White House Beer: $1,200 Bottle Sold For Children's Auction; View Recipe
A single bottle of the White House-brewed beer was sold at a charity auction last September for $1,200.
The bottle of White House Honey Ale was sold on Sept. 28 during "Taste!" which is a food and drink festival at University of Minnesota's TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
The news was first reported by the blog Obamafoodorama on Tuesday who interviewed the bottle's former owner Brad Magerkurth.
The 42-year-old self-proclaimed "beer guy" and home-brewer first received the drink after meeting President Obama during his campaign.
Magerkurth, a traveling salesman, was in Knoxville, Iowa in August 2012 when Obama was visiting the swing state. The two met and bonded over their appreciation over homebrews and Magerkurth was given a bottle of White House Honey Ale straight from a cooler in Ground Force One.
"I was pretty ecstatic," Magerkurth told the food blog. "For someone in the beer industry, it's about the coolest thing in the world."
The bottle of presidential beer may have been a treasured keepsake, but Magerkurth realized that it also had a potential to do a lot of good if he sold it for charity.
The beer was auctioned off by Magerkurth at the food and drink festival for $1,200 in order to benefit the University of Minnesota's Amplatz Children's Hospital.
Magerkurth may not have given up his only chance to sip the 1600 Pennsylvania brew.
A Freedom of Information Act request was submitted in August to let the American public know the secret recipe behind the president's select beer.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney then vowed to unveil the ingredients after 25,000 people signed the petition which quickly reached the required amount of signatures.
The recipes to the beers can be found at the White House website under "Ale to the Chief."
