At Marshall Wharf Brewing in Belfast, Maine, owner David Carlson dreamed of making massively hoppy ales, beefy barley wines and hulking stouts, all rich in flavor and high in alcohol. His plan had one hiccup, howeverâ the recipes required more grains than he could cram into the breweryâs too-small mash tun.
Confines can have a way of spurring creativity, though. To brew Chaos Chaos, Carlson was forced to split the imperial stoutâs grains into two batches. But after he drained the wortâthe sugary broth on which yeast feastâthe grain contained loads of leftover sugars. He steeped the remaining grains in hot water for a second time, and drew off the lower-strength wort to create a sister beer, Little Mayhem.
While Chaos Chaos packed a wallop at 11.2 percent abv, Little Mayhem checked in at a lightweight 5 percent. The process is known as a second runnings, or âsmall beerâ.
âIt is a weaker beer, but itâs not weaker flavor,â says Carlson. âNecessity is the mother of invention, and with second runnings, youâre getting everything you can out of your resources and ingredients.â
Today, a breweryâs basic rule of thumb is as follows: one grain bill, one beer. In 18th- and 19th-century Britain, though, beer makers practiced parti-gyle brewing, in which multiple beers were made from a single grain load.
Each running drew out progressively weaker wort until all residual sugars were removed. It was a thrifty practice, akin to brewing a second pot of coffee with the original grounds or steeping tea a second time.

âItâs a great way to utilize your grain, because otherwise, youâre dumping all those nice sugars down the drain,â says Jim Cibak, head brewer at Chicagoâs Revolution Brewing. âWeâre being more responsible with our raw materials.â
Whenever Cibak brews high-test stouts, porters or barley winesâstronger beers work bestâhe draws an additional running for experiments.
âThe second runnings can provide a great base for a lighter-style beer,â says Cibak.
Thatâs how the HuGene imperial porter (9.1 percent) spawned Wee Gene (4.7 percent), a London-style porter. Itâs also how the silky, chocolaty Alderaan imperial oatmeal stout (10 percent) lead to the creation of Small ân Oats, a not-so-tiny 7.3 percent.
âI like to refer to them more as second runnings beer, because theyâre not necessarily small,â says Cibak.

The resourceful trend is gaining steam, though brewersâ techniques often diverge. Some keep sibling beers in the same stylistic household, like how Alaska-based Midnight Sun Brewing Companyâs Berserker Imperial Stout spawned SOB Stout (that is, Son of Berserker).
In contrast, Vermontâs Hermit Thrush Brewery turned their Jolly Abbot Barley Wine (13 percent) into Party Guy (3 percent), a lemony sour ale. Minnesota-based Surly Brewing morphed second runnings of Darkness, its imperial stout, into Damien, a k a, the âchild of Darkness.â Itâs hopped assertively like an IPA, incandescent with citrus and pine.
At Burial Beer in Asheville, North Carolina, Head Brewer Tim Gormley often takes second runnings in unexpected directions. For their Loveâs Easy Tears release, a former imperial stout provided the base, later laced with lavender and sweet orange peels.
A rich, colossal quadrupel led to Matchstick Petite Abbey Ale, a light-drinking Belgian ale seasoned with golden raisins.
âYou can totally hop the beer differently, use a different yeast and make two different beers,â says Gormley.
If second runnings beers make clear economic and environmental sense, why arenât more brewers making them?
âTo do it, you have to brew two beers at once,â says Gormley. âThat can be tough if you donât have a big staff.â

Breweries also need extra equipment to make it happen. Burial brews on a 10-barrel system (one barrel equals 31 gallons), but its smaller pilot system is just one barrel.
âItâs a matter of having the proper amount of tanks and yeast strains ready,â says Revolutionâs Cibak, who has two brewhouses and employees aplenty.
A small beer can also seem like a penny-pinching tactic meant to pull the wool over customersâ eyes, which is a stigma to overcome.
âPeople might get the feeling that itâs a weaker version of what youâre making,â says Gormley. âItâs like, âWhy would I want to drink that?â â
Another challenge is that the second beer might not sell as swiftly as the base beer. Marshall Wharfâs Carlson could sell more crates of his vanilla-infused Sexy Chaos imperial stout, but tries to restrict releases so the market doesnât swamp his smaller-run Little Mayhem.

âIâm not making money on Mayhem,â he says of the stout, which costs about $40 for a case of 16-ounce cans (Sexy Chaos runs $96 per case). âWe price it accordingly. I see Mayhem as value added.â
With small beers, brewers wring their resources dry and flex their creativity, all to deliver flavorful, lower-alcohol beers. Itâs a win-win for all, save for one sad contingent.
âThe cows are a probably little disappointed,â says Cibak, who sends Revolutionâs spent grain to Indiana farmers, âbecause theyâd love to get a hold of all those sugar-rich grains.â