Coming soon to a bar near you: Tequila-flavored beer

Coming soon to a bar near you: Tequila-flavored beer
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If you're over shots and margaritas, but still want that tequila taste, Anheuser-Busch InBev's new beer has you covered.

"Oculto" will debut next spring, The Wall Street Journal reports, and it will combine everything good about beer (beer) with blue agave (the plant used to make tequila), resulting in a lager with 6 percent alcohol. The beer won't actually include tequila, but the hope is that by tasting like it, Oculto will pull cocktail drinkers back to the hoppier side.

Anheuser-Busch may be overestimating people's affection for the taste of tequila itself as the driving force behind their move toward hard liquors. And a 6 percent beer, while higher than other mainstream American beers that run in the 4 percent to 5 percent range, doesn't pack as much of a punch as, say, a Mexican Bulldog Margarita. Still, Heineken USA launched its own tequila-flavored beer called Desperados in Florida and Georgia earlier this year, and the company plans to expand the beer's distribution in 2015, so Anheuser-Busch may have a product with some traction.

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As for the name itself, Oculto means "hidden," and the WSJ reports that each bottle of the beer will include a secret message. Unfortunately, that message will probably not be, "Just drink a margarita."

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Sarah Eberspacher is an associate editor at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked as a sports reporter at The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus and The Arizona Republic. She graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.