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New Minneapolis Brewery Alert: Mixed Culture Brewing Soft Opens This Weekend at 45th & Minnehaha
As the craft beer bubble bursts, at least some reassuring signs of life keep emerging within the put-upon industry. On Thursday we reported (happily) that Summit Brewing has battled back from the brink of bankruptcy, and today we're (also happy) to announce the soft opening of Mixed Culture Brewing. Our buddies at Longfellow Whatever have a sneak peek of the new Minneapolis suds operation, which took over the ol' One on One Bike Shop this past winter.
Mixed Culture is helmed by the husband-wife team of Qiuxia and Kevin Welch, both of whom happen to be classically trained musicians, and Kevin has plenty of beer biz experience—Minneapolis's Boom Island Brewing, California's Lost Coast Brewery, St. Paul's MetroNOME Brewing. While the Welches wait for final city approval for their taproom to officially open, they've secured permit-approved use of the patio where this weekend they'll be selling Belgian-style beers and coffee. (Indoor bathrooms will be open for your nasty business, per city rules, so you can poke your head inside.)
Full hoop-jumping approval might not come until early November, but in the meantime here's the soft-opening schedule courtesy of Longfellow Whatever—cheers!
- Friday: 4-8 p.m. (aka tonight!)
- Saturday: 4-8 p.m.
- October. 18: 1-5 p.m.
- October 23: 4-8 p.m.
- October 24: Closed
- October 25: 1-5 p.m. (with Vikings game screening)
- October 30: 4-8 p.m.
- October 31: 4-8 p.m. (with kid-friendly Halloween activities)
- November 1: 1-5 p.m. (with Vikings game screening)
MN's Mark Dowdle: The Last Man Standing
By now, you've probably heard of ultramarathons. The once-fringe races, which challenge participants to run distances greater than 26.2 miles, are more popular than ever. But for participants even fitter and/or crazier, there are backyard ultras. In this last-man-standing style of race, which is also exploding in popularity, runners complete a loop over and over and over, sometimes over the course of days, until there's only one person left. And St. Paul's Mark Dowdle? He's really good at them.
In today's edition of the New York Times' new Local newsletter, Talya Minsberg profiles Dowdle, "a fixture of the ultrarunning scene" who recently won a backyard ultra by putting in 390 miles over the course of four days. Dowdle has won six of his last nine last-man-standing races, and this weekend he'll head to Bell Buckle, Tennessee, to face runners from around the globe for this year's Big’s Backyard Ultra World Team Championship.
“The backyard is about overcoming obstacles,” he tells the NYT. “There’s such an advantage to being in Minnesota because the winter is nothing but an obstacle, but we find a way to keep moving forward.”
New North Loop Board Game Club Probably Too Premium for You
A new business dedicated to bringing (a few, presumably wealthy) tabletop gamers together is coming to Minneapolis's North Loop. Gamer’s Guild Country Club will offer a space where members can play a variety of curated board games, as well as RPGs, mahjong, and card-based games. But this country club also comes with country-club prices: memberships range from $250 to $833 a month.
“I really wanted to play a game,” owner Adam Baker tells J.D. Duggan of the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. “So I was like, ‘Man, I wish there was just like a country club where people could get together to play games and hang out.'”
Duggan reports that Adam, along with his wife, Bonnie, purchased the building at 119 Washington Ave. N. for $1.83 million, which is also home to Public Domain, the menu-less cocktail bar (GGCC will be located on the second floor).
Right now the club is capped at 20 gamers (four openings currently remain), though members can bring a number of friends depending on their membership tier; individual non-members can visit up to three times before they are asked to pony up and join the club. Meanwhile, us hoi polloi can meet up for one of the many free board game nights around town.
Career Peeper Back on Streets
John Searle, who has been arrested on peeping tom charges for over 30 years, has been released on bond, Fox 9 reports. Searle’s latest arrest came after he was caught on Monday after peeping into strangers’ windows in Minneapolis’s Como neighborhood. His first arrest was back in 1995; most recently he’s been seen spying in Como, Marcy-Holmes, and the areas around the University of Minnesota campus. Searle posted a $300,000 bond for his release.
