Small Beer, a type of weak beer that from medieval times until the 19th century was the staple drink of most of the population of England in preference to water. Small beer was usually produced by fermentation of wort from the second or third wetting and extraction of a mash after the brewer had drawn off stronger wort for ale production. This procedure had the advantage of economy in giving good yield from the materials, but it generally resulted in a product with suspect keeping qualities and poor flavor. An alternative method, particularly favored when it was necessary to brew small beer in the summer months when demand was greatest, was to make a separate single extraction of a suitably small quantity of a fresh batch of malt. This latter method was generally recognized to yield a superior if more expensive product. Small beer, which was brewed both domestically and by commercial brewers, was drunk throughout the day at meals by all classes and ages of the population. Until modern supplies became common, water quality was often dubious and it was considered potentially dangerous to drink. The alcoholic strength of small beer must necessarily have been variable, with recipes suggesting a likely alcohol content of 1%–3% alcohol by volume (ABV). In colonial America, some versions contained non-malt sugars, often molasses. Modern versions of small beer are rare, but the Anchor Brewery Company of San Francisco produces a small beer with an alcohol content of 3.3% ABV from the second extraction of the grist from production of a barley wine. See anchor brewing company. Shakespeare seems to have despised small beer because he mentions it more than once in his plays. In Othello, the villainous Iago taunts Desdemona with the phrase, “To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.” Over the centuries “small beer” has passed into the English language as a description of something trifling and of little value.