Having occasion to dine at a large country inn, in a market town, I requested some small beer in preference to strong. Judge my surprise, when I was informed that there was none to be had, except a pale sort in butts, which, I was told, they sold at the same price as strong. Judge my surprise, when I was informed that there was none to be had, except a pale sort in butts, which I was told, they sold at the same price as strong. Of this, nevertheless, I called for a pint, but could not drink it, for I found it to have been brewed from the malt and hops left from the brewing of strong beer, and boiled with the latter, which had communicated such an unpleasant earthy taste to it, as well as an unwholesome quality, that I could not touch it.
Drink brewed in this manner, I am enabled to distinguish in the dark, if I only taste it, by the earthy, phlegmatic nature of the refuse grains and hops it is made from; for after the malt has been washed with several parcels of hot water, to make strong beer with, what can remain in the grains but much earth? for it is the floury spirituous parts of the malt that are first extracted. And another evil, not less pernicious, is that of adding the refuse hops, which often go through two or several violent boilings in strong beer wort, before the are used for small beer; and the what else remains in them but a rank, ill-tasted bitter, which when mixed in a great degree with such cloudy small-wort, is enough to turn one's stomach, instead of recruiting nature; and which according to the opinion of our eminent physicians, corrupts the blood, cloys the stomach, and brings on sickness.
W. Brande's cites an unnamed individual in his 1830 work The Town and Country Brewery Book, who makes some good points about the production of small beer. It would be good to hear a counter argument, but it's hard to imagine he is wrong, particularly about the reuse of hops.
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