced the worst (and to date, the only) local industrial accident among Texas craft beer during a Saturday brewery tour when a pressurized tank ruptured, injuring two patrons. A clogged line was to blame as a fermentation vessel was thrown through an interior wall, spraying the space with partially fermented beer but missing most of the tour attendees. The injured parties recovered and a lawsuit ensued that was eventually settled with the details not made public, but overall this incident was not fatal to brewery operations.
