White House/Pete Souza
As President Obama has been barnstorming the country this summer in his re-election campaign, he’s been greeting some of his hosts and supporters with bottles of White House-brewed beer. On a recent swing through Iowa, Obama came bearing gifts of White House Honey Ale, a brew made with the product of the White House’s backyard beehives.
But what are the other ingredients? The Obama administration is fond of secrets, but surely it could share with us the recipe behind the White House’s home brewing.
To that end, a Reddit user yesterday submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act to the White House demanding the mysteries of White House Honey Ale, as well as any other beers made by the First Brewery. Since getting into home brewing last year, the White House has also cranked out a porter and a blonde ale, also made with bee honey.
There’s also a petition on the White House’s website calling for the release of the Honey Ale recipe, but it needs at least 25,000 signatures before September 17 if it has any hopes of being printed out and placed on an unwitting staffer’s desk. (It has nearly 1,900 signatures as of this writing.)
The Redditor behind the FOIA submission wrote that the request was made “as a home brewer and for the education of other home brewers not for commercial use.”
But one response in the Reddit thread suggests that the executive brewery might not be terribly complex. The White House began making its own beer last year after the Obamas—using their personal funds—purchased beer-making equipment which was then turned over to the kitchen staff:
I don’t think there’s a “brewmaster” per se. Mr. Obama bought a homebrewing kit with his own money, gave it to the White House kitchen staff, and told them to make beer. The chefs use “traditional methods,” which I assume means it’s all grain. Maybe there is one chef who knows a bit about homebrewing and took on the (oh so horrible) job of brewing beer for the president. This person is probably not a trained brewer, and probably gets recipes out of books. By request of the president, this person adds a pound of white house honey to every batch (We know they’ve made a “honey ale” a “honey blonde” and a “honey porter”). This person probably writes down recipes, probably in a notebook used just for that purpose, so that (White) House recipes may be tweaked and reproduced consistently. I mean, isn’t that what all good homebrewers are told to do from myriad sources?
Would this chef-turned-brewer’s notebook, if kept in the White House kitchen for the purpose of reproducing these recipes, be subject to a FOIA request? I have no idea. But there very well be more documentation than that. Maybe there was an email chain with an ingredient list, because someone else had to go buy the supplies. Maybe various chefs emailed between themselves, to hone the recipe. Maybe an FOIA agent would just walk to the kitchen and ask the chef to write down the recipe, then pass it along to [the Executive Office of the President]. It’s a thought.
Of course, Obama is not unique among presidents with an active interest in the manufacturing of sudsy stuff. Jimmy Carter signed into law the legalization of home brewing, which had been outlawed during Prohibition. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were active home brewers on their Virginia estates.
But our beeriest president, hands down, was James Madison, who in his first year in office proposed the creation of a national brewery, complete with a cabinet-level Secretary of Beer. But those party-poopers in Congress shot the idea down. Things never change around here.
Read the Reddit user’s FOIA request:
Via Reddit
