Editing Small beer (section)

==In art and history==

===Literature===
{{ref improve|section|date=March 2018}}
Metaphorically, ''small beer'' means a trifle, or a thing of little importance.

* "Small ale" appears in the works of [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]],{{efn|For example, in Henry IV part 2, scenes i-ii, Prince Hal makes fun of Falstaff, who braggingly quaffs pints of small beer and is never really drunk.}} [[William Makepeace Thackeray|William Thackeray]]'s ''[[Vanity Fair (novel)|Vanity Fair]]'', and in [[Edith Pargeter|Ellis Peters]]' [[Brother Cadfael]] series, and "small beer" appears in Thackeray's [[The Luck of Barry Lyndon|Barry Lyndon]].
* [[Graham Greene]] used the phrase "small beer" in the metaphorical sense in ''[[The Honorary Consul]]''. 
* When David Balfour first meets his uncle Ebenezer in [[Robert Louis Stevenson]]'s novel ''[[Kidnapped (novel)|Kidnapped]]'', 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, indicates 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 opera ''[[The Gondoliers]]'', small beer is used as a metaphor for something that is common or is of little value.<ref>{{citation|url=http://diamond.boisestate.edu/gas/gondoliers/gn_lib.pdf|author=W.S. Gilbert|title=The Gondoliers|year=1889|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304050610/https://diamond.boisestate.edu/gas/gondoliers/gn_lib.pdf|archive-date= 4 Mar 2016|page=30}}.</ref>
* Cold small beer appears in ''[[The Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous)|Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How Many Thousands of Men and Women Have Recovered from Alcoholism]]'' in Chapter 1. The narrator of "Bill's Story" recalls seeing the tombstone of the Thomas Thetcher, the Hampshire Grenadier, and taking it as a warning against drinking strong liquor to excess.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wilson |first=William G. |title=Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How Many Thousands of Men and Women Have Recovered from Alcoholism |publisher=Alcoholics Anonymous World Services Inc |year=1939 |isbn=978-1893007178 |edition=4th |location=New York City |pages=1 |language=en}}</ref>
* Adam Smith uses small beer in a few examples in ''[[The Wealth of Nations|An 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,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Adam |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38194/38194-h/38194-h.htm |title=An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations |publisher=W. Strahan and T. Cadell |year=1776 |location=London |pages=13 |author-link=Adam Smith}}</ref> and a longer description of why cheap alcohol does not result in greater drunkenness.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Adam |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38194/38194-h/38194-h.htm |title=An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations |publisher=W. Strahan and T. Cadell |year=1776 |location=London |pages=376 |author-link=Adam Smith}}</ref>

===History===
* [[Thomas Thetcher]]'s tombstone at [[Winchester Cathedral]] features a poem that blames his death on drinking cold small beer. 
* [[Benjamin Franklin]] attested in his autobiography that it was sometimes had with breakfast. [[George Washington]] had a recipe for it involving [[bran]] and [[molasses]].<ref>{{citation|author=George Washington|url=http://www.nypl.org/locations/tid/36/node/40921|title=To make Small Beer|year=1757|work=George Washington Papers}}. New York Public Library Archive.</ref>
*[[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)