On 1st May this year, Harvey’s announced that
they would be renaming the following beers Mild (3%) and IPA
(3.4%) to Dark Mild (3%) and Sisters Table
Beer (3.4%). The latter move was significant, as Harvey’s became the first
major regional brewer to include a table beer in their range, which up to that
point over the preceding decade was the preserve of microbreweries and
small-scale independents. When pressed on the decision for the name change, the
brewery’s marketing manager Zoe Prescott noted, “the decision to transition to
the Table Beer style name is rooted in evolving consumer tastes. Table Beers
offer a light, easy-drinking experience with an ABV ranging between 2.8% and
3.8%. This adjustment better aligns Sisters Table Beer with contemporary preferences,
while our Wharf IPA continues to cater to those seeking bolder, hoppier
flavours.”
This change in consumer tastes has facilitated the resurrection of Table Beers
in recent years, yet the move by Harvey’s could widely be seen as a marketing
strategy to encourage higher sales for their session level beers. When
describing session beer, Martyn Cornell humorously quipped “it’s an important
plank in British pub culture, the 4 per cent abv or less drink that enables the
British pub goer to down multiple pints during the evening without falling
over.”
Table Beers are not a specific beer style as such, they can range light blonde
to dark with a gentle to moderate hoppy bitterness, traditionally they were
brewed between 1%-2.5% ABV although there have been examples as high as 3.8%;
indeed it could be argued that Table Beers are no different to the likes of
Session IPA’s, Mild, AK, Bitter and Blonde Ales, which are generally brewed
between 3-3.9% ABV, around the same level as your average Table Beer. Could the
likes of beers like Hooky (3.4%), Trinity (3%), Lighthouse
(3.4%), or Courage Light Ale (3.2%) be considered examples
of Table Beers since they more or less fit into that category even-though they
are not marketed a such, the recent marketing decision by Harvey’s has further
diluted the chasm between Table Beer and other types of Session beers, are we
on the precipice of a sudden rise of existing beers jumping onto the Table Beer
bandwagon. Indeed it’s growing popularity could be seen as the next big thing
to lure drinkers to beer, just like Golden Ales did back in the 1980’s, indeed,
Taylor Laabs writing in 2017 just as the Table Beer craze was yet to take off
in the UK, noted “table Beers are the next big variation of Session IPAs and
Ales, as they provide all of the punch you’d expect from a hoppy session with
an even lower alcohol content that borders on light beer status.” To
understand more Table Beer’s recent return to prominence, we need understand
more about its history and how brewers produce such a low strength beer,
without having to compromise on flavour.
The
origins of the Table Beer are rather intriguing; indeed, it was another name
for small beer which was generally brewed to a lower strength. It has been
around since medieval times, and became quite popular in era before clean
drinking water became commonplace in the population, as Table Beer was safter
than drinking the unsanitary water that flowed through many towns and cities,
often infected with all sorts of bugs and raw sewage. Brew Your Own notes
“originally table beers were brewed to be consumed by the whole family with
each meal (including breakfast). Beer was safer than water, but low alcohol was
necessary to avoid both dehydration and perpetual drunkenness.”
This type of beer had a utilitarian aspect to it, as its low strength meant it
could be drunk by a wider cast of the population, Ron Pattison notes “in the
days before easy access to clean drinking water, Small Beer was the everyday
drink of young and old. It was seen as a necessity, not a luxury.” Sheep
in Wolf’s Clothing noted “it was very much the drink of the working classes.
Rustic table beers were sustenance for a life of toil, sweat, and tears. All
were to partake, including servants when the upper classes later embraced table
beer.”
Over time, table beers had become quite popular and became a mainstay in Europe
and colloidal America, in the UK it had become so widespread that even
well-known educational establishments like Eton College and Cambridge
University were brewing their own table beers for their scholars, up until the
18th century small beer was the most commonly known drink in the general
population, breweries generally developed Table Beer from a process was known
as Parti-gyle, which consists of the second runnings from the brewing process,
another method is to split the batch, dilute the first runnings, and the
remaining mixture boil for longer, in order to produce a stronger beer,
although sometimes other unscrupulous methods were used in the production of
small/ Table Beer as a means of dodging tax such as brewing from unmalted
barley. Its appeal was additionally helped by it’s low wholesale costs, in 1782
a barrel of table beer would only be taxed for 3 shillings per barrel, whilst a
barrel of strong would be taxed at a comparatively high 8 shillings per barrel,
so there was good economic sense for its prevalent usage. Yet by the 19th
century, Table Beer was on the decline, as clean drinking water became
increasingly available, the demand for small beer plummeted, and to make
matters worse, Pattison notes “officially, the
classification “Table Beer” disappeared in 1830, when the tax was shifted from
finished beer to malt and hops. Though low-gravity beers continued to be brewed
under the name of Table Beer, they gradually dwindled away in the second half of
the 19th century.” In the light of the tax changes, the big London
brewers abandoned the production of table beers as there was no longer a tax
incentive to brew weaker beer, although one intriguing outlier was Scotland,
where table beer was brewed at a greater rate than their stronger equivalents
and generally had a good reputation, brewers like William Younger and Maclay
were still brewing table beers into the early 20th century. The reason for its
demise, Pattison adds “ultimately, Table Beer was
killed off by the rise of low-alcohol alternatives; first in the form of Dinner
Ales and Light Bitters, beers of 4- to 4.5-percent ABV, which boomed in
popularity from the 1860s on, and then by the drop in strength of standard
beers after World War I.” And what was once a popular and widespread
beer style, it’s decline could either be seen as a tragic or an important
stepping to stone to the development of latter-day beer styles like Bitter,
Light Ale or Mild that were prevalent during the 20th century. The eventual
resurrection of Table Beer would come from an unexpected source.
