We grilled out. Brats. Turkey brats on a charcoal grill. Grilled brats taste like summer. They taste like Wisconsin.

You don’t know how hard it is to find brats in Tennessee. I take that back. You don’t know how hard it is to find turkey brats in Tennessee. A staple of grilling in Wisconsin — tailgating anyone? — brats are becoming more popular in other places. But turkey brats, well, that’s another story.

A Milwaukee Brewers fan

It started with my sister and baseball. She’s a big Brewers fan. Shortly after I moved here, the Brewers were in the playoffs for the World Series. We’d listen to the games. She was stoked they were doing so well.

At some point, she mentioned brats. Maybe we heard an ad on the Milwaukee radio station we tuned into online. It had been years since she had one.

My sister has been a vegetarian for many years, dipping into veganism occasionally. I have been leaning more toward vegetarianism recently simply because it’s healthier, and I’m trying to eat healthier.

We eat salmon probably once a week, and we eat turkey or chicken once in a while.

But she really wanted a brat, so her friend and I started looking for turkey brats when we would shop.

Grilled brats taste like summer

I found them at a local grocery store — finally — and we planned to grill out. If you eat brats once every decade or two, you need to grill them, properly, on charcoal. That’s how you get that authentic summer taste. That Wisconsin taste of summer.

It took us several weeks, though, to find a day that worked for us and her friends to get together. We were fortunate to have temps in the 60s (I grilled barefoot on the deck).

You also have to cook the brats first in beer before you put them on the grill.

I bought decent beer to cook them. My sister said I should have gotten Busch or Pabst. Usually, you use cheap beer to cook brats. I said no, if I’m buying beer, and I’ll be drinking the rest, it has to be good. I got a coffee porter from a North Carolina brewery, Highland Brewing. She likes coffee. I like porter. It works.

We had plenty of sides, but the star of the meal was a grilled beer brat, with brown mustard and raw onions, on a soft bun. Mmm. Grilled brats taste like summer in Wisconsin, while it feels like fall in Tennessee. It’s a good mashup.