Obama as beer-brewer-in-chief

Barack Obama will go down in history as, among other things, the first president to brew his own beer in the White House.

The blog Obama Foodorama reported this week that the president’s Super Bowl party featured a selection called “White House Honey Ale,” brewed right at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

{mosads}The blog said the president and first lady Michelle Obama bought the equipment with their own funds (an aide did not specify when) in advance of serving it at the February gathering.

The “honey” part of the beer comes from Michelle Obama’s garden beehive. The beehive is also a White House first.

Foodorama notes that Obama is the first president since George Washington to homebrew beer, and the very first to offer the brew at the White House. (Washington was a perennial self-brewer, the blog said, but he’s the only president who didn’t live in the White House.)

The news sparked a small flurry in the blogosphere given that Obama, who has previously settled friendly bets between world leaders with beers like Goose Island’s 312, had not shown a predilection for do-it-yourself beers. Obama settled a World Cup bet last summer with British Prime Minister David Cameron by giving his English counterpart a bottle of 312. And during 2009’s so-called “beer summit” with Vice President Joe Biden, Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Massachusetts Police Sgt. James Crowley, Obama drank a Bud Light. 

Although the White House isn’t ready to release the recipe yet, a spokesman told Foodorama that “White House Honey Ale” isn’t a one-time thing.

“It is very safe to assume that there will be more White House beer in the future,” White House East Wing spokeswoman Semonti Stephens said.