Jason Moore
San Antonio’s Naughty Brewing Co. is a pup in the beer world, only selling beers with its name on since 2013. The beers are currently made at Adelbert’s Brewery in Austin, Texas.
The pairing began when James Vaello, head brewer of Naughty Brewing, met Scott Hovey, Adelbert’s owner and head brew master, and the two began a friendship. Naughty Brewing was simply a dream, but it quickly came to life when Adelbert’s stepped in and allowed them to brew on their premises.
Naughty Brewing other notable beer is Zijden Kousen – a Belgian IPA that is also bottled and sits at 8.2 percent. However, Kentucky Streetwalker is without a doubt the shining star of the two.
Its pours an extremely dark brown hovering around being black, but at the top of the glass where the light shone in, I could make out a walnut like color. There is average head retention and a solid bit of lacing because the beer sits at such a high alcohol content.
The smell on Kentucky Streetwalker is like dessert: loads of vanilla, bourbon, sweet chocolate, caramel, toffee and some light oak tannins. If my eyes were closed it would have been hard to tell that this was a beer, the adjuncts really took over the nose, but in a very good way.
The taste absolutely follows the nose for the most part: vanilla very strong up front, some caramel notes and then it fades to a dark, slightly bitter chocolate and bourbon and oak finish. The flavor is very good, but did become monotonous after a little bit. It really doesn’t give way to anything further than the vanilla, chocolate and bourbon notes. Also, unlike a stout, which tends to give way to strong coffee notes as it warms, the porter base of this beer yields some slightly unpleasant sour and bitterness as the beer got warmer. It isn’t anything noticeably bad, but just something that was not pleasant in the beer.
