Red, Lite and Blue: The Beers Obama, Gates, Crowley Will Drink at White House
The president hopes to ease race-relations tensions over a cold beer.
July 29, 2009— -- The White House made its first decision about what will be the beverage of choice at Thursday's Suds Summit when President Obama sits down with Prof. Henry Louis Gates and the police sergeant who arrested him in an attempt to smooth over a racial furor. The decision either indicates the inclusive policies of the White House or that the three men couldn't agree on what to drink..
The president will drink Bud Light, White House Press Secretary Gibbs told reporters today. Gates has said he likes Red Stripe, while Sgt. James Crowley mentioned to the president that he prefers Blue Moon.
"So we'll have the gamut covered tomorrow afternoon," Gibbs added.
Weather permitting, the three will hoist a cold one on the picnic table next to the White House's new swing set around 6 p.m.
For days, people have been speculating about what the president would choose for Thursday's gathering? A lager? A porter? Maybe a wheat beer? Does he pick something light to help the men with the Washington, D.C., summer heat?
Gibbs's announcement aboard Air Force One today now clears the way for the Red, Lite and Blue summit.
"In the summertime people want something maybe just a little bit lighter, more refreshing. They're not going to go for a heavier stout or nut brown," Steen Sawyer, general manager of John Harvard's Brew House a few steps away from Harvard's campus in Cambridge, said when asked what he would pick earlier in the week.
Donna Brazile, an ABC News political consultant, suggested Boston-brewed Sam Adams. The beer is sold everywhere from police bars to academic haunts. (The New York Post also picked Sam Adams as the front runner.)
Choosing a drink is not an easy decision for politicians. During the heated Democratic primary in Pennsylvania Hillary Clinton pounded back a shot of Crown Royal whiskey and chased it with a beer. Obama visited a sports bar and sampled a Yuengling after making sure it wasn't ''some designer beer.''
Some had suspected that this time around the president might have instead choose to highlight a beer from his hometown of Chicago.
Goose Island, the city's largest brewery, provided the only beer at Obama's election night celebration in Grant Park, according to Anthony Bowker, the brewer's chief operating officer.
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