Your Next Pumpkin Beer Needs A Festive Sweet Rim

There's no need to wait until October for fall — stores stock up on pumpkin-flavored everything as soon as August ends, so you might as well indulge your autumnal side. Maybe you've already been sipping on a pumpkin spice latte in the crisp morning air. So what better way to celebrate the end of the workday than a tall pour of a pumpkin ale?

Though pumpkin beer remains controversial among beer geeks and casual drinkers alike, it's still a fixture of the season. In some parts of the country, pumpkin brews are dressed up with a festive rim of sugar, cinnamon, and other seasonal spices that help transform yet another novelty into something that could, if you'll let it, stand beside other classics like the PSL or boozy eggnog.

The simplest way to do it at home is with a wide, shallow bowl of cinnamon and sugar. Wet the rim of a beer glass with honey, simple syrup, or citrus juice, then gently dip it into the cinnamon sugar mixture — presto! But we can definitely make this even more befitting of the fall holidays with some extra ingredients.

You want to make sure you use more sugar than cinnamon in your mixture, but you can also add a little nutmeg or even sub in brown sugar. And of course, pumpkin pie spice is always a welcome addition. Some orange or lemon zest can lend a zing to these flavors, too. And when it comes to wetting the glass, in addition to the honey, syrup, or juice, you can use water with a little bit of vanilla extract

Once you've got your spiced rim, which pumpkin beer do you choose to fill the glass? You could go for the classics in fall-ready fashion, such as the widely available Samuel Adams' Jack-O Pumpkin Ale or the New Belgium Voodoo Ranger Atomic Pumpkin, which incorporates a bit of habanero pepper. Shipyard Brewing insists that its Pumpkinhead wheat ale is only properly experienced with a cinnamon sugar rim, with the company going so far as to sell official rimmer tins with sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg on its website. If you can't choose just one, Elysian Brewing's Pumpkin Pack contains four pumpkin-flavored beers in sets of three, from imperial pumpkin ales to pumpkin stouts.