In terms of the presentation De Ranke do not let us down with Amer Amer; it has those quintessential and signature characteristics of a lovely, well-retained head and some gorgeous, sticky lace. A lightly hazed dark orange/marmalade body sits below.

The nose offers mostly bready sweetness, and the hop note in the aroma is noticeably lacking. In fact, in the final analysis this beer drinks quite surprisingly sweet, and the very gentle hop bitterness never becomes manifest until much later. It’s way past mid-palate before any of the light grapefruit bursts through, as if the beer suddenly remembered that it was supposed to be a Belgian IPA. Even when it does, this is a grapefruit that has a pretty heavy-handed sugar addition to ease the classic bitterness.

The sweetness won’t be to everyone’s taste obviously, but it pushes the beer into what I might call ‘a lightly hoppy amber’ territory rather than fixing it firmly in the Belgian IPA category. Sometimes such stylistic bending puts me off, but the sheer drinkability of this beer is the saving grace here, and I really don’t mind the meandering too much.

A far sweeter experience than one have been expecting prior to opening, but also with sufficient bitterness on the back end to ckeep things in check.