Review of Mike's Light Hard Lemonade

Size: 12 ounce and 24 ounce bottles.

APV: 4.1 %

Website: http://www.mikeshard.com

Mike's Hard Lemonade drinks, as the name implies, are alcoholic beverages designed to taste like lemonade. Over the years the company has expanded to different malt beverage flavors, even going to a hard iced tea at one point.

Mike's Light is their first low calorie and low carb beverage in their line up. Malt beverages often come with high amounts of sugar which adds up to quite a bit of calories. Competition from light beers surely drove Mike's to add a light drink to their line up.

Mike's Light Hard Lemonade has 98 calories and 6 carbs according to its labeling. Other beverages in Mike's line up often have double this amount if not more, so it is quite a big deal to get a malt beer under 100 calories.

The taste of Mike's Light is unfortunately a casualty in the process of making a light version of their classic Original Lemonade. Not to say the taste isn't there, it is, but it just seems a bit watered down and not as strong as the original.

This has its advantages and disadvantages. One advantage is that the drink goes down smoother than Mike's original in my opinion. Mike's beverages are usually carbonated, this drink has less carbonation it tastes like than the other drinks in the line up. This means it fills you up less.

A key disadvantage is that to make it sweet while still reducing calories, they had to take out some sugar and replace it with artificial sweeteners often found in diet sodas. So you get that not quite satisfying aftertaste that some artificial sweeteners provide.

Another key disadvantage is that regular Mike's contains around 5% alcohol, the light version contains 4.1%. Whether this is due to reducing certain ingredients to reduce calories or a move to compensate for how easy this drink goes down is not known. In theory you could drink nearly double the amount of Mike's Light that you could with regular Mike's and consume the same calories and carbs. So a lower APV to offset that "might" be a possible effect.

Overall the taste isn't terrible. If you have had Mike's Original or any other Mike's flavors you will find something missing in the taste with Mike's Light. But it isn't so bad that it makes the drink undrinkable. If you are watching your calories but still like the lemonade flavor of Mike's, Mike's Light is as decent an alternative as you'll get.