This perception study investigated the role of intonation, specifically pitch accent position and pitch accent type, in the interpretation of utterances as sarcastic. Participants from two regions in Germany, Freiburg and Trier, listened to short utterances such as Das sieht ja umwerfend aus (“That looks stunning”) in seven prosodic conditions. The recordings were taken from a production study, and participants classified them as sarcastic or sincere. Results show that in both regions, irony perception is driven by (a) the existence of a prenuclear accent and (b) the type of the nuclear accent, particularly L*+H. Reaction times for ironic responses were shorter for L*+H, as well as when a prenuclear accent was present or when the subject carried the nuclear accent. These findings underscore the importance of intonation in irony perception and have implications for the processing of non-canonical meaning in general and the interpretation of sarcasm across varieties in particular.