While everyone else is pouring sweat into their perfectly carved jack-o'-lantern, you can pour a frothy, cold beer out of a pumpkin with this easy party trick.
With just a few tools, you can easily turn a pumpkin into a basic keg that's perfect for Halloween. No one will even care that you didn't come in costume, because they'll be too in awe of your DIY party lord status to notice.
The folks at Sam Adams gave us the brilliant idea, so we had to test it out for ourselves. This is a really easy project -- it's also kind of messy.
Materials needed:
Medium to large-sized pumpkin
Large carving knife
Pumpkin carving kit, or small carving knife
Marker
Spoon
Bucket
6 to 12 bottles of beer
Start by marking an outline around the top of your pumpkin and then cutting the top open. Then carve out the seeds and pulp, just as you would when making a jack-o'-lantern. It's alright if there's a little bit of guts left over because that adds flavoring, but make sure to remove all seeds -- nobody wants a pumpkin seed in their beer.
Now that your pumpkin's all scooped out, you can make a hole for the spigot near the front of the pumpkin. Make sure it's not too low on the pumpkin, because you're going to prop it up on a bucket later.
Use a marker to outline a hole slightly smaller than the diameter of the spigot. Carve it out with the smaller carving tools provided in a pumpkin carving kit. (This is where those flimsy little knives that come in the kit really come in handy.) You'll want to widen the inside walls of the spigot hole so that the beer flows easily out from the spigot later.
With a forceful pop and twist, the assembled spigot should fit securely into the hole. Now your container is ready for beer.
We used Sam Adams Pumpkin Ale for our keg, but you can use any pumpkin ale, Oktoberfest-style beer. Even an amber ale or brown ale would work. Depending on the size of the pumpkin, you’ll need one to two six-packs.
