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Garlic Beer Brats

Name: Garlic Beer Brats
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 30 min
Ingredients: 2 12 oz bottles beer (any type); 6 bratwurst links; 1 onion (sliced); 4 cloves garlic (crushed); 1 teaspoon House Seasoning Blend; 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper

Last Updated on: December 28, 2022 | Published on: May 29, 2018 by Christina Hitchcock

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5 from 3 votes

Prep: 5

Cook: 25

Total: 30

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These Garlic Beer Brats are exploding with flavor!

These Garlic Beer Brats are simmered in beer and flavoring and then grilled to perfection. It’s amazing how much flavor these sausages have when you prepare them this way. These will quickly become one of your favorite grilled foods.

What are Brats?

If you’re not sure what exactly a brat is, let me break it down for you. A brat pronounced BRAH-T and short for Bratwurst, is a German sausage. Brats are commonly made of pork but can also be made from beef or veal, depending on the brand.

There are a number of ways to cook brats. You can poach them in beer or other liquid, grill them, pan fry, or roast them. For this recipe, I did a combination of poaching them in a flavored beer mixture and then grilling them. The result was incredibly flavorful meat.

How to Make this Beer Brats Recipe

This beer brats recipe is a two-step process but it’s really quite simple to make. There are only a few simple ingredients to make these beer brats. You will need good quality brats, onions, garlic, House Seasoning Blend, crushed red pepper, and, of course, your favorite beer. If you’d rather not use alcoholic beer, you can use non-alcoholic in its place.

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I started by slicing the onions and crushing 3-4 cloves of fresh garlic. In my opinion, you can never have too much garlic so I opted for 4 cloves.

Then, I placed everything in a braising pot or dutch oven and added the brats. I simmered everything together for about 15 minutes. You want to give it enough time for the flavors to infuse the sausages.

Grilled Beer Brats

After braising the brats in beer, I put them on a grill that was preheated to medium-high heat. I grilled the beer brats for about 5-7 minutes per side or until the skins were crispy and had a nice char to them.

The aromas coming from the grill were incredible! You could smell the garlic and onion and even the beer.

Expert Tips for Making Garlic Beer Brats

This recipe is super easy to make but with these expert tips, the recipe is even easier…

Try different types of flavored beers. I used a lager but a beer with citrus or apple notes would be amazing in this recipe.
The crushed red pepper in this recipe adds a subtle kick to the brats. If you don’t like spice you could always decrease the amount of red pepper or omit it altogether.
Try serving these brats on a pretzel roll. Many bakeries offer all sorts of rolls and buns. Play around with different types.

Toppings for Grilled Beer Brats

There are so many ways you can top these grilled Garlic Beer Brats. Here are some of my favorites…

Use the onions and garlic from the braising liquid. These have so much flavor infused in them.
Squeeze on a generous helping of this Boom Boom Sauce. The garlic and pepper flavors are the perfect compliment.
Go classic and top with ketchup, mustard, and sauerkraut.
Or, grill up some bell peppers and pile them high on top.

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Looking for more? Check out all of the Best Grilled Recipes on It Is a Keeper.

Recommended Tools for Making KW

Dutch Oven
Tongs
Onion Holder/Slicer <= Makes cutting onions a breeze!

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5 from 3 votes