The Bucyrus Bratwurst Festival offers various types of bratwurst in various ways. It’s advised to bring friends or family so that you can try them all. Plenty of music, entertainment and other food options to also enjoy.
2023 DATE: August 17-19, 2023
Location: Downtown Bucyrus
Website: https://www.bucyrusbratwurstfestival.com/
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This post documents my experience on August 21, 2010.
Although I had been to the Bucyrus Bratwurst Festival last year, this visit felt like the first. This was mostly because the festival took place at the county fairgrounds last year…
…thanks to all the construction downtown.
But it was also because I had to park a few blocks away from the event…
…in order to avoid $4 parking lots and local parking obstructions.
Fortunately, it was worth the walk when I got there.
There were a few reasons why the festival’s return to downtown Bucyrus was a benefit.
One obvious reason was that the festival took place…
…outside Bratwurst Festival Headquarters…
…where, beyond these doors…
…years of festival steins and history awaited to be explored.
(It’s also where the voice on the loudspeaker made her announcements.)
The festival also used space wisely in the downtown area.
Festival goers could find various attractions nestled in adjacent streets…
…musical entertainment…
…games and rides.
None of these attractions blocked the main foot traffic in any way. Instead, they may have blocked the less-attractive city sites…
…like this stage blocked the view of downtown construction.
While, at the same time, the placement of some of these attractions…
…drew people’s attention to the city’s architecture…
…and murals…
…even if some were hard to miss (click on each of the three pics to see a bigger version in a new window).
Finally, the downtown location brought all the vendors together, making it easier to check them all out. And even though there were occasional gift vendors, the majority sold food.
Tons of food!
There were trucks selling Greek, Chinese, Thai and barbeque…
…and plenty of fair food…
…with a dash of alien Italian ice.
But the main food attraction was obviously bratwurst, which had a rather impressive presence at the festival. Whereas I’ve seen 2-3 vendors selling fish at a fish festival or three vendors selling corn at a corn festival…
…I counted more than 10 vendors selling brats…
…and they all looked good.
For those whose taste buds didn’t quite agree with the German variety…
…there were also Polish sausages…
…Italian sausages…
…corn dogs and elk.
I wanted to try it all, but I knew it was impossible. Therefore, I tried to keep it simple and traditional…
…with a Carle’s brat on rye, garnished with kraut, mustard and horseradish (sold by the band boosters)…
…followed by this creative brat casserole, made with noodles, kraut and chopped-up brat (sold by Bucyrus United Methodist Co-Operative Parish).
At this point, I was full, but there were other great things to eat.
At the Lions Club booth, for instance, they sold the bratwurst pita I had last year consisting of minced brat, kraut and a mayo sauce…
…which a cooperative woman let me take a picture of.
Actually, I did try to walk off some of my lunch in the attempt to taste more, but the air cooled and it started to sprinkle. With my umbrella left in a far away car parked beyond $4 parking lots and fold-out chair parking obstructions, I figured it was time to leave.