Adding This Ingredient Can Make Bad Beer More Tolerable

With so many varieties of beer to choose from at the store, it can be challenging to know which one you should snag off the shelves. There's dark lager, pale ale, porter, stout, and now we even have sour beers to choose from. With so many new options coming out — what seems like every day — the chances also become much higher that we will inevitably choose one that we don't enjoy sipping on. Whether your beverage tastes bitter or just has a funky aftertaste that doesn't pair well with your burger or pizza, we have multiple solutions that will help take your beer from terrible to tolerable.

One foolproof method to save your dismal drink is to add some light colored soda to the mix. Spoon University calls this drink a Shandy, which adds some sweetness to your beer, without getting rid of all of the fizzy bubbles we enjoy. The outlet suggests using soft drinks like Ginger Ale, Sprite, or Mountain Dew, which will add just the right amount of sugary sweetness.

However, if you're not into sweet drinks, you may want to add a bit of citrus to your lackluster drink. Deadspin recommends adding a bit of margarita mix to your beer, which will help liven up the flavor and you won't even have to bust out the blender. Just pour some into your beverage, mix in a shaker, and enjoy. The outlet also suggests adding some bitters, which can help improve your boring brew by adding depth and color. Mixologist and founder of The Bitter Truth, Alexander Hauck, agrees with this method and told Chilled Magazine that a general rule of thumb is that dark bitters go best with dark beers, while light bitters are better for light beers.

"Aromatic bitters, Jerry Thomas' Bitters, or chocolate bitters are great with stouts, porters, or other malty beers, Grapefruit, orange, lemon, peach, or even celery bitters are really tasty in lagers, pilsners, and pale ales," Hauck explained. "You should start with two or three dashes in a pint." Whichever technique you decide to try to make your beer drinkable, just know that it can take a few tries to find the perfect ratio.