Small Beers and Table Beers
While I have plunged head-first into exploring <0.5% abv “spacer beers”, I haven't spent as much time in the territory between them and the low 3% realm of Milds, Light Ales, Ordinary Bitters and Berliner Weisses. Wikipedia tells me that 0.5-2.8% beers are “Small” or “Table” beers. The excellent beer historian Ron Pattinson reveals in Beer Advocate and in his Shut Up About Barclay Perkins blog that these were in fact two different tax categories in 18th Century Britain. The terms are starting to pop up again, used a little interchangeably by modern craft brewers but if you see them on a beer give it a try!
I will take a blogger's prerogative now and ramble a little before returning to some specific examples I like. Looking back I guess my history with lower abv beers probably started with a 3.2% Courage Light Ale at an ice skating rink in my early days of drinking (public safety announcement – don't drink and ice skate!). Languishing in the fridge in the bar, these small bottles with their blue label contained a quaffable beverage and promised a bit of booze while seeming a less risky choice than the other options. Still over 3% though.
I found Milds somewhere in my twenties, enjoying their gentle roasty maltiness, and have a fond memory of embarking on a 10 venue pub crawl in Bristol during CAMRA's annual celebration of Milds in the month of May. Myself and a rotating selection of friends worked off our pints through the ups and downs of hilly Bristol. Great beer style. Still over 3%.
Berliner Weisse was a discovery while living in California. Like a good lemonade, the tartness works beautifully on a hot summer's day. While some versions can be found below 3%, none of the ones in California were!
Since getting back to the UK in 2016, I've seen craft brewers dipping their toes into one-off releases below 3% abv to gauge interest. I'm hoping this will advance and that more breweries will start to claim permanent stakes in this tricky-to-brew and tricky-to-market slice of beerdom.
Getting the flavour and body of these beers right is definitely hard and it's all too easy to come up with a thin beer that is either too lacking in flavour or overpowered by the hop addition. There's nothing overtly wrong with a beer that's “inoffensive” in the words of a friend of mine (or my father-in-law when describing some table wine) – indeed, you could argue that low abv “inoffensive” beers harken back to when alewives used to brew “small beers” at a household level to protect against waterborne pathogens.
However, I do prefer a bit of flavour where possible! Perhaps using some of the tricks I've noted in the <0.5% beer playbook – building the complexity of the malt bill, adding lactose for mouthfeel, adding a hop punch (but cleverly, building flavours as well as bitterness), playing with yeast-derived flavours like a funky European Farmhouse Ale...
Anyway, on to some of my favourite examples so far. Let's start off with the non-hoppy ones:
- Mackeson's Milk Stout, 2.8% – An absolute classic and standing pretty much by itself at this style/abv intersection in the UK market, it can be found in many supermarkets. If Wikipedia whets your appetite to find out more about it's 100+ year history, here's an article by Ron Pattinson that highlights how it originated the whole milk stout style. More articles by Ron show how it has changed down the years. I'm also strangely fascinated by the 4.9% XXX Caribbean version with its cringe-worthy marketing to young males on a night out and (according to Wikipedia) its international success in Hong Kong.
- Harvey's Bloomsbury Brown, 2.8% – This malt-led Brown Ale is full of beautiful nutty sweetness and has a light body that prevents the beer from being cloying. Lovely stuff. I drank it a couple of years ago as a #BeerBods offering and still remember it. You can get it as part of a Harvey's dark ales and porter multi-pack but it looks like it won't be a regular for the brewery, unfortunately – although they do have a 2.8% Sweet Sussex Stout and a couple of <0.5% beers I've not tried yet!
- Brekeriet, Picnic Sour, 2.2% – Another very tasty archival #BeerBods offering, with rhubarb tartness. Doesn't look like it'll be repeated but this interesting Swedish brewery could put out others in this space?
..and now into the domain of hoppy Table Beers:
- Thornbridge, Carry Us All, 2.5% – a new one but I like it. There is a welcome complexity to the hop profile that keeps this eminently drinkable beer from being boring. I fear it may not last beyond its 2020 “Year of Beer” range billing though unless it sells really well (so go buy it!).
- The Kernel, Table beer, 2.8-3% – unlike some of the beers in this blog post, this a regular for the brewery in question, although Kernel do like to keep things interesting by tinkering with their recipes through time, especially the hops. I think I've had it before but I tend to focus more on their excellent dark beer range.
- Cloudwater, Small Pale, 2.5% – I had a glass of their 2.9% Small Vic Secret Pale in an East London canal-side pub a couple of years ago and was delighted by it – super hazy with lovely hops. I'm really pleased that they've decided to have a regular Small Pale and excited to get some!
- Tap East, Tonic Ale, 3% – I know, I know – this is on the edge of the abv range but I have to give a shout out to my favourite (and only!) microbrewery based in a shopping centre. You could also try their East End Mild as you edge towards 4%...
- Small Beer, <2.8% – I've not drunk a lot of this brewery's offerings but a friend of mine is a definite convert. Based out of London, they specialise in beer <2.8% and currently brew a Lager, Dark Lager, Steam, and Session Pale. Will add them to my list to investigate further.
More of these needed please, especially for me! Writing this blog is helping to distract me. My wife has gone into labour but I can't join her in hospital quite yet due to COVID-19 rules. I have a feeling that low abv beers will be a definite part of my days to come as a father so the more options there are the better!
Entry 18 of my participation in the “100 Days to Offload” challenge – find out more and join in!
2020-06-29 #100DaysToOffload #beer #SmallBeer #TableBeer #SpacerBeer #BeerBods