Trying To Remember The Slotemaker Brewing Company Prohibition Porter Operation

Now this is a totally strange memory from today's Microsoft OneDrive Memories of this Day.

I know the photo is from one of many I scanned a couple decades ago for a family history website about my Dutch Slotemaker family.

I was told that in this photo we are seeing my Grandpa and Grandma Slotemaker. With my Grandpa's brothers and their wives. The boys are sitting, each appearing to be enjoying a bottle of beer. If I am remembering correctly, and sometimes I do, my Grandpa is the one second from the left, with my Grandma being the one standing second from the left.

I was told that it was long rumored that my Grandpa, along with some, if not all of his brothers, ran a beer bootlegging operation during Prohibition, distributing their product from its Lynden location, a short distance from the border with Canada, to Seattle, about 100 miles south.

How did one transport something, back then, from Lynden to Seattle? I have no idea. Maybe Highway 99, which decades later morphed into Interstate 5, was the road that connected Vancouver B.C. to Seattle and beyond.

I recollect being told the beer the boys brewed was the style of beer known as Porter.

From the Wikipedia article about Porter Beer...

Porter is a style of beer that was developed in London, England in the early 18th century. It is well-hopped and dark in appearance owing to the use of brown malt. The name is believed to have originated from its popularity with porters.

I do not remember if the Slotemaker Boys named their brew Prohibition Porter, or if I was taking poetic license when adding text to the photo. I also do not remember if their brewing operation operated under the Slotemaker Brewing Company name, or that I may have made that up, again taking more poetic license.

What I do know is I want to try some of this Porter Beer libation. I wonder if Walmart sells such?