Hard(y) hitting journalism right here. I don’t have to sit here and tell you that country music and beer goes together like peanut butter and jelly. Everyone knows that already. Even the genre’s biggest stars often celebrate the connection between the music and the alcoholic beverages on stage. And many country artists have mastered the art of “shotgunning” brewskis.
Luke Combs above all the rest.
And in 2026… we’ve got ourselves a beer-shotgunning-controversy. I’m gonna go ahead and coin it “Beergate,” and it all got started when a video of HARDY hit the internet a couple of days ago. During a recent tour run in Canada, the “wait in the truck” singer concluded his Edmonton concert with a ceremonious beer shotgun – as he often does.
Just after the country artist thanked the crowd for attending, he was handed a beer… and he knew just what to do with it. Giving the audience what they wanted, HARDY held the pre-punctured (?) can up, tilted his head to the side, cracked open the can and proceeded to delete the beer.
Or did he?
Concert-goer Madison Strelezki was positioned close to the stage, and took a video of the concert’s finale. After watching the shotgunning live in person, and reviewing the tape, Strelezki and her significant other questioned if the can that HARDY shotgunned was full… or even had any beer inside it at all:
“Empty can or no? Owen swears it was a prop.”
What do you think?
Personally, it could go one of two ways for me. There’s a chance that whoever handed HARDY the beer had drained the beer a bit, just so the handoff on stage would go off a little smoother. After all, it appears as though the can was already poked open, and walking around with a full beer with an opening at the bottom could be a bit messy.
And maybe this particular can was just drained a tad too much.
On the other hand, HARDY does strike me as someone who has shotgunned more than a couple of beers in his day. As you know, the more you practice at something, the better you become at it. The country star might just be an expert in shotgunning beers, and this fast-as-lightning shotgun was simply an on-stage masterclass. It’s also a regular part of his show… not a stretch to imagine he’s pretty damn good at it.
Many social media users in the comments seem to be leaning towards the “there’s no way that was a full beer can” option:
“You can see beer spill out when he throws the can.”
“100% empty.”
“I thought it was absurdly fast when he was in Winnipeg. Now I see it, definitely a prop!”
“As a professional in the shotgunning department, that’s an empty can.”
A select few defended HARDY, with one person calling back to a previous time they had seen the artist with Morgan Wallen:
But the most important comment on the post defending HARDY was… from HARDY himself. He caught wind of the video, and the rumor that he used an empty can for his shotgun finale, and decided to get out in front of the controversy with this hilarious, self-deprecating statement:
“You see that beer gut? That ain’t no empty can.”
Well, you heard it from the man himself… that was a full beer can.
Does that effectively end “Beergate” before it even really got started? Tough to say. Some will choose to believe HARDY’s beer gut defense. But others, like the people who initially called the shotgunning fake, will likely continue to assume that country singer is using – or at least has been using – prop beers.
If it was an empty (or mostly drained) can, I’ve got a feeling that HARDY will be making sure to use full cans from here on out.
