The Definitive Guide to Minnesota, for Out-of-Town Super Bowl Attendees
By Having successfully avoided actually watching King Joffrey + 55 year’s State of the Union last night, I started reading the transcript this morning. This was a bad idea, so I stopped.
Instead, I read this delightful primer to Minnesota, published by the Minneapolis-based Surly Brewing Company as a service to out-of-town Super Bowl fans descending upon Minneapolis this week. As a Wisconsin native, it is my sworn duty to gently mock Minnesota whenever possible. The Wisconsin-founded The Onion had it right when, in the book Our Dumb World, it labeled Minnesota one of the three “bullshit states,” alongside Hawaii and Alaska:
In any case, Surly’s guide is funny and entirely inconsequential in the best possible way. I need more things of little consequence in my life, given the state of the world. As a side note, if you are a fan of big IPA’s, I very much recommend Surly’s Furious IPA. I don’t think it’s available much beyond the Minneapolis-Chicago corridor, but seek it out if you find yourself in that area.
- Please enjoy US Bank Stadium. We built it on top of our old stadium. It would deflate when it snowed. It snowed a lot.
- Please enjoy the Mall of America. We built it on top of our other old stadium. That team went to a lot of Super Bowls! Don’t ask us any questions beyond this!
- Please enjoy First Avenue. It’s an old Greyhound bus station. Prince and some other local kids made it a church.
- The elevated sidewalks that connect downtown buildings are called skyways. One visitor called them “skybridges” and his body never was found.
- Tom Brady’s grandma is from Browerville. To get there, get on 94 and go west for a couple hours. Not on Fridays, though; it’s a total shitshow with a bunch of guys named Dale towing pontoons or snowmobiles.
- Recommend the whole.