Sausage Lovers Are Still In Mourning » Brats & Beer

July 14, 2007
posted under: Johnsonville sausage

Coming out of my off-season hiatus and catching up on some reading, I was stunned to learn that the founder of Johnsonville Sausage passed away a couple weeks ago. (Thanks to the Oracle of Cheese for posting on this news.) Ralph Strayer was 92 when he died at a nursing home in Naples, Florida, after a long life of giving the world great tasting brats and other sausages.

He started the company in 1945 when he bought a meat market in Johnsonville, Wisconsin, and started making sausage using family recipes brought from Austria. Johnsonville brats are hands down the best brats made for national distribution, meaning even people in far away corners of the world unfamiliar with the ways of making good sausage (such as in Texas) can enjoy a great tasting bratwurst. Heck, if it wasn’t for Johnsonville, this blog might have been called Hot Dogs & Beer.

So let me extend (belated) condolences to the Strayer family and raise a toast to a scion of sausage, Frank Strayer. May your company continue to produce great brats for generations to come.