small beer

Noun

small beer (countable and uncountable, plural small beers)

1. Beer 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 Fairoaks1848 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
   • 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. (UK, figuratively, uncountable) Something that is of relatively little importance.
   • The income from standard widgets is small beer compared to the income from the gold-plated ones.
   • 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...

   Synonyms:

   peanuts, small potatoes, bagatelle, bag of shells, bric-a-brac, dicky, dicky-bird, fico, fig, flamfew

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