With all of the punditry out there, I didn’t think it at all necessary to weigh in on the controversy brewing over the President’s decision to have beers with the participants in Gatesgate, as it’s being called here in the People’s Republic. Craft brewers from Harpoon to Sierra Nevada have been angling since the beery announcement was made to have their beers served at the unusual meeting. And while I think the obvious choices, after maligning (rightly or wrongly so) Our Fair City, would have been to give something from Cambridge a shot, say a John Harvard’s beer or better yet Benevolence from Cambridge Brewing, I’ll leave other eager pundits-in-training to debate that topic.

Despite Bud Lights, Red Stripes, and Blue Moons all around, I think there may be at least one unintended silver lining in all of this import/foreign owned beer drinking: transparency. Craft brewers often complain about how the corporate origins of faux-craft beers such as Blue Moon float beneath the brand radars of beer consumers. With the rash of public complaints and news articles appearing in the last few days, anyone not previously paying attention will now know that Blue Moon is not a little imported brand but is instead produced by mega-conglomerate MillerCoors and that Bud is owned by a foreign company. American crafts may not have made it into the White House this time, but in the battle over “who makes your beer,” this may very well be some priceless PR time…

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