This is too cool. President Obama is a beer geek!

[mac56]

http://news.yahoo.com/obamas-tap-white-house-home-beer-023924580–finance.html

Obamas tap White House home beer

President Barack Obama has become one of the first modern day US presidents known for enjoying a cold beer that is brewed and tapped right at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Obama aides on Tuesday confirmed the small brewery during a three-day re-election campaign tour across Iowa. An official admitted the Obamas have their own alcoholic beverage made and kept in stock at the White House.

Revelations about the White House beer came to light after the president gave a bottle of it to a patron at a coffee shop he was visiting in Iowa.

The beer, named White House Honey Ale, comes in both a light and dark variety. The honey portion of the drink is taken from first lady Michelle Obama’s garden beehive.

[onehandle]

1. Me want. nt

[mac56]

2. I've been a home brewer for 20+ years.

This. Rocks. My. World.

[CabCurious]

4. I'm going to be hopelessly gushing about this for months, if not years.

[onehandle]

5. I recently moved into the Philly area.

Seems like there are breweries on every block. And home brew is huge here.

Eventually, I'll have to try it myself.

[mac56]

6. Shoot me a message. We'll chat.

[October]

15. My husband brews his own gluten-free beer! Delicious!

Lots of "home brewers" in and around Philly.

[Smilo]

29. Home brew is the best...........

me want to try White House Honey Ale

[awoke_in_2003]

35. I'll take 12. nt

[CabCurious]

3. Can I vote twice for him? :)

[trof]

7. Rmoney is a Diet Pepsi geek.

[dawg]

8. Nope. Not allowed.

Caffeine!!!

[trof]

13. That's right. I forgot. Maybe Kool-Aid geek?

[FreeState]

45. Mormons can and do drink caffeine

It's coffee and tea they do to drink (herb tea contains no tea, so they do drink that).

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/52615759-90/church-caffeine-dew-jorgensen.html.csp

This article explaines it very well. I grew up LDS and we drank Coke.

[dawg]

46. Thanks. I learned something new.

[JDPriestly]

51. When I was young, my Mormon friends did not drink Cokes or Pepsis.

I suppose Romney wants to bring back Prohibition. That should be an interesting issue. Mormons disapprove of alcohol I believe.

[FreeState]

52. There is an LDS health code

called the 'Word of Wisdom'. In my life time its morphed from a temporal law (all things in it are bad for your body and mind) to a spiritual law (all things in it are to demonstrate to god you are obedient). Thats my view of it anyway, Im sure you would find differing takes on it.

Basically the Word of Wisdom is:

No Hot Drinks (intermitted as no coffee or tea leave drinks)
No Tabacco (smoked or chewed)
No Hard drinks (originally just hard alcohol until close to the 1900s when soft alcohol - beer etc - were added)
No eating meat except in times of winter, cold or famine (not followed by members in my lifetime).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_of_Wisdom for more information

The LDS fancy this as something special to the LDS faith - its not. It was based off a revelation that Joesph Smith had that closely follows the Temperance Movement of the 1800s. It also was more of a suggestion than a commandment until Brigham Young moved the break off Church to Salt Lake (the jail Joseph Smith was shot had tobacco and beer etc that Smith and others had partaken of).

[rurallib]

9. Grow their own food, make their own beer - what's next?

have they installed an alternative energy system at the WH yet?

[japple]

12. Jimmy Carter had solar collectors on the roof, but

they were removed by Ronald Reagan.

[maxsolomon]

33. And Willard will do something similar

If elected, I promise to destroy the still my opponent has allowed to disgrace the White House! Liquor is a tool of the Devil and must be banned from every state function!

[get the red out]

34. He will need the space for his year's supply of food

I believe he is required to keep that.

[OnyxCollie]

10. He brews his own

after drinking that crap Bud Lite at the "beer summit."

[mac56]

11. Maybe that's why...!

[HopeHoops]

14. Want.

[hifiguy]

16. Honey ale?

Sounds might tasty to me!

[mac56]

18. Warning: beer geekery ahead.

Honey doesn't impart much of a honey flavor to a beer. Surprisingly, there are certain types of malt that do that much better. Honey ferments out very efficiently and boosts the alcohol level while imparting a smooth texture to the brew.

