Summit Brewing Finds New Lender, Avoids Foreclosure

Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories. 

Super Sweet: Summit Saved

Last month, when news broke that St. Paul's Summit Brewing was facing foreclosure, reactions were shocked, mournful, and pretty much boiled down to: Can you even imagine a Twin Cities without Summit beer?

Well, hypothetical little buddy, you won't have to. The brewery announced Thursday that a new lender has acquired its loans from BMO Bank, and that lender is working with Summit on a long-term growth strategy. (One has to think it involves selling more beer at higher margins.)

“Today is a day of gratitude and genuine excitement for all of us at Summit,” Summit CEO and President Brandon Bland says in a press release. “That starts with our employees, who have shown up every day through months of uncertainty. Their professionalism has inspired all of us to keep pushing toward a resolution, and I can’t thank them enough."

Summit plans for all brewery, taproom, and other day-to-day operations to continue basically unimpeded. In conclusion: hell yeah. I could go for an EPA right about now...

Twin Cities Gang Violence, Explained

We know that there are gangs in the Twin Cities. We know that there's gang violence in the Twin Cities. But who are the members of these gangs, and what are their activities like in 2026?

For MPR News, Ahmed Hassan reports that there are 12 gangs with around 300 alleged members in the metro—that's according to Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher. They're mostly made up of teens or young men up to about age 25. And they are mainly Somali-American, according to Fletcher. (Before your racist uncle gets ahold of this, may we remind you that we're talking about a few hundred youths; the Somali-American population in Minnesota was around 111,000 at the last census.)

Gang activity is way below where it was at its peak in the mid-'90s, and gangs today actually look different than those '90s gangs. Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans tells MPR they're less hierarchical and more decentralized, and not really interested in turf wars or dealing drugs. The violence instead mainly stems from social media disputes that spill into the real world.

Stars! They're Just Like Us (Currently in Minnesota)

You've probably seen by now (perhaps in these very virtual pages) that Nicolas Cage is in Minnesota filming a post-apocalyptic movie called Parish. After sightings at Oro by Nixta and the Minnesota Renaissance Festival earlier in the month, Cage most recently popped up at Leo's Grill & Malt Shop in Stillwater, where he ordered a chocolate malt. Classy. Simple. "We did our best to serve him just like everyone else… yep he too received the 'extras in the tin,'" the Leo's team reports.

On a related note, the Strib's Neal Justin got an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Parish's Stillwater set (gift link)—sadly, no quotes from Cage.

Next up: Robert Plant was in Minneapolis on Wednesday to play the sold-out State Theatre, and he snuck in a stop at Bryant Lake Bowl. Here's a cute story about it, along with a photo of the Led Zeppelin frontman and some leftover BLB nachos:

And finally, Modern Times fed Phil! Phil Rosenthal and crew stopped by the south Minneapolis restaurant on Monday, apparently to film an episode of his Netflix series Somebody Feed Phil. "We’ve had a lot of cameras and crew in Modern Times over the past year," the Modern Times crew reports of the Everybody Loves Raymond creator. "Phil and team were #1."

Oooo Baby, It's Tunnel-Cleaning Time

Absolutely pornographic stuff here in the Minnesota Department of Transportation's latest Lowry Hill Tunnel-scrubbing video. Can't get enough. I'd watch it 100 times on a loop if I didn't have other work to get to today.