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Reader question: Please explain “small beer” and this headline – Phone hacking is small beer as press crimes go. My comments: Small beer means something petty and insignificant. The free press, as it is known in the West, commits a lot of sins, the tabloids especially. Phone hacking, the terrible deed of eavesdropping on people’s phone calls to collection “information” is a small crime. By comparison, that is. This headline implies, you see, the press commits many and much greater sins. Phone hacking, however, is not one of them. What those greater sins are remain unspecified. But I would venture to contend that drinking small beer is not among them either. Because, you see, small beer is weaker beer, or beer with a lower level of alcohol content. Many journalists in Britain and indeed the world over are known to be binge drinkers and it’s safe to say if they suffer any hangover from the night before, they do not get it from small beer, but instead lager, whisky, vodka. Or baijiu. Stronger stuff, in short, not to mention drugs. Anyways, small beer is British slang for weaker beer. Dictionary.com quotes William Shakespeare as once using this term – Doth it not show vilely in me to desire small beer? (Implying that a prince should want a strong drink, not weak beer) Today, few brewers produce small beers and the expression is mostly used figuratively, standing for something of little effect, influence, importance or significance. It’s the same as “small potatoes”, or “small fry”, meaning small fish. | 
