When summer heats up, many cocktail drinkers will take a pass on their favorite mixed drink and reach for a beer. But depending on the occasion, the availability of ingredients and the inspiration, a beer-based cocktail can be a sublime experience.

Whether it’s a lemonade and lager shandy for hot afternoons on the balcony, or whiskey, Irish cream, and Guinness in a dimly lit pub, beer cocktails have been around for as long as beer itself. But an ever-inventive cocktail city combined with the increasing availability of artisanal beers means that the beer cocktail is getting a makeover in D.C. this summer.

Consider the Grapefruit Rattler, an elegant mix of New Amsterdam gin, lemon juice, and Traveler’s grapefruit shandy. Find it on the menu at Virtue Feed and Grain (106 S. Union St.) in Alexandria’s Old Town. Here, a low alcohol, refreshingly crisp beer and juice combo gets an upgrade to classy cocktail status. It’s both strong and light and amazingly cooling.

A beer cocktail this refined could only have come about in the last few years. That’s because beer cocktails of the past have come off as grossly sweet or jarringly textured. They also have a bad reputation within the most extreme camps of craft beverage communities. Hardcore mixologists may view beer as a plebian ingredient and ignore it altogether, and serious beer geeks don’t like the idea of messing up their favorite beverage.

Because of that, combinations of of beer and spirits often happen outside of the restaurant industry: they’re the shot ordered with the chaser for a strong alcoholic kick or the Pilsner topped with lemonade to reduce the soporific effects of beer. In polite society, however, mixing with beer is still seen as a little gauche.

But the rise in popularity of fruity shandies from brands like Shock Top or Leinenkugel’s, and grapefruit radlers from German breweries like Schöfferhofer, means that most drinkers have already become a little accustomed to mixing beer with juices. The truth is that these products are bottled cocktails, not pure beers. And that makes them fair game for mixing.

“We got this radler that no one was drinking, so we started mixing it with Mezcal,” says bartender Chico Matiella at The Brixton (901 U St. NW).

He’s talking about The Legless Bobby, which uses the smoky Del Maguey Vida mezcal to fortify Stiegel grapefruit radler. It’s simple and elegant, and more complex tasting than having the radler by itself.

Milagro reposado tequila and Cynar go toe-to-toe with Firestone IPA in The Brixton’s Lupolo. This bittersweet cocktail has rich caramel and citrus notes and a strong alcohol presence.

Matiella says that The Brixton has been doing traditional beer cocktails like the shandy (beer and lemonade, or ginger beer) and the Snakebite (beer and cider) since they opened six years ago. He says his customers who have been to England have asked him to add a Diesel (a Snakebite with crème de cassis) because they want black currant that’s popular in the country.

You have to hand it to the English. Their greatest contribution to the cocktail has been beer, or at least making beer stronger. Rumor is that British soldiers used whatever local spirits were available, from cider to champagne, to proof up their beer.

You see similar thinking going on at Elephant & Castle (1201 Pennsylvania Ave. NW), which is a Canadian-owned British pub chain. They have a list of $9 dollar mules mixed with ginger beer and good old fashioned suds.

Bartender Adolfo Plaza says “IPA, with its citrus flavor, enhances the flavor of the Oriental Sun,” a Moscow mule made with Absolut mandarin vodka and ginger beer that’s topped with IPA.

A Belgian wit-style beer is used to top up the London Wit, which is Beefeater gin, ginger beer, and beer. Most unusual is the Berry Ginger, a mule made with Absolut acai vodka, ginger beer, and lager. Add Crabby’s alcoholic ginger beer for five more dollars for a super strong mule.

Interestingly, it’s Elephant & Castle’s list of six beer and shot pairings, called boilermakers, that have the most hipster panache.

At home, adding a shot dropped into a beer can accommodate different cuisines as well. Try a Submarino—a pour of tequila dropped in a three-quarters full glass of cerveza to go with tacos. Add pineapple juice to a light beer for a tropical tasting BLP with jerk chicken. And a shot of Maker’s Mark bourbon in an amber ale is a Boilermaker’s Mark. But be careful. A beer cocktail with distilled spirits is as strong as two drinks and shouldn’t be underestimated.

Elegant beer combos can imitate and even improve classic cocktails. Try making the Brojito by swapping Golden Road Tart Mango Cart beer for the soda. The real mango juice in this California beer is fresh tasting and fizzy.

Upgrade your Margarita to the Beerita with a sour gose beer like Union Old Pro gose , which has a zesty lime flavor of its own to contribute. And you can make a Greyhound fizzy with the addition of kölsch beer. This beer cocktail is called Kölsch God, named for one of the District’s most notorious marijuana entrepreneurs.

• 1.5 oz. Absolut ruby red vodka
• 2 oz. fresh grapefruit juice
• 4 oz. kölsch beer
•
Shake the vodka and grapefruit juice in a shaker with ice. Strain into a kölsch glass full of fresh ice. Top with kölsch and stir.