Travis Dahle

For the Argus Leader

Many of us do a lot of traveling over the summer months. Whether it’s for a vacation or to go and visit family, a lot of us are on the road visiting various towns. For a good portion of us, this means going back to our small home towns where we came from before heading off to the big city of Sioux Falls.

Small towns are nice. I liked growing up in a small town … mostly. Anywhere you go you are likely to run into someone you know or who at least knows who you belong to. I honestly can’t go anywhere in Milbank without an older person looking at me and saying “you’re a Dahle aren’t you!” You probably can run into some old friends that you haven’t seen in a while and you can just sit back and hang out with your family. Maybe go down to the different bars you hit while still in college and hung out at during the holiday break. However, some of us like to just hang out at our parents, play cards and try some different beers.

While I was up in Milbank this past week I thought I’d try to see if the small craft beer craze has made its way up north. I think I had my hopes up too much. While my brother suggested I taste test all eight flavors of Boone’s wine, as hilarious as that might be, I decided to check out what kind of beers we could find. Unfortunately the Boone’s selection was a little better than the craft beer selection.

SuFu Brews: You guys, I’m so into mini-kegs right now

I of course had my pick of the various 30-pack beers (some Schlitz, Hamm’s Special Light, etc) — there wasn’t a lot in the one small cooler that comprised the non-mass produced beer. These also included ‘craft beers’ like Stella Artois, St. Pauli Girl, Michelob Amberbock and some Shock-Top. However, we did find two different beer companies that we didn’t quite expect to find in Milbank: Kona Brewing Company out of Hawaii and the Fernson Brewing out of Sioux Falls. In fact, I was able to update the #FindFernson map on their website as they previous didn’t have Milbank down as one of the places to find Fernson.

The Fernson beers we found were the Farmhouse Ale and the IPA. I have been planning on going to the Fernson on Eighth Street in downtown Sioux Falls for some time but haven’t had a chance, so it was interesting trying out a craft beer for the first time out of a can. While the Farmhouse Ale was okay, I was really impressed with the IPA. While I like some IPAs, there are a lot of them that just seem to be so over the top with hops that the aftertaste ruins it for me. I know a lot of people seemingly like that, but to me it is just so overpowering that I’ve tended to shy away from them. This is definitely not the case with Fernson’s IPA. It was really smooth and didn’t have that punch-you-in-the-mouth after-taste that a lot of IPA’s have. So I’m excited about trying out their different beers at their brewery at some point in the near future.

Needless to say, I got lucky that Fernson had made its way up to Milbank. So if you are planning on doing some traveling back home this summer or fall, you might want to bring your own beers with you – unless you want to stock up on some Hamm’s Special Light.

Planning for a wine and bourbon roadtrip