McLighty’s Review: Zero Gravity Beer’s Lager – American Light at 3.2% ABV

I tried this at Zero Gravity’s own Burlington taproom on a work trip through Vermont, mostly because the name made me laugh. At 3.2% ABV, Zero Gravity Beer’s McLighty’s is one of a growing number of low-ABV and non-alcoholic beers that ordinary breweries are now keeping on their regular lineup, not just rolling out as a one-off. I went digging into that shift across more than 22,000 beers I tracked down (full breakdown here), and Zero Gravity Beer was one of the names that stood out.

At a Glance

What it actually tastes like

McLighty’s is clean grain, a gentle sweetness and very low bitterness, built to be crushable rather than complex. At 3.2% ABV, it is built to be sessionable first, which is exactly the point, this is not a beer trying to disguise how light it is.

It works well with wings, a backyard cookout, or lawn games where you don’t want the beer to slow you down.

Why this matters more than it looks like

Zero Gravity is a Vermont craft brewery known for hop-forward beers like Conehead IPA, so a dedicated light lager on the year-round lineup says something about where demand is heading. That is the real story behind McLighty’s, not that it exists, but that a brewery built on stronger, bigger beers is treating a 3.2% release as a permanent part of the lineup rather than a seasonal experiment.

Across the data I pulled, this pattern kept showing up. Roughly 93 percent of the low-ABV and non-alcoholic beers I found in that research came from breweries whose main business is not non-alcoholic drinks, not from dedicated NA specialists like Athletic Brewing. Zero Gravity Beer is one of the clearer examples of that shift, an established name in VT keeping a 3.2% beer in year-round rotation next to its bigger, stronger releases.

How it compares to the rest of the category

I’d put McLighty’s at 3.58 out of 5, which puts it solidly in the middle of the pack for lager, american light releases I looked at releases I’ve tried. It is not trying to be the most complex beer on the shelf, and it does not need to be. The goal with a release like this is consistency at a lower strength, and on that measure it delivers exactly what it promises every time.

My verdict

If you already know Zero Gravity Beer for their bigger, hoppier or stronger releases, McLighty’s is worth a detour the next time you are near Burlington, VT. It is not trying to compete with those beers on intensity, it is solving a different problem: something you can drink through a whole afternoon without slowing down. That is a harder needle to thread than it sounds, plenty of light beers taste like nothing at all, and this one does not.

The bigger picture is what makes McLighty’s worth writing about at all. A brewery does not keep a 3.2% beer on its core, year-round lineup unless customers are actually asking for it and coming back. That is a real signal about where drinking habits are heading, not a marketing angle dreamed up in a boardroom.

Cannot find it near you? Try these instead

McLighty’s has limited distribution outside its home region. If you cannot track it down, these are real, currently available beers in a similar style worth trying:

FAQs

Where is Zero Gravity Beer’s McLighty’s brewed?

McLighty’s is brewed by Zero Gravity Beer in Burlington, VT.

What is the ABV of McLighty’s?

McLighty’s is 3.2% ABV, classified as lager, american light.

Is McLighty’s available nationwide?

No. Like most regional craft releases, McLighty’s has limited distribution outside VT and nearby states. Check Zero Gravity Beer’s own site or a beer-finder app before making a special trip.