Country Boy honors late Merle Haggard on beer can

The news hit Country Boy’s warehouse crew hard: Country legend Merle Haggard had died. On the road. On his 79th birthday.

So Thursday morning, as warehouse worker Steve Caudill was firing up the canning line, he added a memento: a date stamp on the bottom of cans of Cougar Bait that read “R.I.P. Merle.”

“The guys in the back in the house … are big country music fans, and it wasn’t planned, but it just happened,” said Daniel Harrison, one of Country Boy’s owners. They texted him a photo and it just felt right so they went with it.

So Country Boy posted it on Facebook, and the phone started ringing off the wall at the Lexington brewery.

“We’ve had a bunch of people calling, saying that they want them,” Harrison said. “We didn’t think it would be such a hit.”

They should have, if their own tastes are anything to go by. The warehouse likes to crank up the country music while they can beer. Their favorite Haggard songs? Daddy Frank and Mama Tried, both known to make strong men sniffle a bit as they stare mournfully into their beer.

“Got a lot of Merle fans in this part of the world,” Harrison said.

For the record, there are about 2,800 six-packs of Cougar Bait with the memorial stamp on them, making their way to stores.

Or, Harrison said, you can stop by the Chair Avenue taproom “and ask for the Merle can.”

This story was originally published April 7, 2016 at 2:47 PM with the headline "Country Boy honors late Merle Haggard on beer can."