The
Kernel Brewery was set up in Bermondsey by former cheesemonger turned brewer
Evan O’Riordan in 2009, operating from railway-arches initially using a
four-barrel kit, he utilized the skills he had gathered as a cheesemonger and
transferred this knowledge to brewing beer. Innovation was key to this drive,
with early releases including Imperial Brown Stout (10.1%) borrowed
from an 1856 Barclay Perkins recipe, India Pale Ale Black (6.5%) that
blurred the boundaries between IPA and Porter, and Pale Ale Citra
(5.1%) the first of many experiments with different types of hops. The
early rumblings of a revival for Table Beer came from across the pond, during a
visit to the US, brewer Phil Lowry sampled a 3% version of American Pale Ale by
21st Amendment Brewery. Upon his return to England, he developed Trinity
(3%) at Redemption Brewery, which at the time was marketed as a
session IPA. Spurned on by their success, Riordan produced Table Beer
(2.9%) later that same year, which they subsequently described as an
attempt to brew a low alcohol beer that did not suffer from lack body or
character, yet full of hoppy aromas and a balanced bitterness. Lily Waite noted
“though not the first low-ABV pale ale to emerge in the London scene, it’s
regarded as a lodestar: a beacon of refreshment, balance, and flavour, to which
brewers have long aspired.”
Yet it’s eventual success was slow to take off, as Riordan later remarked “Pale Ale was our most popular beer, and it took a long, long
time for Table Beer to even pass IPA. Like, five years.” Today, the beer
has become of their best-known and flagship releases, as part of their core
range, yet its eventual success was attributed by a change in consumer tastes.
However, during the 2010’s these beers were seldom to come by as breweries
continued to elude this style, and any low ABV was always marketed as a
different style; one exception was Little Lenny (2.7%) released
by Brick Brewery in 2015, it was promoted at the time as a Table Beer. They
built on this in early 2018, with Peck (3%) which debuted at
the Deptford Craft Beer Festival that March. Going on general release the
following month, it was described at the time as having a distinct hop
character despite its low strength. By the late 2010’s, the fortunes for Table
Beer were changing, as drinkers were moving to lower alcohol beers, indeed
between 2018-2020, sales of lower ABV beers rose by 381% in the UK, Nicole
Kobie noted “Siba's annual survey shows 41 per cent of retailers expect to see
the no-alcohol and low-alcohol category grow this year (2020), and one in three
18-24 year olds opting for alternatives.”
The growing target audience, was also partly attributed to a growing trend for
healthier lifestyles, which the brewers took to their advantage. In 2017 Small
Beer Co. was established, they broke new ground at the time for being the first
brewery to exclusively brew lower alcohol beer of up to 2.8%, with a remit to
produce lower ABV beers that did not compromise on flavour. Up until that
point, low alcohol beers were criticised for being thin, bland and lacking in
taste, yet Small Beer’s founders James Grundy and Felix James sought to turn
that around. Formerly working for distillers Sipsmith they utilized their
experience and skills towards brewing, Phoebe French noted “with James’
experience in beer, the pair have “reworked the entire brew process” allowing
them to naturally maximise flavour and minimise alcohol.”
They saw a gap in the market with potential for consumer demand which they
subsequently took advantage of, and their growing success prompted other
breweries across the UK to produce and market their own Table Beers.
