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Every professional athlete dreams of getting the chance to hoist a championship trophy at some point in their career, although that’s usually only just a tiny part of the celebration that ensues when you secure a momentous win.
In most leagues, locker rooms will be covered in plastic and goggles will be handed out to players to protect their eyes from the champagne that’s traditionally sprayed with abandon after winning a title—but that’s usually far from the only adult beverage that gets consumed during the postgame festivities.
Beer also tends to flow like the waters of Niagara Falls, and while it’s usually chugged right from the bottle or can, there are a few instances where it would be borderline foolish to not pour them into trophies that can accommodate a few brews by drinking it straight out of the piece of championship hardware.
It would take a very creative person to figure out how to turn the Larry O’Brien or Lombardi Trophy into a beer luge or dream up some way to do the same with the flag-adorned award handed out to the winner of the World Series.
With that said, there are a few trophies that are basically just begging people to drink out of them—and plenty of athletes have done exactly that over the years.
However, which one can fit more beers than any other? I decided to do a little bit of digging to find out the answer to a question you may not have even known you wanted to get to the bottom of.
Which sports trophy can hold the most beers?
You could probably figure out a way to play Dizzy Bat with a Silver Slugger award, but there are really only three notable trophies that are tailor-made for a solid drinking session.
Here they are ranked by their capacity.
The Claret Jug
The Claret Jug has been handed out to the winner of the British Open (officially known as “The Open Championship”) since it was first presented to Tom Kidd in 1873 (it had been commissioned ahead of the tournament the previous year but wasn’t completed by the time it wrapped up).
In 2022, Cameron Smith asserted he was planning to drink 40 beers out of the Claret Jug after topping the rest of the field at The Old Course at St. Andrew’s.
While it’s unclear if he achieved that goal, he was kind enough to confirm it could fit “pretty much exactly two” after getting the chance to conduct an experiment.
The Stanley Cup
There is arguably no trophy on the planet as iconic as the Stanley Cup, which has been awarded to the best team in the NHL since 1893.
Hockey players have dreamed up some creative ways to use (and abuse) it over that span, including bringing it out at a First Communion and deploying it as a bowl for their dog’s food.
It’s also been home to countless beers over the years, and Phil Pritchard—a “Keeper of the Cup”—has said it can hold 14 of them. However, the area of the bowl is purportedly 497 cubic inches, which means it could theoretically hold almost 23 standard 12-ounce beers (if we’re talking about tallboys, it would be closer to 17).
The Wanamaker Trophy
The fact that golf is one of the few sports you can play while drinking beer means it’s only natural that it boasts multiple trophies that serve as a vessel.
Brooks Koepka wasted no time using the Wanamaker Trophy for that exact purpose after winning The PGA Championship in 2023, and it was only about halfway full after he and his buddies poured 18 beers into it to commemorate his victory at Oak Hill Country Club.
As a result, it seems like we can confirm what Jason Dufner had to say when he told Howard Stern he was able to fit 43 beers in the Wanamaker after he came out on top at the major in 2013—which means it deserves a trophy for easily being the trophy that can fit the most beers.