small beer

plural small beers

1. countableuncountableBeer with a low alcoholic content, usually between 0.5% and 2.8%.

   It was then that the large footmen were too much employed at Clavering Park to be able to bring messages, or dally over the cup of small beer with the poor little maids at Fairoaks

   1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC

   1 more example

   Looking back to the 18th century, when the production of very low-alcohol ‘small’ beers was widespread as a safer alternative to dirty drinking water for the whole family, Small Beer produces a set of sub-3% brews.

   2020 April 12, David Williams, “The best low alcohol beers”, in The Guardian

2. UKfigurativelyuncountableSomething that is of relatively little importance.

   The income from standard widgets is small beer compared to the income from the gold-plated ones.

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   To ſuckle Fooles, and chronicle ſmall Beere.

   c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i], page 317, column 2

   ‘He’s not in court, man—was quite a break.’ ‘You small beer to him, Peter, it must be.’

   1964 [1957], Colin MacInnes, City of Spades, London: Penguin Books, page 132

   The estimated £3m extra cost of providing free school meals represents a little over 1% of the council's education spending. That's no small beer, but nor will it be a huge saving.

   2006 June 9, Kate Green, “Bring back free school meals”, in The Guardian

   But because there is a limit to how much of this is achievable while keeping the whole network operating, we can expect this to amount to small beer in terms of the overall level of cost savings required.

   2022 January 12, Sir Michael Holden, “Reform of the workforce or death by a thousand cuts?”, in RAIL, number 948, page 23

   Synonyms: peanuts, small potatoes, bagatelle, bag of shells, bric-a-brac, dicky, dicky-bird, fico

3. countableuncountableUsed other than figuratively or idiomatically: see small, beer.