This Spicy Addition Will Elevate Your Cheap Beer

While any one who enjoys beer would probably prefer the craft kind if they had the choice, sometimes you just get stuck drinking the cheapest one on the shelf. Perhaps your grocery budget is tighter than normal, or maybe it's the only option available at the party you're at. But whatever the case may be, the good news is that cheap beer doesn't have to taste cheap.

Per A Couple Cooks, beer is a great base for many cocktails. Shandy for example, is a mix of beer and ginger ale, and beergaritas combine beer with tequila, cointreau, and lime juice. But quite possibly the best way to disguise lower quality beer is a Michelada.

Though beer is included in the Mexican cocktail, HipLATINA shares that Micheladas get their bold flavor primarily from tomato juice, lime juice, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, hot sauce, orange juice, and fresh peppers. If you don't have all these ingredients, however, you can still turn your cheap beer into a Michelada-inspired one with a single ingredient.

You may think of hot sauce as a condiment that brings heat to different dishes, but hot sauce pairs well with beer too. The reason the combination works, Food & Wine shares, is that hot sauce is a concentration of vinegar and hot peppers. Those also happen to be the main ingredients in a Michelada.

According to Mel Magazine, the addition of hot sauce won't make your beer taste like watered down beer, but rather a higher quality beer with a kick and a greatly improved after taste. The publication recommends using Tabasco, while Punch suggests Cholula instead, but as long as it is tomato-based or the ingredients are comparable to the ones included in a Michelada, the flavor of the beer will be improved.

For best results, Food & Wine says you can also add a lime wedge and a salt rim or put the hot sauce on the top of the can in addition to mixing it in your otherwise cheap tasting beer.