Schooner | Beers, Boats & Races

When I was growing up my father used to race sail boats, often schooners. The two biggest races were from Marblehead, Massachusetts to Halifax, Nova Scotia and the other from Newport, Rhode Island to Bermuda.

Although there were women crew members in later years, the early races were serious guy stuff. The crews would come home brown as beans with sun-bleached hair, rope burns and with plenty of stories of their adventures.

Arriving in Halifax, the crews would spend some time preparing for their trip back down South – and in the course of doing so would need to sample some of the local beverages- Schooner Beer, being one of them. My father saved a few of the cans over the years because he liked the drawing of the schooner. The can on the left is from the 1960′s and the right is from the 1970′s.

The current generation of Schooner Beer packaging. The label art has changed a bit, but the ship is the same.