Naked Kameradski

Verzet’s big hit Kameradski Balsamico consists of their oud bruin (at a certain age and quality) blended with this extremely strong stout – the first time it makes a (very limited) public appearance from what I heard, on the initiative of Leopold Schneider (the brewery’s sales representative). Thanks to hopverdju and nutjes for sharing, and to Leopold himself for the generous pour afterwards. No head apart from a few loose, off-beige and quickly disappearing bubbles, cloudy chestnut brown robe with bronze hue, a bit muddy. Aroma of melting caramel, sweet red wine, hazelnut oil, brown sugar, candied figs, plum brandy, clear vanilla-scenting oak wood, ketjap, wood glue, dates. Sweet onset, bit sticky even at first, with a sourish undertone and a light, bit soy sauce-like umami edge; soft carb, fluffy but thick body (both from a thick malt portion and high ABV) but nevertheless remaining supple and smooth. Thick toffeeish, peanutty and mildly chocolatey malt bittersweetness with much more emphasis on sweetness than on toasted bitterness, drying tannic-woody effects (along with retronasal ‘oak vanilla’) in the end; solventy notes as well (wood glue, varnish), powdery yeastiness, lingering residual sugary sweetishness, nutty malts and, quite unsurprisingly at this strength, a whole lot of warming – if not heating – rum- and brandy-like alcohol. In a certain sense, this beer feels more like a sweet and bready quadrupel than like a clean and stark Anglo-Saxon style imperial stout, but it is in any case a very big, very profound and complex beer. I can imagine that its ketjap- or soy sauce-like side flavours lead to the familiar Kameradski effect when fused with acidic oud bruin, but this beer is so interesting and intense on its own that I am left wondering why this isn’t regularly commercialized in e.g. 75 cl bottles; Kameradski is obviously a great and very inventive beer, but this brew surely offers a whole array of opportunities to create other variants as well… Very glad I tasted this one, as Leopold had mentioned to me months ago already that it was coming up – I would not have wanted to miss it.