Taste of Minnesota

Last Friday at the local Beverage store, a large place which stocks a wide assortment of beers, I saw a package of Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat. Back in the days when I lived in Minnesota Leinenkugel's was a very popular beer. I've even driven by the brewery in Chippewa Falls Wisconsin. It always seemed strange that Leinenkugel's was much more prevalent in Minnesota than in Wisconsin. I was intrigued so I searched through the craft beers section looking for regular Leinenkugel's to no avail. They were only stocking the Sunset Wheat, and I'm not a fan of wheat beers so as tempting as it was to enjoy a taste of my old life I passed and picked up some Sierra Nevada Summerfest instead. At the checkout line the guy behind struck up a conversation with me about how good Sierra Nevada is. It turned out he was from Minnesota, though had lived in CA for the last 15 years. So we started naming the brews you see only in the Midwest - Summit, Point, Leinie's, Special Export, a number of the lesser Milwuakee beverages which are best left forgotten. Eventually he made the comment I hear from a lot of midwest transplants, "people are so much friendlier in Minnesota". I statement I wholeheartedly disagree with. Case and point I never had a conversation with anyone in line at a store in Minnesota while it happens fairly often out here. I have elevator conversations all the time, something even the Minnesotans will admit doesn't happen in their polite society. The perception that Californians are not friendly is a comment that's always puzzled me. I have all sorts of thoughts and theories on the subject which I don't have the energy to delve into here. But every time I hear that comment, it makes me wonder.