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It’s not summer or tailgate season without beer brats. If you like the flavor of caramelized onions, then you’ll love this easy 4-ingredient grilled brat recipe.
Beer brats are a time-honored Midwestern tradition, and no summer barbecue or tailgate party would be complete without them. It’s one of the many things Wisconsinites do best!
Stock up on plenty of beer for the gathering, then tuck some away to infuse loads of flavor into these crowd-pleasing brats.
Table of Contents
Recipe ingredients
At a Glance: Here is a quick snapshot of what ingredients are in this recipe.
Please see the recipe card below for specific quantities.
Ingredient notes
- Bratwurst: Always start with raw than pre-cooked sausages. There is nothing wrong with a pack of Johnsonville brats! If you aren’t a Wisconsin local but want to pretend you are, you can shop online with Glenn’s Market or Usinger’s.
- Beer: Pilsners and lagers are traditional, but IPAs, porters, and stouts all work wonderfully. If you cannot bear to pour that much beer into a pot for cooking bratwurst, substitute half the beer for water.
- Sauerkraut: If you have the time, you can make your own sauerkraut in 5 days with just cabbage, salt, and juniper berries.
Step-by-step instructions
- In a large pot over medium-high heat, add brats, onion, and beer. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer until brats are cooked through, about 10 to 12 minutes.
- Preheat grill over medium-high heat. Clean and oil grate. Decrease heat to medium and grill brats, turning frequently, until browned, about 5 minutes.
- Serve in buns with your favorite toppings.
Recipe tips and variations
- Yield: This Wisconsin Beer Brat recipe makes 10 brats. Feel free to halve the recipe if you’re serving a smaller crew.
- Storage: Refrigerate any extra brats in an airtight container for up to 4 days.
- Make ahead: Beer brats are best straight off the grill, but for gatherings with staggered mealtimes, I recommend preparing Wisconsin Beer Brats in a slow cooker so you can keep them warm until you’re ready to serve. You’ll want to flip-flop the method: Place them in the slow cooker with the onion and beer. Cook for 4 hours on HIGH, or 7 to 8 hours on LOW. Then grill as needed.
- Go grill-free: If you don’t own a grill or want to enjoy these beer brats inside, simply use a stovetop grill pan or sauté in a skillet instead.
- More toppings: To allow everyone to BYOB (build your own brat), consider a topping bar with sauerkraut, onions, relish, pickles, ketchup, and a couple different mild and spicy mustards.
Frequently Asked Questions
For maximum flavor before grilling, simmer raw brats in a mixture of beer and onions. Make sure the brats are raw, not pre-cooked.
Pilsners and lagers are traditional, but IPAs, porters, and stouts all work wonderfully. If you do not want to pour that much beer into a pot for cooking bratwurst, substitute half the beer for water.
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Wisconsin Beer Brats
Ingredients
Instructions
- In a large pot over medium-high heat, add brats, onion, and beer. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer until brats are cooked through, about 10 to 12 minutes.
- Preheat grill over medium-high heat. Clean and oil grate. Decrease heat to medium and grill brats, turning frequently, until browned, about 5 minutes. Serve in buns with your favorite toppings.
Recipe Video
Notes
- Bratwurst: Always start with raw than pre-cooked sausages. There is nothing wrong with a pack of Johnsonville brats! If you aren’t a Wisconsin local but want to pretend you are, you can shop online with Glenn’s Market or Usinger’s.
- Beer: Pilsners and lagers are traditional, but IPAs, porters, and stouts all work wonderfully. If you cannot bear to pour that much beer into a pot for cooking bratwurst, substitute half the beer for water.
- Sauerkraut: If you have the time, you can make your own sauerkraut in 5 days with just cabbage, salt, and juniper berries.
- Yield: This Wisconsin Beer Brat recipe makes 10 brats. Feel free to halve the recipe if you’re serving a smaller crew.
- Storage: Refrigerate any extra brats in an airtight container for up to 4 days.
Megan do you leave the brats cool in the beer and then refrigerate, or remove them from beer right away? Just wondering which will keep them juicer. We preboil, freeze then take them camping. Over the fire is best!
Did you remove your recipe for Wisconsin-Style Jambalaya? I had it pinned and it keeps bringing me back to this recipe. Same when I google it. It was such a good recipe.
Hi Tiffany! This recipe got lost when I switched hosts a year ago, and I had no idea. I’ll get it reinstated ASAP. But in the meantime! You can find it here, in the Wayback machine. It’s a snapshot of the recipe when it was live. This should work at least until I get it back on the blog! Thank you so much for letting me know. 🙂 https://web.archive.org/web/20150413132644/www.culinaryhill.com/wisconsin-style-jambalaya
Thank you! I’d bought the ingredients and was disappointed when I couldn’t find the recipe.
It’s own the menu for today with rigatoni pasta in chicken mushroom soup and vegetables
Good stuff. I’ll even take the cooked beer and make a cheese sauce out of it for the brats. 🙂
Can we please be best friends? 🙂
Please, Would you share your cheese sauce from the cooked beer brauts. It sounds really good, I’ve never had it, seen it or heard of it, so I’m not even sure where to start experimenting.
Can I boil them first and refrigerate overnight? Grill them the up the next day?
YES! That is how we allllllways do it. Always. 100% of the time. I will add that info to the recipe, thank you so much for reminding me Alicia!
Megan do you leave them cool in the beer and then refrigerate, or remove them from beer right away? Just wondering which will keep them juicer. We preboil, freeze then take them camping. Over the fire is best!
Just now reading this. My family does it in reverse…we cook the brats first and then put them in a crock pot (or sweet d5 pan) with beer, butter, and onions on low. Simmer for a few hours and you’re good to go.
First – BUTTER. Yes. Excellent. Second, yes that would totally work. You just need them browned a bit and cooked through, and it would matter which order. I hope you get to enjoy some Wisconsin Beer Brats this summer, no matter what state your in. 🙂 xoxo
I’m with you Joey! Those of us from Wisconsin, cook them up on the grill till they are good and brown and done. Then we put them in beer with plenty of sliced onions. And of course, you need to have Sheboygan brats!! They are the best. Put 2 of them on a hard roll with the toppings of your choice and enjoy. We grill brats out all winter in Wisconsin….
What do you do with the cooked onions? Serve as a topping?
Hi Laura, you can either use them as a topping or you can discard them. I love the cooked onions on brats, but some people (my dad and brother come to mind) prefer raw ones, so I usually serve diced raw onions on the side, too.
We grilll them over charcoal after cooking in beer. Served with sauteed onions, mushrooms and green pepper. Mustard and horseradish optional! YUMMY
I LOVE the idea of adding mushrooms! And horseradish. Fantastic!
I say we have these for lunch 😀
If I get my house cleaned up in time, we’ll do that. 🙂
I think most of us Wisconsinites would say the best beer isn’t what you’ve got “on hand,” but what you’ve already got IN your hand! 🙂 The brats really are best grilled over charcoal – nothing beats that WI backyard, by the lake, Brewers tail-gait flavor. Prost!
Dana, I LITERALLY wrote that first – “it’s the beer you have in your hand.” But I felt like people might get confused and literally dump the beer they were drinking into the pot…. LOL. I’m coming back to Wisconsin in a month to the do log-cabin situation (Hayward, Chippewa Flowage), and I CAN’T WAIT!!!!! 🙂