Small beer how-to?

Has anyone out there actually brewed "small beer?" How?

We have a batch of beer that went really wrong; in short, too sweet and strong to be much in the way of drinkable. In long - read my "Total Disaster" thread and have a laugh!

The problem batch was originally intended to become an IPA; with work, we might turn it into an Imperial IPA.

But it's super-sweet, thanks to too much crystal in the batch; we're trying a few things, but may just have to blend it.

Rather than throwing good money after bad, I'd rather try to make a batch of small beer, super hoppy but not so strong otherwise, which might bring the required elements into play to make the sum total batch something drinkable.

But I haven't seen much in the way of details on how to brew a small beer.

Sounds like all I need to do is a second running; does that mean an actual second mash and sparge, or just, more or less, rinse the grain a second time?

Also, anyone have any recommendations on how to run numbers for such a batch? I'm thinking of aiming at around 4%ABV, and we can always throw in some sugar to get it there if needed - who cares about general taste in such a thing, of course - but it'd be nice to have a rough idea to dial in some hopping (since we'll aim very high, again to balance out the sweet beer).

So, any advice?

Why not just work up a recipe in Beersmith and set the batch size as 2.5 gallons, then dillute it down to 5 gallons? Wouldn't that get you the lower gravity you want for blending?

If I understand what tour trying to do, you like a low abv, dry, choppy beer to be able to blend with your strong sweet one? I'd brew an ordinary bitter and increase the hops in the late additions. Basically choose a lower target for you OG, and adjust the grain bill. I'd go with something around 1.030.

Wow, read the disaster thread. Yuck. I would have thrown in the towel by now on that one, but more power to you for trying to salvage it! As far as making your small beer, you might find better info searching for partigyle, like here. The tables in the article tell you how to calculate OG and such.

Thanks... yeah, I'm aiming to just re-use the grain, so not planning on an "actual" grain bill or legitimate batch of beer, really. Yeah, around 1.040 sounds reasonable for a target.

Thanks for the link!! That looks like exactly what we were looking for... Cheers!