Confucius + Lao Tzu + Sun Tzu = So Sage Party?

I attended Cowbell's first annual Sausage Party. It's a 5 course sausage-beer pairing. The beer came from a microbrewery called Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery.

I can't say very much about the beers, except that some tasted light and others had a stronger, more bitter taste.

The first dish was a couple of slices of a pepper sausage. I liked the small kick that this sausage imparted. The beer was a very light-tasting beer.

The second dish was my favourite. An elk sausage infused with strawberries (crushed? grounded?) No matter, the slight fruity perfume was an excellent addition to the strong gamey taste. The pierogies were thumb-sized, chewy, and stuffed with mashed potatoes/cheese. Delicious. Don't remember much about the beer.

The third dish was a piggy-in-a-blanket maded up of a kidney sausage wrapped in pastry. Couldn't really taste the kidney (but then kidney isn't liver) but the sausage was strongly salted. I guess that's why the pastry and rapini are there. Don't remember much about this beer either.

The fourth dish was a sausage stuffed with fermented meat, accompanied by sauerkraut and kozliks (mustard seeds). You can definitely taste the slight sour tang of the fermentation. The sauerkraut was some sort of red cabbage, and tastier than the stuff you find at hot dog stands. By this time, I'm starting to get tired of eating sausages. The beer is supposed to have a citrus aroma with a finish that changes between bitter and sweet. I did taste the citrus a bit but mostly the bitterness at the end.

The last dish is a breakfast sausage on a waffle. At first, I could only taste the sweetness from the chocolate covered waffle. A little bit later, I thought I could detect the honey in the sausage. It had a crumbly texture unlike all the other sausages. I didn't like the texture at first but it grew on me. However, I had reached my limit for meat so didn't really appreciate it. The beer was very bitter and I could not detect the coffee aroma that was supposedly present.

It was a tasty and reasonably cheap ($30) prix fixe. I would have preferred smaller sampler size dishes like the first course, though the sausages themselves were mini-sausages and not full-sized, followed by a main that uses the sausage(s) in a interesting way. Otherwise, it was simply too much meat and reminded why I'm glad I don't live on a Bavarian/German diet.