Bell’s Brewery is getting in on the low-calorie trend that’s sweeping the craft alcohol industry.

The Comstock-based beer giant announced Thursday evening on Instagram that it will release its Light-Hearted Ale, a low-calorie version of its best-selling Two-Hearted Ale, in early 2020.

The Light-Hearted Ale will maintain the same “malt, balanced, flavorful, hoppy” profile of Two-Hearted Ale, Bell’s says, “but without all the calories.” It will be 3.7% ABV.

The announcement comes on Bell’s’ week-long anniversary celebration of its Two-Hearted Ale (7% ABV), widely heralded as one of the best beers in America, and in the same month as the bottle release of Double Two-Hearted Ale (11% ABV), the double-IPA version of Two-Hearted.

It makes sense for Bell’s to release a lighter version of its best-selling IPA. Drinkers across America are becoming more health-conscious and trending toward lighter-bodied, lower-calorie alcoholic drinks, which has fueled the rise of hard seltzer (such as White Claw and Truly) as a $550-million business, according to industry analysts, that could grow to $2.5 billion by 2021.

That’s led big beer companies such as Anheuser-Busch (Bon & Viv hard seltzer) and MillerCoors (Henry’s) to enter the hard seltzer game – and tout the nutrition labels on their uber-popular light beers such as Bud Light (110 calories) and Miller Lite (96 calories).

Bell’s released Light-Hearted Ale in samples as a General Store exclusive from its Eccentric Café in Kalamazoo last April, though those sample bottles were listed at 4.5% ABV. That release of Light-Hearted Ale had 110 calories and 8.7 grams of carbohydrates per 12-oz. bottle, compared to Two-Hearted’s 212 calories and 17 grams of carbs.

The Light-Hearted Ale has a rating of 3.81 out of 5 after 136 check-ins on the Untappd app, which is not far off from Two-Hearted’s 3.97 (though that’s out of 448,000 check-ins).

Spirits of Detroit writer Brian Manzullo covers craft alcohol for the Free Press. Contact him: bmanzullo@freepress.com and on Untappd, bmanzullo and Twitter, @BrianManzullo and @SpiritsofDET.