Low-Calorie Craft Beer is on the Rise

Craft brewers are finally making beer that help combat the typical beer belly.

Health conscious consumers are on the rise, and with the change in habits comes a new line of low-calorie craft beer. Low-cal beer used to be seen as the bargain basement options found in the back of the cooler (you know the terrible beers like Bud Light, Coors Light, etc.)  But now that there is a massively growing segment of drinkers that are far more aware of the calories they are consuming, craft beer producers are finding creative ways to keep flavour and drop calorie count.

This can only benefit the industry in the long term. Craft brewers are incredibly creative, and using that creativity to find ways to make great beer even easier to enjoy is a fantastic trend.

Here are some low-calorie beer you can find right now:

PrimeTime Lager

Coming out of Bridge Brewing in North Vancouver, PrimeTime has the claim for being the first low-calorie craft beer brewed in BC (there are however competitors that have since launched). There are only 110 calories per can and 1.5g of carbs, while still maintaining a mix of Citra and El Dorado hops.

Refresh Raspberry Lemonade Ale

New from Steamworks Brewing, this is a hybrid style radler that is made with preservative free raspberry purée, lemon juice concentrate and a pinch of salt. They manage to keep the calorie count down to a lean 85 calories, so it’s a very crushable style.

SeaQuench Ale

This beer from Dogfish Head is definitely not short on taste. This is a session sour mash-up of a crisp Kölsch, a salty Gose and a tart Berliner Weiss brewed in sequence with black limes, sour lime juice and sea salt. All that taste and it still manages to come in at 140 calories with only 9g of carbs. This also happens to be one of the fastest selling styles for Dogfish Head, proving the demand is real.

Da Shootz!

From the name alone it should be clear this comes out of Deschutes Brewing. At 99 calories and 4.2 carbs this is a clean, lightly toasted, light citrus, bubbly, and refreshing pilsner.

Kahana Blonde Ale

Kona brewing has actually had this one around for a while. The Kahana Blonde uses real mango fruit juice to add some extra character to the beer, but still clocks in at just 99 calories and 4g of carbs.

Guinness Draught

Surprised to see Guinness on the list? Since 1959, Guinness has been proclaiming the health benefits of drinking their beer, and it seems they weren’t joking around. Guinness may be a stout but it’s only 128 calories and 10.6 carbs, which is mind-blowingly low. Oh and the fact that it reduces the risk of blot clots and heart attacks isn’t bad either.