White House has secret beer recipe; some want it made public

WASHINGTON - The White House has a secret beer recipe and thousands of people want the brewer-in-chief to give it up.

It's called "White House Honey Ale" -- and some are demanding the White House reveal the top-secret recipe.

During his time in the White house, President Barack Obama has thrown back more than a few beers.

There was the infamous White House beer summit with a Harvard professor and the police officer who arrested him; a visit to a pub in Obama's ancestral hometown of Moneygall, Ireland, this past Saint Patrick's Day in Washington; and most recently at the Iowa State Fair, prompting the crowd to alter the normal "four more years" chant to  "four more beers! four more beers!"

On that trip to Iowa, the president told a voter his campaign bus is stocked with a special beer brewed at the White House.

Now beer enthusiasts want the recipe. They're urging its release on the White House website. And one blog has even filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get it.

Jay Irizarry is co-founder of chocolate city beer company, one of the few micro-breweries in Washington, located just 3.5 miles from the White House.

"People will probably clone it. Which will be fun, you know. You know everyone will be like, hey, Mr. Obama, look what I'm drinking. Your honey ale or what he's drinking, I guess," said Irizarry.

There are three kinds of beer brewed at the white house, according to the blog, Obama Foodorama : White House Honey Ale, White House Honey Blonde and White House Honey Porter -- made with honey from the beehives on the south lawn.

All this hoisting of suds is good politics, too.

It's supposed to make the president easier for voters to relate to. But not everyone's drinking the White House beer and, as the effort to uncover the recipe heats up, even the White House press corps has weighed in.

"White Hops isn't bad. If it was a white beer, you know, maybe he should go look at it more as a wheat beer style because then you could go Wit House or something like that. That would be cool," said a member of the press corps.