COVINGTON, Ky. — Whether someone is a fan of goetta, they’ve never heard of it, or would prefer to get-a bite of just about anything else, no one can deny the iconic status of northern Kentucky and Cincinnati’s signature sausage.
A family company in Covington has been producing most of the goetta people find in stores for decades.
When people say “see how the sausage gets made,” they’re talking about the unpleasant truths behind something that could lessen its appeal. Dan Glier, however, has been seeing how his family’s sausage gets made his whole life. And he doesn’t find it unpleasant or unappealing.
“As long as you understand what meat is. Meat is the flesh of an animal. So there you go. Now some people get kind of oozy about that, but I’ve grown up with it, and there’s not very many things in the packing house that will make my stomach churn,” Glier said.
People not from northern Kentucky or Cincinnati may be unfamiliar with Glier’s Goetta, or even goetta in general. It’s like breakfast sausage and typically comprises pork, beef, herbs and spices. The ingredient that really makes it unique, though, is steel-cut oats.
“Goetta is a peasant food from Germany. It was not known as goetta in Germany. It’s known as grutzwurst over there, or grits, grain, wurst, sausage, grain sausage,” Glier said. “It was brought over by the early immigrants, probably in the late 1800s. And almost all of it was home cooked.”
To this day, it’s still made in a lot of homes.
“As we say, we’ll take second place to grandma’s goetta,” Glier said.
Glier is the president of Glier’s Meats, which he said owns 85–90% of the goetta market share. The company makes a lot in Covington every day.
“My dad started his business in 1946. He grew up in the meat business at his uncle’s meat shop in Newport. That’s where he started working on his goetta creation. He said that his mother, my grandma, made goetta, but it was a miserable excuse for a perfectly fine product. So he visited the other German housewives in his neighborhood. And when heard somebody had a good goetta, he talked to them,” Glier said. “And from probably a half a dozen different recipes, he developed his. He added more meat to it, so it was a commercial product.”
It’s become a signature food of the region, and can be found in pretty much any grocery store.
“We are convinced that without Glier’s, goetta would’ve disappeared like many other sausages. When’s the last time you heard of either a grain sausage or a sausage that isn’t a hot dog, a brat or a met? I mean, how many are there? There were lots, but there’s a lot of them that have just disappeared,” Glier said. “We carried it on. We promoted it, and we elevated the product to really almost a cult status now.”
Glier has truly lived a goetta life. And anyone who doesn’t like it, as far as he’s concerned, should probably get-a life themselves.
“I take mine in probably about an ounce and a half slices, and eat three of them for breakfast three or four times a week. I still have it. Still love it. And I find it hard to believe that somebody wouldn’t love it,” Glier said.
Still, those people exist. But if anything could change their mind about the sausage, Glier said it would probably be either of two of his favorite applications: goetta nachos and goetta grilled cheese.
Glier’s Meats also puts on Goetta Fest in Newport. The annual event is taking place this year from July 27–30, and Aug. 3–6. It features all kinds of goetta creations, and has previously drawn in visitors from all over the world.