Month: April 2021

I’ve become obsessed with the Oklahoma Fried Onion Smash Burger, made famous by burger expert and historian George Motz. It’s the burger I make the most at home. I’ve become so devoted to the simple yet perfect burger, in fact, that I’m seriously thinking about getting a proper stainless steel deli slicer — just so I can get my onions ridiculously paper-thin. I don’t need a deli slicer, mind you, and I really don’t have the counter space for one. But here I am, about to drop a few hundred bucks just so I can make a dang burger. I might have a problem.

As with anything, you have to practice and practice to make the perfect burger at home. It’s a process and tweaks are part of the fun. So as I continue along my own journey, deep in its Oklahoma Fried Onion phase, I figured I’d give a plant-based option a shot. I’ve never cooked burgers with loose plant-based “meat” before, so I had doubts as to whether the loose Beyond Beef would work in a smash burger format. Moreover, you hear a lot about plant burgers competing with real beef and I was eager to see if I could fool myself.

I was pleasantly surprised by how well this worked out. Obviously, veggie patties created to imitate beef are rapidly improving (while being somewhat controversial). This probably isn’t a vegan burger for vegans who don’t long for the taste of meat. But if you’re trying to balance beef-taste and plant-based, it’s a major win. Let’s get into the details.

Vegan Oklahoma Fried Onion Smash Burger

Ingredients:

• 6-oz. Beyond Meat Beyond Beef
• 2 slices Violife “Cheddar”
• 1/2 yellow onion
• 1 vegan burger bun
• Salt
• Neutral oil
• 4-6 pickled cucumber chips

I’m using Beyond Meat Beyond Beef because I can get that easily where I shop. I’m making four double cheeseburgers for dinner, hence all the meatballs in the image below. The ingredients list above is for one double cheeseburger.

The Beyond Beef will be a bit wet and sticky. I’d recommend wetting your hands with tap water before weighing and forming the balls, to keep the Beyond Beef from coating your hands too much. Even if you’re using food-safe gloves, I’d still get them wet first. This stuff is a little sticky and you don’t want to be constantly scraping it off of your palms.

As for the rest, it comes down to what’s available in your supermarket. I’m using a plant-based cheese I know works. The buns come from a local bakery that I like to order bread from. And the cucumber chips are pretty standard jarred ones you should be able to get anywhere.

Other than that, this burger doesn’t need any sauce or anything else. It’s five base ingredients — patty, cheese, bun, salt, and onion — that work magic when put together right. Though, I do like mine with a lot of pickles.

What You’ll Need:

• Cast iron skillet
• Heavy, thin metal spatula
• Mandolin
• Cutting board
• Kitchen knife
• Scale (optional)

Theoretically, you should be cooking these on a griddle. Most people don’t have that in their homes. So a good, heavy cast-iron skillet will do just fine. As for the heavy spatula, I mean something like this to get the job done. The one item you really need is a mandoline. As I ranted above, a deli slicer is preferred but expensive. A decent mandolin will set you back between $30 and $40. That’s well worth it, beyond just slicing onions super thin for this burger.

Lastly, a kitchen scale is useful, but you can eye-ball a three-ounce burger ball pretty easily. It’s usually a ball that just fits in the palm of your hand — about halfway between a golf ball and a baseball in size.

Method:

• Weigh out two three-ounce balls of Beyond Meat Beyond Beef and lightly form them into small meatballs (don’t overpack).
• Peel a whole onion. Set your mandolin to its thinnest setting and run the onion through, creating superfine onion rings.
• Use a bread knife to cut your buns in half, if needed.
• Heat a cast-iron skillet on high heat with maybe a teaspoon of oil.
• Once the pan is very hot (nearly smoking), add the meatballs.
• Hit each of them with a large pinch of salt and then top with a pile of onions.
• Using a heavy spatula, smash the burgers down into the pan while tapering the edges as thin as possible.
• Let cook until the onion starts to brown on the edges of the patty (about 2 minutes).
• Slide the spatula under the patty quickly and with a bit of force. Flip. Repeat with the other patty.
• Add one slice of “cheese” on top of each patty.
• Place the crown of the bun over one of the patties and place the heal on top of that to steam the bread as the cheese melts and the onion browns (about 2 minutes).
• Once the cheese is melty and the edges of the patty are crisp, use the spatula to stack the two patties onto the warm bun heal.
• Serve with pickled cucumber chips immediately.

Bottom Line:

This really hit the spot. No, it wasn’t the same flavor as an all-beef smash burger. It was very close though. I’d say the flavor was definitely in the savory grain arena, while still feeling like a really solid plant-based burger. I think if I did this again, I’d add some (anchovy-free) Worcestershire sauce into the patty mix to amp up the beefiness while still keeping it vegan, or some mushroom powder. MSG and fish sauce are added to the famous Impossible Burgers at Umami Burger, but then you’re not vegan anymore.

The onion being smashed into the burger really helped the patty stay well-formed both in the cooking process and during the eating. It also helped form a nice crust around the edges of the burger. There was a nice textural element on the bare patty that didn’t have onions smashed into it as well. It browned well, creating a true Maillard effect — with that caramelization amping up the flavor. After making a mistake on a recent breakfast sandwich, I was patient this time and gave the plant-based cheese plenty of time to melt, which helped really bring the gooey, cheeseburger vibe to the proceedings.

In the end, this was a really solid burger. The onions were crispy. The burger was smashed, held its form, and flavorful. The bun was steamed nicely. The pickles were a great counterpoint to it all. It’s not beef, but it would fool plenty of folks and it was most certainly delicious.