Beer geek out.

[RoccoR5955]

28. Unless it's mead.

Ahh, now if only he was a mead maker, THEN we could have some REAL fun!

This is where honey both boosts alcohol, AND adds flavor, texture, and character.

My favorite is my own Hudson Valley Cyser, that I have been making since about 1998. It ages well, but there isn't much of the old stuff around.

[mac56]

31. Oh man, I've wanted to try a cyser.

I do have a rockin' apple cream ale recipe.

[OnyxCollie]

42. Cucapa Honey Ale

has a pleasant honey taste.
[IMG][/IMG]

However at 4.5% ABV, I usually pass it over for stronger fare.

[RoccoR5955]

47. YAWN.. My neighbors are beekeepers

And I always have honey. That's why I make mead and cyser. Whenever I brew something I put at least a cup of honey in a five gallon batch. My yeastie pets love it!
Now if you want a great Belgian Farmhouse Honey Ale, try Biere de Miel. http://www.brasserie-dupont.com/dupont/en/7002-biere-de-miel-bio.html

From the website:
"Alcohol : 8% vol.
The Bière de Miel biologique (beer with honey) is a top fermentation beer with refermentation in the bottle.
Already in 1880, this honey-beer was a speciality of our farm-brewery Rimaux-Deridder, very well known and awarded with many prices on various agricultural exhibitions.
When the family Dupont took over the brewery, this beer disappeared from the marked, but in 1997, more than 75 years later, the Bière de Miel was “re-created” in an organic version.
The label we use on the bottles is an exact reproduction of the original.
This amber beer with strong pronounced honey aromas, has, very predictable, a dominating taste of honey.
But we cannot catalogue this Bière de Miel biologique in the range of sweet beers, on the contrary.
The sugar in the organic honey, fully refermented in the bottle, creates a beer, not sweet at all but full of honey aromas and ditto taste.
Our choice of strong, organic honey types result in a very particular taste.
A real refermentation in the bottle, which continues for a long time in your cellar make this a really complex beer."

It's gotta be my all time favorite summer Belgian Ale.

[coldbeer]

17. ain't nothing better than a cold beer!

[stonecutter357]

19. Not trying to spam but,

http://www.homebrewden.com/ RE,Beer Equipment.

[Whisp]

20. what? light AND dark? see, he's a divider!!!

there will be some lame shit spewing out from the repgulicans assmouths on this. Maybe they will go for the: he's angry because he's drunk all the time.

[bayareaboy]

21. He should put out a recipe ...

Wonder what kind of hops he uses. You can tell about a man on what kind of hops he uses.

[Myrina]

30. Somehow I suspect HE doesn't have time to do the brew ...

... more like he's got a brew-team working on it. He does have other things a little more high-priority on his calendar ...

[theaocp]

22. Unimpressive.

I want to see his grow closet.

[xxqqqzme]

24. That's Michelle's project.

She is the gardener.

Edit to add.... I grew up w/ 2 uncles, brewing their own. The surviving uncle still brews. I remember family picnics when all the home brews were passed around, sampled and discussed. Always admired home brewers. I tried it when we had our farm. I don't have the touch.

[Matariki]

37. You're thinking of George Washington

or perhaps Madison or Jefferson...

[RoccoR5955]

48. Washington was a mead maker

He made the good stuff.... Honeywine, otherwise known as mead.
Good mead is a gift from above!

[RoccoR5955]

23. That takes it. Obama has won the election

Anyone who is a home-brewer is the salt of the Earth AFAIC.
I have been brewing for about 15 years, and every person I know who brews is a genuine real person.

I'll have to tell my homebrewer friends, if they already don't know.

[mac56]

26. +1000

Preach on, brother

[Historic NY]

25. I'm heading to our local brewery to try their new one tonight..

is based on an old German light ale.

[unblock]

27. so it turns out that OBAMA is the guy you'd actually like to have a beer with!

i just KNEW it wasn't that other guy!

[awoke_in_2003]

36. Him and Joe...

if there is to be beer drinking, Joe had better be there, too.

[OnyxCollie]

39. Joe drinks the non-alcoholic stuff.

That's the equivalent of not inhaling.

