Bratwurst Face-Off: The Best of the Wurst
Since it’s still October, we’re going to assume you’re not done Oktoberfest-ing, either because the beer itself is too good to pass up, or the chance for perfectly acceptable, outdoor, daytime binge drinking is too good to pass up. (Hey, either, way, it’s all good. We’re not judging. Unless you drive afterwards. At which point someone will certainly judge. Or if you leave your car in a parking garage in Shirlington overnight and it gets towed. At which point there will be laughing and pointing. Not that that happened, er, to anyone.)
There are still a few organized Oktoberfest events on the calendar, or plenty of time for you to throw your own event. The beer itself is the main attraction of all this revelry, and not the beer’s trusty sidekick: the bratwurst. The Garth Algar to festbier’s Wayne Campbell. With the beer, as always, is the brat—but also like Garth, it can be overlooked, taken for granted, or its nuances ignored. Often the brats serve a purely utilitarian function, stepping in as the needed base layer for the soaking up of beer, rather than being enjoyed for their own delicious qualities. Hence, the idea of a “bratwurst tasting” was born.
Little did I understand, as a relative bratwurst novice, just how varied in type bratwurst are until undertaking this tasting. German Gourmet in Falls Church makes 14 different kinds of bratwurst. Foodies in Germany say that in their country, there are nearly as many types of bratwurst as there are towns. So guided by my own budgetary limitations for this gathering and armed with a desire to compare bratwurst from local makers, I finally settled on six types. We grilled them up over hot coals on a Weber charcoal, and ate them with mustard, ‘kraut from German Gourmet and cheap hot dog buns.
Now, this wasn’t the most scientific of tastings. Given the event’s timing after the host and most of the guests attended the Capitol City Brewery Oktoberfest, there was a fair amount of argument over which brats were which, plenty of scarfing as opposed to slow savoring and, as you’d probably expect, an awful lot of sausage jokes. But despite these setbacks, and thanks to the help of a dedicated (read: hungry) few who tried each of the six kinds of brats, and another dedicated few who happened to be a little more, ahem, lucid than the rest, we’ve come up with some clear favorites and some clear losers. They’re listed below in a sort of general hierarchy of how they were ranked, rather than a specific rating.
Pre-packaged Johnsonville Brats, purchased from Giant, $3.00 for 1.25 lbs package: These classic brats from the U.S.’s bratwurst heartland in Wisconsin received several #1 rankings, but more than that, perhaps because of their ubiquitousness, were the standard by which many of the others were measured. Some people considered them to have the “best spice and texture,” while others found them to be a little generic compared to the others. They were, by far, the most greasy of any that were tasted.
Canales Quality Meats bratwurst, purchased at Eastern Market, $4.99/lb: Although I didn't have my brats special-ordered from Canales, these were definitely the favorite of the local varieties we tried. The majority of testers complimented the brat’s texture—the right proportions of fat to meat, but not overwhelmingly greasy—and flavor, and many noted they felt it was the “most authentic” of the varieties tried. The spice in the Canales brat left a little to be desired, however, with some taste testers calling for a little more kick.
Capitol Hill Poultry turkey bratwurst, Eastern Market, $4.99/lb: These were a hit, even as most tasters admitted that eating it was not so much a “bratwurst experience.” Nevertheless, the flavor was so far above what anyone expected from a turkey sausage, and the viscosity of the skin so similar to a pork sausage, Capitol Hill’s turkey brat received a ton of compliments. (Not surprising, actually, considering the wonders they work over there with other turkey sausages—the hot Italian pepper turkey sausage is incredible.)
German Gourmet traditional bratwurst, $7.85/lb: This was the best of the varieties from German Gourmet, but nothing about it particularly stood out. The texture was slightly more firm than Canales’s pork bratwurst, and the spices “pleasant”—good use of caraway but lacking a bit in heat. This sausage was nobody’s favorite.
German Gourmet Beef bratwurst, $7.85/lb: Here again we were dealing with a “not a brat” situation, with the beef bratwurst being reviewed mainly as too different from a brat to really be compared to the rest. Fat levels in the beef brat were lower, and the texture of the meat more homogeneous. The color—very red—was also slightly off-putting when compared to the more pinkish-grays of the pork brats.
German Gourmet Thuringer bratwurst, $7.85/lb: This bratwurst, which takes after one of the first varieties to be “registered” in 15th century Germany, when the government started regulating meat, contained a mix of pork and veal, and was largely dry and underspiced compared to the other varieties. Given the recipes listed online for this particular brat, which is seasoned mostly with caraway and garlic, and nothing hotter, this could be typical to the type. But the blandness, along with the tougher consistency, kept this one from being a crowd pleaser.
Overall, the locally made brats fared very well. Tasters appreciated the quality of the brats that had clearly been made that morning, which had a freshness and quality of meat that could not be duplicated by the frozen and thawed Johnsonville brats, even if the latter did well in the polls for their greasy, comfort food appeal. In this respect, the Germans have it right—their national meat law requires bratwurst that is not immediately frozen be consumed on the same day it is made, in order to promote quality control. For the rest of your October, while the usual brats will do just fine, there are a lot of others out there in the D.C. area worth trying—many of which won’t be available year-round.