I pulled into the parking lot of Noble Ale Works recently and thought, “I don't get it… there's not a home game tonight. Why are there so many damn cars in the parking lo… oh, it's Naughty Sauce night.” Naughty Sauce, like the Bruery's Black Tuesday, is a controlled-release beer. It comes out once a quarter, and on that night, the Noble Ale Works escuincles throw a party.
While Naughty Sauce doesn't command the thousands-strong horde of bearded, pillaging beer Vikings that Black Tuesday does, the quarterly Naughty Sauce allocation does draw a significant crowd. There are food trucks and cornhole outside, and people milling around and generally having a great time–in other words, exactly what you hope for when you go for a beer.
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Naughty Sauce is Noble's best-known beer; it's a milk stout, a dark, malty, bottom-fermented beer with lactose pitched in. The lactose can't be fermented, so you end up with a beer that's got the smoothness and natural sweetness of a Kéan Coffee latte. I don't know anyone who dislikes it, and the crowds at its quarterly release prove my point.
If you're lucky–and chances are that by the time this hits print they'll be gone–you may be able to taste a couple of the special casks of Naughty Sauce. This time around, there are two: one with ginger and one with cinnamon. The cinnamon one tastes for all the world like a cold, liquored-up version of Mexican café de olla; the ginger one bites hard and makes me wish I could bring vodka and lime to make an ultra-alcoholic Moscow Mule. Noble Bräumeister Evan Price says they're thinking about making a lime-and-coconut Naughty Sauce cask soon. (Go on, you know you want to… you put de lime in de coconut and drink 'em both up…)
Naughty Sauce normally taps out within two weeks, so get going–you've got just enough time to wrap your lips around it before you have to wait until November.
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