7.9

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7.5 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8

Bottle at home; 22nd December 2025. Pours thick and black. Aroma is sweet, malts, balsamic. Taste is sweet, rich, dark fruits, earthy, heavy and sweet.

8.4

Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 8.5 | Flavor - 8.5 | Texture - 9 | Overall - 8.5

Bottle at home. Red brown color, small off-white head. Aroma and flavor are malts, piney hops, resin, sticky resinous hops and hoppy bitters. Well brewed DIPA!

7.5

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7.5 | Flavor - 7.5 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7.5

330ml bottle @ Tim's place, Gent. Pours unclear amber, foamy off-white head. Tasty west coast.. big pine, citrus hop, deep sweet malt, sticky in a good way.. like it

6.9

Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7.5 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7

Spritziger, dunkel karamelliger Beginn. Weiche Herbe, kaum Alkohol, milde Süße, weich, trocken. Würzig, karamellig bleibend, mittellanger Abgang. Gelungen. 10/11/9/10/8/10

7.8

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8

Last year's iteration of Mighty Matroesjka, Verzet's strongest beer to date, though not necessarily their most ambitious one; aged on whisky and 'jenever' barrels so in any case different from the first Mighty Matroesjka I recall enjoying on New Year's Eve back in 2022, at least in terms of the barrels used, so I think this mess needs some cleaning up here with the 2022 and 2024 versions separated as different beers (not sure if there was a 2023 one too). Medium thick, bubbly and open, loosely structured, tiny-bubbled, pale yellow beige, dissolving head on a near black robe, initially clear, very dark chocolate brown with vaguely burgundy glow. Intense aroma of wet black chocolate bars, whisky, vague moist peat somewhere, Belgian chocolates, elderberry syrup, black pepper, old madera and tawny port, wet leather, shoe polish, clove, caramel, walnut paste, treacle, marmite, vanilla-scenting oak wood, bayleaf, porcini. Densely sweet, 'praline'-like onset, almost sticky and candied, brown-sugary, with candied dates, golden raisins and light blue plum impressions, medium carbonated with very full mouthfeel - but actually still quite supple at this ABV. Deep toffeeish, milk-chocolatey and marmite-like layers of dark malts under treacle-like residual sugariness, continuing into an intense caramelliness picking up retronasal vanilla (from oak wood) and hints of clove, madera, port and bayleaf - while becoming increasingly warmed by whisky- and jenever-flavoured alcohol, though the whisky clearly overrules the jenever in this case (luckily because I hate jenever). Bittersweet dark malts (more sweet than bitter) linger on, and in the end, melt with the alcohol into a very fortified wine-like effect, albeit thicker and sweeter. Hops, no doubt supporting the structure as a whole, remain discreet. Intense from beginning to end, fit for this wonderful time of the year, dense, boozy and rich - what it lacks in sophistication compared with some of the great international masterpieces in the genre, it sure makes up for in sheer 'deep-Flemish' stubbornness and resilience. Purely from memory - which does fail one at my age at least from time to time - this is technically even better than its 2022 original, with the flavours being more aligned and smoothened. Quite an impressive brew even to Verzet standards.

6.5

Bottle. Harvest 2023. Oak, vinegar and red berries. Too much vinegar for me. Some caramel and hints of bread. Balsamic notes. Quite nice, but a bit heavy on the vinegar for me. 646413 251207