Kraig Torres, the CEO of seven craft-beer focused bars, restaurants, and retail shops in Georgia and Alabama, has noticed a change in many of his customers’ drink choices in the last year or two. “While our guests still love brews from Allagash, Monday Night Brewing, and Creature Comfort, many are shifting into lower-abv or easier drinking choices,” says Torres, who operates the Hop City Beer & Wine, Barleygarden, and Boxcar concepts. “Virtually every one of my favorite domestic craft brands has a light beer option now,” he adds.

Reduced-calorie craft brews are certainly on the rise. According to Nielsen IQ off-premise sales data provided by 3 Tier Beverages, for the 52 weeks ended July 12, 2025, dollar sales of light beers produced by regional, craft, or small-to-medium-sized breweries jumped nearly 31%. “The popularity and distribution of this type of beer has grown significantly in the past several years,” says 3 Tier consultant Danelle Kosmal.

Kosmal and others say that the boom in craft lights is a natural extension of today’s overall health and wellness trend among consumers and provides opportunity for increased visits to retail accounts as the products are more sessionable than traditional craft beer, likely expanding drinking occasions. Traditional craft consumers haven’t been particularly surprised by the growing wave of light entries from their favorite brewers, retailers and marketers note, despite disparagement of the style by some craft brewers during the segment’s heyday. “More than 70% of today’s beer consumers drink mainstream domestic brews,” says Chris Brown, co-CEO of Great Lakes Brewing, which launched Cold Rush Light lager last year. “So let’s bring them into the craft world.”

National and local craft brewers alike have expanded into the reduced-calorie beer space. Dogfish Head Craft Brewery launched 30 Minute Light IPA, an addition to its continually hopped series of IPAs, earlier this year. “We’ve landed on a beer that has the full flavor of an IPA but the same calories as Michelob Ultra,” says Sam Calagione, co-founder of the Delaware brewery. Dogfish Head’s previous light beer, Slightly Mighty, has been discontinued as it was a bit of an “outlier” to the continually hopped brew line, which includes 60 Minute and 90 Minute IPAs, he explains. Sister company Boston Beer, meanwhile, debuted Samuel Adams American Light nationally in the spring.

Michigan’s Bell’s Brewery has offered Light Hearted ale for about five years now, and according to senior brand manager Carly Davis, it was developed “to introduce a new occasion to our Two Hearted fans and drinkers by providing a low-calorie, low-abv session IPA for times when you want a lighter option.” Fellow midwestern brewer Great Lakes had been working on a light entry for a while, Brown reveals, but opted to launch it in 2024 as “the business has changed and the consumer is very different.” Cold Rush, available only in northeast Ohio, is still in a growth phase, he says.

For California’s Turlock Brewing Co., the recently introduced Dust Bowl Light isn’t its first light beer entry. “Back in 2019, we released LoCal lager, but I think we were ahead of our time,” says brewmaster Don Oliver. “Now we believe [our consumers] are actually looking for a light beer option.” In fact, Dust Bowl Light, available in California and northern Nevada, is showing steady growth, notes brewery founder Brett Tate.

Beer retailers applaud the emerging segment. Marie Greguska, owner of Discount Liquors in Milwaukee, which stocks about 15 different craft lights, notes the trade-up opportunity the brews provide. “If a craft consumer is going to purchase a light beer, there’s a good chance they’re going to consider a local brew first,” she says. At Prohibition Taproom, a craft beer bar in Philadelphia, where Tivoli Brewing’s Outlaw Light is sometimes available on draft ($5 a 16-ounce pour), general manager Collin O’Brien, says that with overall craft beer sales on the wane these days, “breweries need to capitalize on all beer styles.”

Bell’s Davis also points to the segment’s growing importance to the craft beer category. “As drinkers shift to better-for-you alternatives, craft lights prevent abandonment of craft,” she says. Indeed, Calagione believes craft brewers have great opportunity in expanding their light beer offerings beyond lagers. “You can do light beer across a spectrum of beer styles,” he says. “Craft can play a really important role in the light beer space.”