Schaefer Beer

Lore & Background

Schaefer Beer was first brewed in New York City in 1842 by the F. & M. Schaefer Brewing Company, which later relocated to Brooklyn in the early 20th century. The company went public in 1968 with a $106 million stock offering. That same year, to expand capacity for regional sales and compete with national brands, Schaefer began construction of a large modern brewery in Breinigsville, Pennsylvania, near Allentown. Known as the Lehigh Valley Plant, it opened in 1972 and was expanded from its original 1.1 million barrels-per-year capacity to 2.5 million in 1974, then to over 5 million barrels in 1975.

Despite producing more than twice as much beer in 1980 as in earlier decades, the gap between Schaefer and top national brands widened dramatically. In 1981, the Schaefer family sold the company to the Stroh Brewery Company. Stroh operated the Allentown plant until it was absorbed by Pabst Brewing Company in 1999. Two years later, Pabst sold the plant to Diageo, which in turn sold it to the Boston Brewing Company (brewer of Samuel Adams beer) in 2008. Pabst retained the license to Schaefer and, as of 2021, outsourced a reformulated brew sold in niche U.S. markets.

Schaefer sponsored major exhibitions at both the 1939 and 1964 New York World's Fairs, operating a restaurant called Schaefer Center that used beer as an ingredient. It was the official beer sponsor of the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1951 until the team moved to Los Angeles after the 1957 season, with an advertisement on the Ebbets Field scoreboard that lit up to indicate hits or errors. Foxboro Stadium, home of the New England Patriots from 1971 to 2001, was originally named Schaefer Stadium after the company paid for naming rights, one of the earliest known examples of stadium naming rights.

Reader's Guide

Schaefer Beer's significance lies in its long history as a major American regional brewer that briefly challenged national dominance. It ranked among the top five U.S. beers in both the 1950s and 1970s, and its aggressive capacity expansion in the 1970s—growing from 1.1 million to over 5 million barrels per year—reflected an attempt to keep pace with national competitors. The brand's legacy includes pioneering stadium naming rights with Schaefer Stadium (later Foxboro Stadium) and a strong cultural footprint in Puerto Rico, where it held the record for most unit sales in a year (13 million cases in 1979-80) and was well known among salsa fans. Its advertising slogans, particularly 'Schaefer is the one beer to have when you're having more than one,' became iconic. After a series of corporate sales—from the Schaefer family to Stroh, then Pabst, Diageo, and Boston Brewing—the brand survived as a licensed label, with Pabst outsourcing a reformulated version for niche U.S. markets as of 2021. The brand's trajectory illustrates the consolidation of the American brewing industry and the challenges faced by regional brewers in the late 20th century.