Tom Brady Is the Best Beer Chugger on the Patriots

Tom Brady can pound brews with the best of them.

If you ask Tom Brady, on of the biggest reasons why he’s still in the NFL as he turns 40 is that he carefully regulates what he puts into his body. He doesn’t eat dairy, tomatoes, pepper, mushrooms or most fruits—“I have no desire to do that,” Brady once said of eating a single strawberry—and he rarely drinks alcohol. But, on those occasions he does enjoy an adult beverage he can really put them back. 

For Brady’s 40th birthday, ESPN’s Mike Reiss spoke with dozens of people close to Brady to get an inside look at his life. One of those people was former Brady backup Brian Hoyer, who shared the story of a night out after the Patriots got stuck in Buffalo due to weather. 

The whole team is there. And it turns into a beer-chugging contest. You have linemen, Julian Edelman, they all think they are going to win. Then someone says, 'I heard Tom is really great at chugging a beer.' We don't usually get to experience him like this, but we finally coax him into doing it. He does it, and let me tell you, you couldn't have poured out the beer faster into a glass. It was unbelievable. And he slams the mug on the table and puts both fists in the air. He walks away with a look on his face that said, 'You really thought you were going to beat me on this?' The place went nuts."

• Click here to get Sports Illustrated’s commemorative Tom Brady 40th birthday issue

That wasn’t the first time, either. Former NFL lineman Ross Tucker, who played one season in New England four years before Hoyer’s arrival, shared a similar story in a Sports on Earth column in 2014. 

[S]ome of the veteran offensive linemen started talking to the rookies about a chugging contest. No big deal for these guys and given that they were fresh out of college, you would think they'd be at the top of their game. I was surprised to see Brady take part. The rookies looked at the seemingly pretty boy quarterback and laughed. I think I snickered myself.

We all should've known better.

I still have never seen anybody chug a beer faster than Tom Brady. You should've seen the way he slammed down his cup -- it was like he was spiking the ball after a TD. It was hilarious. It was awesome. It was textbook Brady.

A Brady vs. Gronk matchup would be the Super Bowl of beer chugging.