By Mike Stucka
IPSWICH — President Barack Obama faces a heady agenda today, including a beery meeting that may get him hopping on race relations.
But Obama's plan to have a beer with a black Harvard professor and the white Cambridge police officer who arrested him screams "missed opportunity" to Ipswich Ale's Jim Dorau. The manager of Mercury Brewing Co. said reconciliation would be better with a New England microbrew, not unlike, say, Ipswich Summer Ale.
"It'd be perfect to cool things down in that room," Dorau said yesterday. "That's one thought that came to my mind, to send them a case of that."
Dorau hears media reports that the men may hoist Budweiser and the Coors-produced Blue Moon brew.
"Which, you know, OK," Dorau said. "Budweiser. They should have chosen something I think more local, but I understand the officers involved, it could be their favorite beers. Even though Ipswich Ale would have been perfect. Ipswich Summer would have been a good choice, too."
The beers are tentatively scheduled for a picnic table at 6 p.m., a subject that drew the leading questions from a Tuesday press conference in the White House. Obama is scheduled to meet with Crowley and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. The three have all had something to say in a dispute that began when Crowley investigated a report that Gates was breaking into a house, which turned out to be his own. Obama made it a national issue when he said police acted "stupidly."
The issue of "brand" rather than race, however, is of more immediate interest to New England brewmasters, who would love to see their beer highlighted. Dorau said he thinks a presidential beer fest could relax the atmosphere and make more people comfortable around the president.
On Tuesday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the dialogue from the beer fest could be a "teachable moment."
Dorau sees it that way, too.
"I'll be in D.C. over the Labor Day weekend," he offered, "so if Obama wants to sit down and discuss regional beers, I'll be available and can schedule him in."
