Small beer is a lager or ale that contains a lower amount of alcohol by volume than most others, usually between 0.5% and 2.8%. Sometimes unfiltered and porridge-like, it was a favoured drink in Medieval Europe and colonial North America compared with more expensive beer containing higher levels of alcohol. Small beer was also produced in households for consumption by children and by servants.

Ale is a type of beer, brewed using a warm fermentation method. In mediaeval England, the term referred to a drink brewed without hops.