The Drunk Beaver Bat Cold War V2 is an analog distortion pedal from the Ukrainian builder Drunk Beaver, and it takes a familiar starting point somewhere new: the maker describes it as a mutant Rat circuit, the Pro Co design that has been reworked by pedal builders for decades. Where a stock Rat uses a single op-amp chip, the Bat Cold War V2 uses NOS (new old stock) US-made LM308 and NOS Soviet UD1408B op-amps, the parts choice that gives the pedal its Cold War theme1.
What sets it apart from most Rat-style pedals is the range of voicings. The pedal offers 6 different clipping modes, which combine to give 36 different iterations, so one enclosure covers a wide spread of distortion textures rather than a single fixed voice1. If you are new to the territory, a distortion pedal pushes the signal hard enough to clip, adding sustain and edge; the Distortion Pedals page covers the wider family.
Power and practical notes
The pedal runs on 9V DC, center negative, and draws 2mA, which is a very light load by pedalboard standards1. At that draw it will sit comfortably on a daisy-chained supply alongside other low-current pedals, and the low current requirement is typical of simple analog circuits of this kind.
Where it sits in the Drunk Beaver range
Drunk Beaver has built several pedals around Rat-adjacent ideas, and the Bat Cold War V2 is the V2 edition of the design1. The Bat family name also appears on the brand's other Rat-inspired pedals, so if you are comparing options within the maker's lineup, it is worth checking which generation and which variant of the circuit a listing describes before assuming they share the same clipping arrangement.
Sources (1)
- Bat Cold War V2 by Drunk Beaver, RockBoard PedalPedia, 2026