White House Beer Gets $1,200 At Auction

Believe it or not, a bottle of President Obama’s home-brewed White House beer fetched $1,200 at an auction.

obamabeerThe single bottle of White House Honey Ale that President Obama presented to Minnesota resident Brad Magerkurth last August has fetched $1,200 at auction, a price usually reserved for rare wines. The President gifted Magerkurth with the bottle during an off-the-record stop at the Coffee Connection in Knoxville, Iowa while on a campaign bus tour through the crucial swing state. (Above: This previously unpublished White House photo of Magerkurth reacting to the President’s gift is included in the White House’s 2012 Year in Photos)

Magerkurth, 42, a homebrewer and traveling salesman for Artisan Beer Company in the Twin Cities, just happened to be in Knoxville on August 14th for a sales call when the President rolled into the tiny town aboard Ground Force One. The conversation naturally turned to beer when the President stopped by Magerkurth’s table to shake hands, and soon an aide had retrieved a bottle of White House beer from Ground Force One.

After weeks of debate–with plenty of pals urging him to flat-out sell the beer–Magerkurth finally decided to use his gift to raise money for a charity that’s close to his heart, he told Obama Foodorama. That way, Magerkurth said, his gift could be shared with fellow beer enthusiasts as well as be put to good use. Known to friends and business associates alike as “The Beer Guy,” Magerkurth firmly believes that “beer unites people.” His bottle of Presidentiale was auctioned off during Taste!, a food and drink festival at University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis during the weekend of Sept. 28.

Ten people paid a total of $1,200 to share the 12-ounce bottle, with the proceeds going to the University’s Amplatz Children’s Hospital. The moment was ripe with ceremony, with a big crowd gathered around a stage in the stadium to watch as the plain brown long neck–unlabeled, because it was from the President’s own private supply–was opened.

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