The Can Says Easy Drinking. Devil's Reach Is 8.6 Percent

The front of the can makes a modest promise. Under the beer's name, in small red type, it reads "easy drinking with fruity esters." The spec panel in the brewery's newsletter puts the beer at 8.6 percent.

Devil's Reach is a Belgian-style ale, and Cape May Brewing Co. is direct about where its character comes from. The complexity, the brewery says, is the work of a robust Belgian yeast, and it describes the result as fruity and light. It also offers a caution: "Deceptively simple, caution is demanded because, before you know it, Devil's Reach has swallowed you whole."

That line is selling, but it is also describing something real about the style. Belgian ale yeasts throw off fruity esters and spicy phenols as they ferment, so a good deal of what ends up in the glass never came from hops or malt at all. They also attenuate hard, chewing through sugars that other yeast strains would leave behind. The practical result is a beer that finishes dry and light-bodied while carrying an alcohol load a sweeter, heavier beer would announce plainly. It is exactly what lets an 8.6 percent ale taste like less.

The label follows the same thought to its conclusion. A red and navy octopus sits at the center of the can with its tentacles curling toward the edges, and the name is a nautical one. In navigational usage a reach is a straight stretch of water between bends. Cape May sits at the southern tip of New Jersey with the Atlantic on one side and the Delaware Bay on the other, which makes a sea monster a reasonable mascot and "swallowed you whole" the natural place for it to end up.

Devil's Reach is available in 12 ounce cans at the Cape May tasting room and through retailers.