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<span style="font-weight: bold">even di chose of beer a create problem
so how dem a go sekkle race relations? 
</span> The problem is that all three beers are products of foreign companies. <span style="font-weight: bold">Red Stripe is brewed by London-based Diageo PLC</span>. Blue Moon is sold by a joint venture in which London-based SABMiller has a majority stake.
And Bud Light? It is made by Anheuser-Busch -- which is now known as Anseuser-Busch InBev NV after getting bought last year by a giant Belgian-Brazilian company.
Among rival brewers, the news fell flat. "We would hope they would pick a family-owned, American beer to lubricate the conversation," said Bill Manley, a spokesman for the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., a California-based brewer that happens to be family-owned.
Jim Koch, founder of Boston Beer Co., which brews Samuel Adams, decried "the foreign domination of something so basic and important to our culture as beer."
Genesee Brewery, Rochester, N.Y., released a statement congratulating the president for having beer at the meeting but adding: "We just hope the next time the President has a beer, he chooses an American beer, made by American workers, and an American-owned brewery like Genesee."
Richard Neal, a Massachusetts Congressman who has also written the White House amid the beer ferment, also hopes the meeting will promote beer-drinking nationalism. In a not-so-subtle dig at Bud, he said he knew he and the president "both share a common interest in fostering the success of American-headquartered companies."
In a statement, David Peacock, president of Anheuser-Busch, said the company "would be proud if Budweiser, Bud Light or any of our beers" is served at the White House meeting. A spokesman for the joint venture that sells Blue Moon said the company is happy it is being considered. Diageo declined to comment.
It all started about two weeks ago when Sgt. Crowley, who is white, arrested Mr. Gates, who is black, at his Cambridge home after responding to a call about a suspected break-in there. Each man accused the other of belligerence. President Barack Obama added fuel to the fire last week by saying the police had behaved "stupidly."
Seeking to calm the situation, the president then invited both men to the White House for a friendly beer.
For the past several days, David von Storch, co-founder of Capitol City Brewing Company -- which owns a brewpub just a few blocks from the White House -- has been lobbying the administration to serve his company's "Equality Ale."
"What better beer to have them drink than the only beer brewed in the District of Columbia, Capitol City Brewing Company Equality Ale!" Mr. von Storch wrote in an email he sent Tuesday to several White House staffers.
Kyle Watkins, a White House staff assistant who got one of the messages, emailed back that he would pass along the suggestion on but didn't know if it would go anywhere. Reached by phone, Mr. Watkins declined to discuss the matter.
In general, the White House strives to showcase American food, wines and traditional concoctions at official meals and parties. Sometimes, even menu items with a foreign provenance are Americanized. In the George W. Bush White House, a favorite chocolate dessert was referred to not as a French-style soufflé, but as a "chocolate freedom."
When questioned by reporters on Tuesday, Mr. Gibbs, the White House spokesman, tackled the beer issue head-on. "As I understand it -- I have not heard this, I've read this, so I'll just repeat what I've read, that Professor Gates said he liked Red Stripe, and I believe Sergeant Crowley mentioned to the president that he liked Blue Moon. So we'll have the gamut covered tomorrow afternoon. I think we're still thinking, weather permitting, the picnic table out back. All right?"
Dan Kenary, president of Boston-based Harpoon Brewery, said he wanted to make a run at getting some of his beer into the meeting but couldn't find any intermediaries with close White House contacts. <span style="font-style: italic">"I think just showing up at the gate with a case of Harpoon would make them look at us funny</span>," he said.
Maureen Ogle, author of "Ambitious Brew, The Story of American Beer," said that by holding the summit, <span style="font-style: italic">the President risks criticism from groups working to persuade the public to drink less alcohol.</span>
For instance, there is <span style="font-style: italic">the Woman's Christian Temperance Union</span>, which led the fight for Prohibition in the early 20th century. Rita K. Wert, the group's <span style="font-style: italic">national president, said her organization is disappointed that the president is serving beer at all. "There are so many other beverages he could have chosen that would have served just as well," she said, mentioning lemonade or iced tea.</span>
—Elizabeth Williamson contributed to this article.
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