Thursday night is guy-food night.

And you're looking at one of the finest examples of guy food on the planet: beef bratwurst boiled in beer.

Oatmeal stout, to be precise. I've used ordinary beer before this, but tonight I wanted it to be special.

The brats are from a local farmer, delivered to our doorstep by the Blue Marble Dairy. Just thought I'd put a plug in for the local guys.

Brats in beer normally call for a tab of butter and an onion rolling around in the pot, too, but they were plenty tasty with just the beer. I fried up the onions separately so My Darling B could eat them as a garnish on her brats because she's a heathen and won't eat them with the customary saurkraut garnish.

From the boiling pot they go to the griddle for a few minutes to brown, and then to the table where they were eagerly gobbled up by your friendly neighborhood O-Folk.