Paul Newman's Favorite Beer Brand: 'I Drink 10 Or More Beers Every Day'

In many ways, celebrities live very different lives from everyday people, but they still have their favorites like the rest of us. That includes Paul Newman, the celebrated Hollywood actor and director, also known for launching the popular Newman's Own food brand. Newman was a beer man, and his go-to brand may be as surprising to some as the prodigious amounts of the stuff he drank every day: St. Pauli Girl.

The actor revealed his preference to Town and Country magazine back in 1968, when he was 43 years old and already a megastar for performances in films like "Cool Hand Luke", "The Hustler", and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." When asked what he'd be drinking on Christmas that year, he praised St. Pauli Girl, noting, "I drink ten or more beers every day, and if it's good enough to be my favorite for the rest of the year, it's good enough for special occasions."

St. Pauli Girl is a lager beer from Bremen, Germany, where it was first brewed in the 17th century on the site of a one-time monastery. It stands out in a modern world of complex brews as one of the simplest beers possible, following the ancient German purity laws that mandated the inclusion of nothing more than barley, hops, and water, plus yeast for fermentation. Today, lager is among the most popular German beers in America, but it was relatively new to the U.S. market when Newman was enjoying it in the late 1960s.

St. Pauli Girl wasn't just a passing fancy for Paul Newman. Nearly a decade after he told Town & Country how much he enjoyed the beer, news articles still mentioned that it was the actor's favorite. Even as American beer options expanded through the 1970s, Newman remained loyal; however, he wasn't in an exclusive relationship with the brew. Newman was also known as a lover of Coors, once a regional and highly sought-after beverage among American beer connoisseurs. 

Beyond beer, the silver screen idol had a highly diverse diet, reflecting his Hungarian heritage, along with a passion for hamburgers, salads, and fish. His go-to foods did not include dozens of hard-boiled eggs like his title character eats in "Cool Hand Luke," a binge-eating feat that was simulated via editing, rather than forcing the actor to eat the claimed 50 eggs. 

Newman was known to put down more beers a day than most, but his culinary preferences were tame compared to those of Nic Cage, Ed Sheeran, and other celebrities with bizarre food habits. St. Pauli Girl beer is still around (it's now distributed by Anheuser-Busch), so those who want to raise a glass just like the Hollywood icon know exactly the brew to do it with.