Maine dealerships brew up an idea for a new craft beer

A Maine craft brewery and a family-owned dealership group have collaborated to create a beer, but thankfully it doesn't have a new-car smell.

The Scotch ale, called Hight's Tin Can Sailor, is being produced by Bigelow Brewing Co. in Skowhegan, Maine, to honor the Hight family's 110th year in auto retailing.

The name is a reference to Navy destroyer crews during World War II. Kirby Hight, whose father founded the group in 1911, was captain of the USS Babbitt, a destroyer that operated as a convoy escort in the North Atlantic, before returning home to the family business.

The group, which has four stores in central Maine, is donating $1 from each Tin Can Sailor purchase to the Skowhegan Free Public Library. The beer is being sold at a local store, several restaurants and the Skowhegan State Fair.

The library is an institution Kirby Hight and his wife, Grace, were passionate about, so "it seemed appropriate to choose this organization as the first beneficiary of Tin Can Sailor," said their grandson, dealer principal Sam Hight.

The Hight Family of Dealerships says it is the only group in New England recognized by the National Automobile Dealers Association as having been owned by the same family for more than a century.