The
growing craze for Table Beer in the UK started around 2019, that year the newly
launched Futtle Brewery released Organic Table Beer (3.2%), whilst the East
London Brewing Co. produced Table Beer (3.4%) initially as a
one-off green hop beer but proved popular enough that they subsequently
re-released the following year as a regular part of their range, the same year
Wildcard Brewery launched their Table Beer (2.7%), made with fresh
Australian Enigma & Vic Secret hops that helps give it a unique flavour profile
of citrus and tropical fruits, it was one of their first beers that helped put
the brewery on the map for their innovations, it would also go onto win awards
including Champion Beer at SIBA SE Keg Competition 2020. Towards the end of that
year, Five Points Brewing Co. were in the process of developing their Micro
Pale (2.8%), initially planned as a cask only release, due to onset of
lockdown in Spring 2020, the brewery decided to sell in bottle instead and it
was put onto general release in May that year. They boldly claimed in their
promotions although it was micro in strength, it was not micro in taste; it was
packed with Cascade, Chinook and Vic Secret hops along with a mixture of Oats,
Caraphils, Munich and low colour Maris Otter Malt, for that distinct flavour
profile. The reason for this uptake in production for Table Beers, the British
Guild of Beer Writers mentioned at the time “low and no-alcohol beverages
continue to be a growing trend in the UK, where last year an IWSR survey found
that 65% of alcohol consumers aged 25-34 were making a conscious effort to cut
back on their intake.”
Later the same year, Burning Sky released Tail Crush (3%) their
first Table Beer, whilst Edinburgh based brewery Newbarns resurrected the
Scottish tradition of Table Beers with their release Callister (3%),
which they described as a modern take on the style, interestingly they used
Golden Promise, a heritage barley grown in Scotland in order to replicate the
traditional taste. Another example influenced by Scottish brewing heritage
was Siphonaptera (3.8%), first released in July 2021 by Glasgow
based nanobrewery Epochal operated solely by Gareth Young; generously hopped
with Saaz hops it was on the stronger end of the scale for Table Beers, its
aroma has said to contain hints of overripe lemon tea, honeysuckle, beeswax and
violets, while the flavour is airy, light with a refreshing bitterness. One of
the brewery’s first releases, uniquely made using his barrel ageing method
which he does for all his beers, one writer noted “his beer is fermented with a
multi-strain yeast, cleansed to rid them of excess yeast and then allowed to
mature to completion in oak barrels with a handful of whole-cone hops. The
finished product is naturally carbonated in the bottle.”
The same year saw the likes of Pango Table Beer (2.8%) by
Fauna, which they named after the Pangolin, one of a number of animal themed
beers from this Arundel based brewery; Table Beer (3.1%) by
Brick Brewing, which utilized Simcoe hops, Rustic Table Beer (3%) by
Burning Sky, matured in steel tanks then dry hopped with Kazbek hops for added
flavour, subsequently an 8-month barrel aged version of the beer was also
developed. The year ended with the release of Restoration Table Beer
(2.8%), by Abbeydale, one of the first Northern brewers to release a Table
Beer, finally putting to rest the suggestions that Table Beer was limited to
breweries in London and the South. The year 2022 saw a flurry of releases,
early on Black Iris debuted Cheese Riot (3%), inspired by Belgian
style Saisons, a pale beer made with adjuncts of coriander and rye along with
Talus and Citra Cryo hops that adds to the flavour profile. A light and
sessionable beer, named after the Cheese Riot of 1766, incidentally the brewery
stated that this beer goes well with cheese. In February, Brockley Brewery
released Table Beer (2.8%) made with a combination of light
malt with a mixture of Simcoe, Chinook and Citra hops. The mixture of flavours
helped give the beer some added force despite its low ABV, imparting a bitter
and citrussy flavour along with a creamy mouthfeel. In June, Whiplash
produced Ephermeral (2.8%), it was made with Hersbucker Hops, noted
for their subtle spice notes and fermented with Belgian yeast strains, basil
and fresh lemon peel are added to the latter stages of the maturation process
before canning. The same month, Fierce Beer in collaboration with Mash Gang
produced Ocean Drive (1.9%) described as a fruited West Coast
IPA, this features Citrus, Cascade and Chinook hops, blended with mango,
pineapple, lime and grapefruit, blurring the lines between beer and fruit
juice; other releases included Small Wonder (2.8%) by the
Goodness Brewing Co, which was heavily influenced by East Coast IPA
styles; Scoff (3.5%) by Drop Project, which the brewers
claimed packed some serious flavour despite the low ABV, and A
Comforting Embrace (3%) by Queer Brewing that blended a combination of
Nelson Sauvin, Riwaka and Ekunot hops blended with oats and wheat for a smooth
body. They followed this in 2023 with Softboi (3%) that uses
US hops such as Chinook and Strata in the mix. Meanwhile in January, Brick
Brewery added Table Beer (3.3%) to their roster, their first
release of the year it used a combination of Enigma and Galaxy hops. The
following month, long-established brewer Hook Norton jumped on the Table Beer
bandwagon and released Lock Steady (2.5%), an easy drinking pale
ale as part of their brewer's choice range, made in conjunction with their
175th anniversary celebrations. With the Summer months approaching, in August,
Chiltern Brewery released Barely There (1.8%). Although not
advertised as a Table Beer as such, uniquely for a beer in this class as its
partly produced using the parti-gyle process, in this instance it is created by
utilizing the second and third runnings of their much stronger beer Bodger's
Barley Wine (8.4%), the residual worts were run through the copper boiler
again, where a combination of hops including Goldings, Bulion, Cascade and
Olicana were added to the mix before it was fermented. Meanwhile, later
the same year, Manchester based brewer Cloudwater released Meadow
(3%) that utilized highly aromatic hop varieties like Citra and
Mouteka to compensate for the low ABV and give a flavour profile of tropical
and citrussy tasting notes. Already in the first half of this year, there have
been several releases, January saw the likes of Table Looper (3.8%) –
Full Circle Brewing Co. come onto the scene, a collaboration with Wolf’s in
Sheep’s Clothing, it’s a milder version of Looper (6.4%) which
utilizes the same recipe yet brewed at a lower ABV, meanwhile the following
month, Gravesend based brewer Iron Pier debuted Table Beer (2.9%) which
utilizes a complicated setup featuring a quarom of hops, where Idahoe 7 and Vic
Secret are used during the boiling process, whilst Mosaic and Simcoe are added
later during the dry hop stage. This allows for more flavour to be extracted,
giving it more depth despite its low ABV. Also released the same month
was Table Beer (2.5%) by another Kent based brewer Brewing
Brothers, noted for its high-level oat grist that gives the beverage more body
and depth.
