While everyone knows and loves traditional burgers made from ground beef, today’s burgers come in not only all shapes and sizes, but also come in many different types of meat. For the Denver Burger Bracket, we definitely needed a couple of burgers that deviated from traditional beef. Even better? It just so happens that they’ve matched up against each other in the first round.

Let’s get to the match-up:

(4) Euclid Hall

Located right around the corner from Larimer Square in Euclid Hall, an 1883 building that once housed the Soapy Smith’s bar, this American tavern serves up high quality and innovative pub food from around the world. They’ve got homemade sausages, poutine, schnitzels, and even rocky mountain oysters. But for the Denver Burger Bracket, we’re evaluating their Brat Burger.

Euclid Hall’s Brat Burger is a bratwurst patty (mixture of pork, veal, and a little beef) served on a bretzel bun (Bavarian pretzel sandwich roll). It’s topped with pickled cabbage, 10,000 island dressing, and Jarlsberg cheese. And you guessed it, the Brat Burger tastes pretty much exactly like a good bratwurst topped with saurkraut and thousand island dressing. It’s a bit meatier than a sausage though, and the pickled cabbage slaw is a great alternative to saurkraut. The only downside was the bretzel bun, which at first provided great flavor, but just didn’t hold together as I at the burger. Because of its construction, the Brat Burger became a sloppy mess that I ended up having to eat with a knife and fork.

(5) My Brother’s Bar

My Brother’s Bar is LoHi’s neiborhood dive bar with its on unique style. They’ve got no sign out front, so you might just pass right on by this place if you didn’t know that it existed (and maybe they like it that way). They sell Girl Scout Cookies throughout the year, and depending on when you go they could have stacks and stacks of them. But they DO have a pretty sweet website.

Ralphie Burger

They’re well known for their burgers though, and are constantly talked about when we were asking about which burgers to include in the Denver Burger Bracket. The problem became that no one we talked to had actually BEEN to My Brother’s Bar for a burger, just that they had heard good things. The burgers are served on wax paper for around $6 (somehow lettuce & tomato is $.50 extra), and comes with a little burger caddy that has pickles, raw white onions, and condiments on it. They’re JCB burger is the usual choice (jalapenos cream cheese), which was super greasy and served on a grocery store bun and tasted pretty much the same as a burger from CandleLight Tavern, but with jalapenos and cream cheese on it.

But for the bracket, we chose the Ralphie burger, which is made with a buffalo patty. Unfortunately the Ralphie burger didn’t get much better. It was seriously dry and overcooked. The buffalo flavor could be tasted throughout the burger, which was honestly one of the only reasons we found to keep eating it.

When we asked one of our friends who we initially consulted about the burger bracket (and who brought up My Brother’s Bar without having tasted it), finally got around to trying their burgers and filled us in on his thoughts: “For all the hype, I was hoping for a big greasy mess that melts in your mouth. I did not get that and as such, I don’t expect to go back anytime soon (and I live a block away).”

Our Winner

This battle of the beef-less burgers simply came down to the patty, which Euclid Hall knocked out of the park. It’s an interesting concept to turn a hot dog into a hamburger essentially, and it worked (even if they might need a better bun).