[awoke_in_2003]

40. That's ok...

more of the real stuff for us

[OnyxCollie]

41. Currently sipping

a Ballast Point Sculpin IPA.
[IMG][/IMG]

And when I'm finished, I'll move on to the Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter. (You know, for balance.)
[IMG][/IMG]

[K8-EEE]

32. He's a secret beer drinking Muzlin! !!1!! nt

[awoke_in_2003]

38. Headline...

Obama does not support American Beer industry

[drmeow]

43. Now that is awesome

and I'm not even a beer drinker (can't stand the stuff - much rather have a chocolate martini or a G & T)

[RoccoR5955]

49. I guarantee you would love my friend's chocolate stout.

The thing about homebrews, is that you can make them taste however you like. They don't have to taste like traditional beer at all. You can brew a plethora of flavors into your beer/ale.
I personally make a killer American Light Ale with Ginger for the summer. It tastes more like a liquid ginger snap cookie with a spicy ginger kick, than any beer or ale anyone has ever had.

[mac56]

53. Aw man

Rocco, any chance of scoring that recipe from you?

[drmeow]

54. I can't tell you

how many people have claimed that and been wrong. "It doesn't even taste like beer" - I don't like the taste of fermentation. There is something about the process that turns yeast/sugar to alcohol that I don't like. Believe me, I've tried lots of different variations including lots of different home brews. I don't like beer, wine, mead, or hard cider. Hard lemonade is OK but that is about it (I think the lemon overcomes the fermentation taste enough). I drink distilled alcohol or something non-alcoholic.

[PDittie]

44. This is actually a savvy electoral strategy.

It's American Heartland, regular guy stuff that he was unable to pull off in '08 (remember the arugula 'scandal'?) The kind of 99% versus 1% stuff that plays real well in this cycle. This re-election campaign just jeeps firing on all cylinders.

A beer and a pork chop at the Iowa state fair.



I think that's the proof that he isn't Muslim.

"Four More Beers!"

http://swampland.time.com/2012/08/15/obamas-booze-strategy-four-more-beers/?xid=gonewsedit&google_editors_picks=true

Now as that article observes, the Prez might not actually be drinking much of the beer he is seen holding frequently. But when Romney is in Miami at a non-alcoholic, non-caffeinated juice bar owned by a convicted cocaine dealer...

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505245_162-57492687/host-for-romney-event-is-a-convicted-drug-dealer/

It's all about the optics, and once again the Rmoney campaign epically fails.

[RoccoR5955]

50. You know, I was just thinking that this goes back to the Founding Fathers.

Many of them were brewers, and they always had their meetings in a pub. There are several places here in the city of Kingston, NY with historical markers that state that they were pubs, where people met during that time.
If Obama is channeling that, it is genuinely a very good thing. And with the rise of small breweries, and brew pubs here in just about every town (at least here in the Northeast), I believe could go a long way.

We can thank Jimmy Carter for passing the law that allows us to brew in our homes. We are allowed to have 100 gallons per adult over 21 in the house at any one time. I have been brewing for 15+ years, and cannot keep that amount in the house at any one time.

[waddirum]

55. The Cook County sheriff's office treats local home brewers like potential criminals

Their deputies spend precious time routinely staking out the local homebrew and hydroponics store in Chicago, known as the Brew n Grow.

Check out the opening 2 paragraphs of this interesting story in the most recent Chicago Reader.

On December 5, 2009, Cook County sheriff's police sergeant Patrick Donovan spotted two men in a white, windowless cargo van on the loading dock of a shop called the Brew and Grow, tucked between Elston and the Kennedy expressway. Donovan watched from his car 40 yards away as the men—one of them medium height and stocky, the other tall and gangly—loaded large tables, fans, and four-foot filters into the van.

The Brew and Grow, which has since moved, sells tools and equipment for home beer making and hydroponic gardening, including the fertilizers and nutrients to grow everything from arugula to broccoli to marijuana. And Cook County sheriff's police routinely stake out the store and other retailers like it, surveying who buys what.

http://www.chicagoreader.com/gyrobase/a-police-stakeout-of-a-marijuana-growhouse/Content?oid=7157505&storyPage=1