amon came up with a great idea for this week’s firkin night.  Sausages with beer, the timeless pairing/tradition, but what would be our twist?  We had a cask of Double Simcoe IPA from Weyerbacher brewery in Pennsylvania. Chef Philippe makes 8 different sausages @ Café D’Alsace including 2 that are uniquely spicy.  His duck sausage has green peppercorns that give a sharp fresh pinpointed heat blast to the gamey duck meat. He also makes a seriously spicy Merguze: a lamb sausage that originates in Morocco and gets its heat from the Tunisian Harissa chili. Harissa chill’s have more of an elevating and lingering heat attack.  Enter Hops vs. Heat.  Hops seem to redirect your palate from heat while injecting a citrus bitterness, but we don’t want to confuse the pairing we want to add to it.  Weyerbacher’s Double Simcoe IPA has an excellent tangerine, apricot sweetness profile that really compliments the hops, the heat and briny delicious sauerkraut. This is exactly the cyclical rollercoaster we wanted the pairing to ride.