Small beer (also known assmall ale ortable beer) is alager orale that contains a lower amount ofalcohol by volume than most others, usually between 1% and 2%.[1][2][3] Sometimes unfiltered and porridge-like, it was a favoured drink inMedieval Europe and colonialNorth America and up to the 19th century compared with more expensive and inebriating beer containing higher levels ofalcohol.[4]
Small beer was socially acceptable in 18th-century England because of its lower alcohol content, allowing people to drink several glasses without becomingdrunk.William Hogarth's portraitBeer Street (1751) shows a group of happy workers going about their business after drinking table beer.[5] It became increasingly popular during the 19th century, displacingmalt liquor as the drink of choice for families and servants.[6]
In hisA Plan for the Conduct of Female Education, in Boarding Schools published 1797, writerErasmus Darwin agreed that "For the drink of the more robust children water is preferable, and for the weaker ones, small beer ...".[7]Ruthin School's charter, signed byElizabeth I, stipulates that small beer should be provided to all scholars, and larger educational establishments likeEton,Winchester, andOxford University even ran their own breweries.[8]
To a large extent, the role of small beer as an everyday drink was gradually overtaken in the British Isles by tea, as that became cheaper from the later 18th century.[citation needed]
Small beer and small ale can also refer to beers made from the second runnings from the stronger beer (e.g.,Scotch ale). Such beers can be as strong as amild ale, but it depends on the strength of the original mash. This was an economic measure in household brewing in England until the 18th century, and still produced by somehomebrewers.[9] it is now only produced commercially in small quantities in Britain, and is not widely available in pubs or shops.
InBelgium, small or table beer is known asbière de table ortafelbier and many varieties are still brewed there. Breweries that still make this type of beer include De Es ofSchalkhoven and Gigi ofGérouville in theProvince of Luxembourg.[10] In the US, a Vienna lager was a popular table beer beforeprohibition.[11] Small beers are also produced in Germany and Switzerland albeit using local brewing methods.
When David Balfour first meets his uncle Ebenezer inRobert Louis Stevenson's novelKidnapped, Ebenezer has laid a table with his own supper "with a bowl of porridge, a horn spoon, and a cup of small beer". The small beer, horn spoon, and the porridge indicate Ebenezer Balfour's miserliness, since he could afford much better food and drink; but it may also be meant to convey the "trifle" meaning as an indication of Ebenezer's weak, petty character.
In the song "There Lived a King" in the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operaThe Gondoliers, small beer is used as a metaphor for something that is common or is of little value.[12]
Adam Smith uses small beer in a few examples inAn Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. These include a comparison of the value of small beer and the value of bread,[14] and a longer description of why cheap alcohol does not result in greater drunkenness.[15]
William Cobbett in his work "A History of the Protestant Reformation" refers to a 12th-century Catholic place of hospitality which fed 100 men a day – "Each had a loaf of bread, three quarts of small beer, and 'two messes,' for his dinner; and they were allowed to carry home that which they did not consume upon the spot." (Pg. 90, TAN Books, 1988)
^Tim Webb (2011), "Table beer",The Oxford Companion to Beer, Oxford University Press, p. 783,ISBN978-0-199-91210-0{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)
^Alicia Underlee Nelson (2017).North Dakota Beer: A Heady History. Arcadia Publishing. p. 38.ISBN978-1-625-85919-8.
^Wilson, William G. (1939).Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How Many Thousands of Men and Women Have Recovered from Alcoholism (4th ed.). New York City: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services Inc. p. 1.ISBN978-1893007178.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
