Light beer isn’t the scary term it once was. Sure, if you walk down the beer aisle at your local grocery or beer store, you’ll still see all the flavorless fizzy, yellow, watery beers the giant macro-breweries are cranking out. But you’ll also see all of the flavorful, complex, easy-drinking light beers currently coming out of craft breweries. These are the light beers we’re most interested in.
From light IPAs and lagers to wheat beers, these are the easy drinking craft light beers that are enjoyable all year-round.
Cigar City Jai Low
If you’re a fan of Cigar City’s massively popular Cigar City Jai Alai IPA, but you wish it was lower in alcohol and carbohydrates, its light beer version Cigar City Jai Low is for you. This sessionable IPA might be lower in ABV at 4 percent (as opposed to 7.5 percent), but it’s not lower in flavor. It features a nice, bready malt backbone as well as a mix of orange, tangerine, lime, and grapefruit flavors, and lightly bitter, fresh hops at the finish.
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Sweetwater High Light
Sweetwater is well-known for its dank, hoppy IPAs. It takes that flavor to beers on the lighter end, too, with this low-ABV, low-calorie IPA that's still crisp, refreshing, and dank. It’s filled with flavors like caramel malts, bright tangerine, grapefruit, and resinous, floral, lightly bitter hops. For a light beer, it’s surprisingly balanced and flavorful.
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Night Shift Day Lite
While you can’t go wrong with Night Shift’s Nite Lite lager, if you’re looking for something more unique in the craft light beer realm, go for its Night Shift Day Lite instead. This sessionable, 4 percent ABV wheat beer was brewed with wheat, 2-row barley malt, and caracara orange peel. The result is a surprisingly complex, sippable wheat beer with notes of sweet wheat, tangerine, and other citrus flavors.
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Short’s Local’s Light
When it comes to light beers, it’s tough to beat the appeal of a well-made lager. One of the best is Short’s Local Light. Brewed with Perle hops, this 5.2 percent ABV lager is known for its all-grain, crisp, refreshing, no-frills flavor profile. Sip it and you’ll be greeted with notes of bready malts, cereal grains, honey, citrus peels, and floral, earthy hops at the finish. Crack one open on a cool winter evening and imagine you’re on a dock somewhere warm with your feet in the water.
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Harpoon Rec. League
If you play beer-league softball, kickball, or even pickleball, you aren’t going to crack open a heavy, dark, malty stout after an epic game, right? These instances call for a refreshing, hazy, flavorful, low-calorie, low-carb, low-ABV IPA. The brewers at Boston’s Harpoon made a great one called Harpoon Rec. League. Referred to as a “lo-cal hazy IPA,” Rec. League isn’t your average hazy IPA. Brewed with a mix of aromatic and flavorful hops as well as buckwheat, kasha, chia seeds, and sea salt, it has a palate of juicy tangerine, pineapple, peach, mango, and floral hops.
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Bell’s Light Hearted
If you look at any list of highest-rated American IPAs, you’re likely to find Bell’s Two Hearted IPA. Even if you love this classic beer, you might not know that the brewery makes a lighter version as well called Bell’s Light Hearted. This year-round offering is brewed with a smattering of Centennial and Galaxy hops. The result is a surprisingly complex, well-balanced light IPA with flavors of tangerine, lime, grapefruit, sweet malts, and dank, resinous, lightly bitter pine. All this IPA goodness and it's only 4 percent ABV and 110 calories.
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Stillwater Yacht Lager
Proving that light beer can still be loaded with flavor, Stillwater Yacht Lager is brewed with Hallertau Mittelfrüh and Hallertau Blanc hops. Created to be enjoyed on a yacht, small boat, rowboat, kayak, or even a dingy, this beer is a crushable 4.2 percent ABV but is loaded with flavors like cereal grains, bready malts, honey, lemon peels, and bright, floral, noble hops. It’s a crisp, refreshing, light lager for any season.
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Karbach Love Street Light
Brewed with a base of 2-row malts as well as Vienna, Acidulated malts, and flaked wheat, this light lager gets its hops presence from the use of Tettnanger hops. This 4.2 percent ABV lager begins with a sweet, crackery malt backbone and moves into caramel, honey, and citrus, before finishing with floral, earthy, bright German hops. It’s a very well-balanced beer you’ll go back to again and again.
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