I made some German food and reported on it at my Beer blog Bottles and Cans, but you can read it all here:

Cooking w/Beer: Stovetop Brats
Last night we had what I am calling the "Oktoberfeast." This was a meal featuring German Potato Salad and some Brussels sprouts mixed with sour cream and bacon. There was an excellent Oktoberfest beer from Avery, but I'll post more on that later.


Now, I've made beer brats before, but this was different. First of all, I cooked the sausage in some water. One good tip I picked up was to poke some holes in the brats so that they would not explode. After the water evaporated, I browned them in the dry pan before adding some onions to cook in the remaining fat. Once the onions were browned, I tossed in a cup of beer and let it simmer.


Usually, I go for a high quality beer, but this time I went a little askew. The beer of choice was a Burger Beer, leftover from my sister's visit over a month-and-a-half ago. It's cheap and stays good forever in a can, but most importantly, it's a German style lager. There really is nothing special about the beer, but I did taste the same yeast as was in my much more expensive and better tasting Avery German style beer.


Get It Together: The Kaiser and the Oktoberfeast
I planned a dinner the other night consisting of stove top brats, German potato salad, and Brussels sprouts with sour cream and bacon. These foods made my "Oktoberfeast" complete...well, almost.

With fall comes a new set of seasonal beers. There are the porters, stouts, and pumpkin beers for sure, but I love a good Oktoberfest. Not being the biggest fan of lagers, I struggle to find a good Oktoberfest brew. Great Lakes out of Cleveland, OH makes a good one as does Bell's. However, Great Lakes doesn't distribute here and the Bell's Oktoberfest was sold in rather limited quantities.

Luckily, Avery's The Kaiser Imperial Oktoberfest hit the shelves here in Columbia this fall. This beer actually reminded me a lot of the cheap, rice-based Burger beer I used on the brats, but it had something more. The yeasts of these two beers was where similarities began and ended. The Kaiser is a thick, syrupy malt bomb that matches the greasy intensity of even the most German meal. If I see this beer ever on a menu at a restaurant, I'm ordering the brats and kraut every time.