Beer Bath Bratwurst


 
Interesting little taste test. I only use two beers for the brats and some of my chilies, Trader Jose Dark and Bear Republic Double Aught. My son is the west coast sales manager for the Bear Republic craft beers so the price is right and it truly is great beer.
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MGD and Stella seems to work pretty well for me. I would not want a red beer to "influence" the taste of my brats.
 
I was on a Peach fuzzy navel kick for awhile, but now usually just cheap beer and apple juice.
Did some homemade venison brats with a porter that were outstanding.

Tim
 
I can understand using Johnsonville brats for the test because they're widely available, but excluding Milwaukee brands Usinger's and Klement's is darn near inexcusable.

But that does bring up a point. Different brats may very well have different results with the same styles of beer.
 
Brad - Not sure if you've ever made the trip, but the butcher shop (forget the name) in New Glarus makes about 20 different varieties of Brats, and the ones that I sampled from a road-trip a few years ago were worth the visit. (plus, it's even CLOSER for YOU.)

Sometimes though, the basic Johnsonville's also hit the spot - particularly when cooked to perfection (slowly, over a wood campfire / tripod rig seems to work REALLY well)

I can see that your point could be valid - I think that we could pretty safely assume that brats with added ingredients (peppers / different cheeses / etc.) could be enhanced or clashed by different beers where the same beer may be "great!" with a plain-old regular brat.
 
Ive done this with about a dozen different beers, mostly domestic lagers/pilsner/lights. The best that I can remember was Miller High Life and Rolling Rock. We always called it the Brat-tub. 2 packs of Johnsonville Beer n Brats, takes well over an hour to do it right- but then you cut them into chunks and stick'em with tooth pics- makes amazing finger food for a tailgate!
 
The stuff that we tried was from Ruef's - IIRC we had a pack of Brats with Onion (which I thought were particularly good), a few regulars, and some spicy jalapeno ones

New Glarus is a fun "road-trip" - we stopped at a few cheese factories and came home with some good eats for the fall. Def gotta' do it again soon!
 
I'm not sure if this applies to brats, I suspect so, but last winter I made some slow cooked pasta sauce with Italian sausages braising in the sauce for several hours. The texture of the sausages was very different than my normal approach of cooking the sausages in a fry pan and adding to the sauce at the last minute. It was much more refined and silky. I suspect the slow braise allowed the collagen to render. I thought the texture was fantastic. Slowly simmering the brats in beer would probably have a similar effect.

The last time I did brats in beer I grabbed a bottle of something dark from a Sam Adams winter variety pack that was far older than I should admit to. There were a couple swigs left in the bottle so down the hatch they went. Made me wish I'd drank that bottle and used something else for the brats. Maybe some of that Beck's Light my brother likes. That stuff is just barely beer flavored water.
 
EXPERIMENTAL RESULT - KILLIAN'S RED WITH TRADITIONAL BRATS = "KEEPER":
Cooked-up 4 Dozen Traditional Brats this weekend for BassetFest (A Fund-Raiser for the Rescue group that my wife and I volunteer for)

Traditional-Style Brats from Bunzel's Market (theirs are a bit more "peppery" than Johnsonville's)

-(FRIDAY) Grilled 'em up indirect on the Performer - Got them browned a bit on the outside / skins crisped somewhat
(started with K-Comp and left-over coals, added some Grove Hardwood Lump over the top and a few hunks of Mesquite)

-(ADD) Stacked and refrigerated overnight in foil pans sealed-up

-(SATURDAY) Hot-tubbed them in a big ol' Nesco with some Killian's Red beer
(Just enough beer to cover the brats, pre-heated the beer first, then add brats and top-off with a little more beer as things warmed-up)

-Once everything was up-to-temp, kept heat on LOW (keep 'em hot, but don't "Re-Cook" them)

Flavor was good - even kept a little "snap" in the casings.
People generally LOVED them - I had one and thought MUCH better than MGD that I used last year. Result = Sold Out!

Had lots of other good eats to go with (20-lbs of PP with my "special sauce", 4-doz big hot diggetys, turkey in gravy and Black Bean burritos for the Vegetarian guests - everything was gone by the end of the day.)
 
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