The Nine Best Beer Guts On The Screen

A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the enormous belly; it’s easy to have enough of beer. The folk at Canadian Club wanted us to remind you that there’s an alternative.

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Since the dawn of the silver screen, our televisions been graced by belly-after-belly — sometimes jolly, more often wisecracking, mostly entertaining men who enjoy a drink. As a member of the occasionally rotund beer brethren, I thought I’d take some time to re-introduce you to the true king of pop culture: the beer gut.

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Robert Baratheon (Game of Thrones)

Let’s start with some royalty. Everyone loves Game Of Thrones, and anyone who says they don’t is lying. That’s why it’s impossible to leave King Bob (affectionate title, of course) off this list. The incumbent ruler of Westeros when we arrive in book/season one, King Bob has a few years of peace and many more beers under his belt. His rule has been marked as much by feasts and revelry as a tenuous peace across his kingdom.

He had a good time while it lasted.

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Barney Gumble (The Simpsons)

Barney is the archetypal cartoon beer-belly: a gaseous and invariably lovable member of The Simpsons’ recurring cast. Though at times more mound than man, Barney is caring and creative, an auteur and almost always a good friend.

Despite often being misunderstood, in many ways Barney shows all that is good in man, and all that is good in beer, too. While his choice brew, Duff, isn’t the drink I’m sure we all prefer, in the end, Barney is nearly the ultimate gut.

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Danny De Vito (Batman, Twins, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia)

Danny De Vito is an enduring gut, delivering comedy to generation after generation of willing audiences.

His best roles — as The Penguin and Arnie’s Twin — offer an insight into a truly-gutted genius: not only a master of slapstick, but also adept at the pun and portmanteau.

Even though recent years have seen him trapped in the never-ending stoner comedy, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, there’s a hope that we’ll soon see a Twins 2 — which will allow his beer gut will return to its truest true form.

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Norm (Cheers)

The blackhorse in this list, Norm from classic sitcom Cheers is not just a beer-belly of great repute, but a barfly like no other. In a show dedicated to bar-lovers, he stands out as a true devotee – someone who appreciates finesse in drinking about everything else.

Norm also delivers some of the finest one liners to ever grace television, so take the time to enjoy the ones collated above.

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William Shatner (Star Trek, Shit My Dad Says)

Shatner most often springs to mind as the lithe, lovably and occasionally lustful James T. Kirk in the original Star Trek series. But after a few too many good years (the Enterprise does have a delicious buffet cart), Shatner started to round-out along the edges, and let himself boldly go.

In the terrible and thankfully short-lived series Shit My Dad Says, he was a paragon of lightly-begutted glory, a frequently-fishing, beer- and whiskey-loving American redneck.

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Zombie Ed (Nick Frost, Shaun of the Dead)

It wouldn’t be right to leave one of the living dead off this list — despite the end of Twilight, the zombies are still all the rage on big and small screens: The Walking Dead, World War Z, Warm Bodies. The reigning champion of zombie-beer-gut is Zombie Ed, played by Nick Frost.

There’s no denying that beer has a strong hold on a film where the end-goal is to “get to the Winchester and wait for it all to blow over”– and Ed holds true to that, even in his undead state.

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Jack Black 

Jack Black is not a connoisseur of beer. If he were a particular beer, he’d probably be Bud Light, or some similar near-water hopsy-thing. But he lives beer, and loves beer, and shows beer a good time — so how can we leave him off this list?

He also fills in the obligatory slashie section of this list – the actor/singer is multi-talented, and generally entertaining. Tenacious D aren’t bad (and his bandmate Kyle certainly gets an honorable mention in the beer gut category), and on screen, Jack can be hilarious.

(Incidentally, there’s a craft brewery called Jack Black, and their IPA is delcious. Why the two brands aren’t cross promoting I don’t know.)

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Val Kilmer (1995 onwards)

Over a long career, Val Kilmer has played truly iconic characters — not least, Kasansky in Top Gun. More recently, he’s become an example of well-aged beauty: a thick and dark ale that’s risen from the ashes of despair (i.e. those terrible Batman films) to grace screen and stage in an increasingly self-aware, loving way.

Add to that his interesting adoption of Twitter and curious film choices in the past few years (The Fourth Dimension and Ghost Ghirls, for instance) and you’ve almost got a post-modern beer belly: a man so beyond and yet invested in his gut, that leaving him off this list would be a true crime.

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Gimli (John Rhys-Davies, Lord of the Rings)

Though I’ll always remember him as the lovable, wise and glorious doctor from the regrettably cancelled ’90s super-scifi Sliders, John Rhys-Davies is also the iconic Gimli in Peter Jackon’s Lord of the Rings.

The feast-loving dwarf is gruff and lovable, and despite failing nearly every challenge against Legolas, he remains a delight — and, most of all, in love with sweet, sweet mead.