German bread is neither white nor starchy, the two common characteristics associated with “European bread” from Italy and France. It is coarse, dense, unrefined, and made with whole grains and unlike the popular fluffy focaccia, ciabatta, or French baguette, that gained worldwide popularity, German bread remained relatively unknown in Germany, ‘till the recent surge of interest in whole grain organic health foods. For the record, 5th-century Gauls and Visigoths were at it before health nuts.

Today’s food recipe is Open-Face Bratwurst Sliders using the same dense German rye bread with German sausage. The first documented evidence of Bratwurst in Germany dates to 1313 in the Franconian city of Nuremberg and “Sliders” go all the way back to a fast-food chain in Wichita, Kansas in 1929. In American years is a lot.

One can say Bratwursts are as German as it gets and Sliders are as American as it gets, but intermingling the two is as Radd as it gets. Neither soft nor crusty, German Rye bread is sometimes branded as “Fitness Bread”, and tastes dense, chewy, almost nutty, slightly sweet, and slightly tangy, and therefore, so apropos for bratwurst sausage and sauerkraut. Add smoked gouda and pair it with Philipsburg Brewing Vorfreude Vienna Lager and you’ll have yourself an extraordinary meal prepared in a very short time.

Guten Appetit!