Beer Brats

So my husband decide to make brats the way a friend had done it. We simmered uncooked brats in beer with some onions for about 1 1/2 hrs. We wanted to make this on the grill so we didn't stink up the house with simmering beer. We we took a disposable foil pan, sliced up an onion into thick slices, laid the brats over the onion, covered with beer, and cooked on a grill on medium low for 1 to 1 1/2 hrs. They cooked up nicely. We thought about putting them directly on the grill for a few minutes to give them some nice marks, but skipped that part. They were very good straight out of the beer bath. And they had a pink hue similar to the ring you would see when smoking meats.