Definition of "small beer" []

• Weak or inferior beer. (noun)
• Unimportant things; trivia. (noun)
• Trivial; unimportant. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Richard disbursed a penny for a tankard of small beer for Insell, who drained it at a gulp."
• "My lads and I will have to drink small beer on burgoo days and I warrant yon William Stanley from Seend can get it for us."
• "More bread and small beer in the morning, then onward through that confusing racket, joined now by the cries of vendors and some very interesting stenches—rotten fish, rotten meat, rotten vegetables."