This
brings us full circle to the recent release (or rebrand) of Sisters
Table Beer (3.4%) by Harvey’s back in May. It’s release fully puts
into context that many of the Table Beers released over the past decade are no
more than Session IPA’s or Blonde Ales in disguise as they tend to be pale in
colour and are heavily influenced by stronger beer styles like East Coast IPA,
to the point some examples try to mimic the IPA flavours by adding a flurry of
various hops into the mix. Rather noticeable all these beers are produced using
the single-gyle process which means that they are produced from a single parent
mash, whereas traditionally Table Beers were produced using the parti-gyle
process from the second or occasionally third runnings. Such historic methods
would be frowned upon and disowned by most commercial brewers nowadays, which
explains why most modern Table Beers are disconnected to their historic
counterparts. The modern production of Table Beer, is based on the remit on
producing beers that although lack in strength, compensate with bushels of
flavour. The home brewers organisation Brew Your Own state “in order to produce a table beer that resembles beer rather
than malt-seltzer, a brewer must take the recipe and brewing techniques for
session beer and push them further: Finding ways to extract the compounds that
contribute body, aroma, and color while minimizing carbohydrates; or loading up
on high-protein grains to boost protein and body, mashing at a remarkably hot
temperature to create mostly unfermentable dextrins.” They suggest using
a flavoursome malt base like Maris Otter, Vienna, Munich, or dark wheat. Use
high protein grains like oats or rye, a low-attenuating yeast strain or one
that produces a high amount of glycerol, French saison strains are good
example. Use calcium chloride rather the gypsum to help give it body, along
with lactose for added body and sweetness. Potent and aromatic hops like
Mosaic, Hallertau Blanc, Citra or the elusive Nelson Sauvin are useful
adjuncts, as they add to a distinct and characterful flavour profile,
occasionally they are also added to the dry hop for additional flavour, before
dispensing. According to Brew Your Own, due to the low ABV, various technical
problems can occur, there is little hop and malt character to hide flaws, the
miniscule amount of malt can lead to a lack of backbone in its flavour, and
produce a thin, watery and bland mixture. This is a problem that has afflicted
brewers over the years when producing Table Beers, Lily Waite underpins this as
“without particularly bold flavours or a high ABV,
Table Beer has little to hide behind. Sweet malt flavours dodge and duck
through bright, fresh hop character reminiscent of pine and citrus fruits, but
with an intensity of flavour you'd expect from a beer a couple of percent
stronger. It does have a fullness of body, achieved through high mash
temperatures and oats in the grist, which greatly contributes to its
characteristic balance of flavour and drinkability.” It should be lauded
that brewers up and down country have put in the effort over the past decade to
produce Table Beers with high calibre of ingredients and production processes
in order to make flavourful products, from the barrel ageing efforts with Siphonaptera
(3.8%) to the continental influences of Cheese Riot (3%) which
uses adjuncts of coriander and rye. Yet by sticking to the same IPA style
formular they risk trapping themselves into a doom loop that would risk
innovation and the ability of borrowing from a wide array of other beer styles
like Porter, Bitter, AK or Mild. The Small Beer Co. is perhaps unique to this
formula as it essentially produces Table Beers influenced by a whole range of
beer styles, therefore brewers should be adapting from a number of styles not
just IPA, just like the Table Beers of the distant past once did, otherwise one
day Table Beer would just be another byword for Session IPA, which would be an
opportunity lost.
