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Brookston Beer Bulletin
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The Kidnapping of Schmidt Brewery Son Edward Bremer
Today is the anniversary of a pretty unsavory incident that was at least tangentially related to prohibition and brewing. On January 17, 1934, the Barker–Karpis gang kidnapped Edward Brewer off of the streets of St. Paul, Minnesota. At the time, he was the wealthy president of Commercial State Bank. But perhaps more importantly, he was also the son of Adolf Bremer, who owned the Schmidt Brewery, having married the daughter of Jacob Schmidt.
Kidnap victim Edward Bremer.
That’s thought to be important because the gang appeared to be targeting brewery owners because of their perceived disrespecting of criminal elements after prohibition was repealed. Many breweries that survived did so by working with bootleggers on the down low, which of course in many cases were part of criminal organizations. But when prohibition was repealed, they distanced themselves from those gangs once alcoh