One of my favorite pop culture what-ifs in recent memory is: what if Greta Gerwig’s How I Met Your Mother spinoff, How I Met Your Dad, had been picked up by CBS? Would there be no Lady Bird and Little Women, two excellent and Academy Award-nominated films, and what about her Barbie movie with Margot Robbie? I guess we’ll never know — unless Hilary Duff gets nominated for directing a semi-autobiographical film.

The Younger and Lizzie McGuire actress is set to star in Hulu’s How I Met Your Father, a sequel series to How I Met Your Mother. Variety reports that the show will follow Sophie, played by Duff, as she tells “her son the story of how she met his father: a story that catapults us back to the year 2021 where Sophie and her close-knit group of friends are in the midst of figuring out who they are, what they want out of life, and how to fall in love in the age of dating apps and limitless options.” How I Met Your Father will be overseen by This Is Us co-showrunners Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger, while How I Met Your Mother creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas are onboard as executive producers.

“I’ve been incredibly lucky in my career to play some wonderful characters and I’m looking forward to taking on the role of Sophie,” Duff said. “As a huge fan of How I Met Your Mother, I’m honored and even a little nervous that Carter and Craig would trust me with the sequel of their baby. Isaac and Elizabeth are brilliant, and I can’t wait to work alongside them and all of their genius… I realize these are big shoes to fill and I’m excited to slip my 6 ½’s in there!”

It’s unclear whether any of the How I Met Your Mother actors will appear in the spinoff, but I guarantee Neil Patrick Harris’ Barney Stinson shows up at some point, likely on the receiving of a slap from Sophie. Also, this should be the show’s theme song:

Does it have anything to do with the plot? Not really. But whatever, it’s a good song.

(Via Variety)

It appears Bartees Strange is working his way through the Taylor Swift Folklore and Evermore extended universe when it comes to covers. Before he released his album Live Forever last year, he preceded it with an EP of The National covers. Now, he has offered a rendition of a Bon Iver classic, “Skinny Love.”

Bartees performed the track during a live session for SiriusXMU. He didn’t stray far from the intimate acoustic aesthetic of the original song (from Bon Iver’s 2007 album For Emma, Forever Ago), but his voice can successfully navigate the range of Justin Vernon’s falsetto, so his performance of the song was totally fine.

Bartees took a minute to give flowers to Aaron Dessner during his recent Tiny Desk concert. Calling Dessner the “indie-rock Michael Jordan,” he said, “The dude inspires all of us. The work he did this year — the Taylor [Swift] records, Big Red Machine stuff, the National stuff… as a producer and a person that makes stuff, it’s just so wildly inspiring to see someone work like that.”

In an interview from last year, Bartees also told Uproxx, “I see bands The National and I’m like, ‘These dudes, they’ve got families and relationships and great friendships and they tour the world and they make whatever they want. I want that.’ It took me years to be able to say it without feeling foolish, but I aspire to that. I feel like I’m entitled to that.”

Watch Bartees Strange cover Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love” above.

A grand jury in Minnesota found Derek Chauvin guilty of all three charges related to the murder of George Floyd. While it is hardly justice due to the fact that Floyd lost his life, it is an exceedingly rare example of a police officer being held accountable for their actions in the United States of America.

In the aftermath, there were celebrations in some cities, but there were no riots, something that apparently surprised some people. Fox News personality Tucker Carlson used his show on Tuesday night to more or less throw a fit in response, baselessly theorizing that jury members were intimidated into handing down a guilty verdict and melting down when a former law enforcement official said that Chauvin did, indeed, use excessive force.

Stephen A. Smith saw this and issued up a response on Wednesday’s edition of First Take. Smith, who has been on Fox News in the past and has mentioned that there are personalities and shows he enjoys, called out Carlson specifically for being wildly off base.

“Tucker Carlson is an entirely different matter altogether,” Smith said after mentioning the things he likes on the network. “I’m not going to engage in name-calling or anything like that, that would be inappropriate and unnecessary and unfair to him. But what I will say, when you literally intimate that the jury found Derek Chauvin guilty because they were afraid, ok, essentially of riots taking place and things of that nature, you just wonder sometimes if this is the kind of thing that leads to the divisiveness that we’re talking about.”

Smith went on to say that he believed that Carlson said Chauvin acted out of line in the past, and then dove into the ways that this sort of rhetoric fans the flames.

“These are the kind of things that make people shake, and make people shiver,” Smith said. “Because you realize that in the face of such obvious, flagrant evidence, conspicuous evidence, there’s still gonna be somebody that opens the subject to debate, when there are certain things that are simply not debatable. We saw what Derek Chauvin did! Saw it! The world saw it! There were protests all over the world because of what happened to George Floyd! And yet he goes on national television last night and says that. That’s a problem. I’m not gonna disrespect him, I’m just saying that’s a damn problem.”

It stands to reason that Carlson — who exists in a world where, despite his wealth and status, the worst thing anyone can be is mean to him specifically — will have a response about this sometime this week.

Today, British rapper Little Simz announced that she will soon return with a full-length follow-up to her critically-hailed 2019 album Grey Area. The new album, due on September 3 via Age 101, is titled Sometimes I Might Be Introvert and preceded by lead single “Introvert,” for which Simz also dropped a video today. The song features a boisterous orchestra backing Simz’s poetic lyrics while the video evokes scenes of the past year of social justice struggle, juxtaposed with classical art depicting generations of conflict and cathartic, interpretive dance choreography.

Despite being two years removed from Grey Area, which was praised as one of 2019’s best albums, including in Uproxx’s “Best Hip-Hop Albums Of 2019,” Simz hasn’t been far from the spotlight. In 2020, she released the surprise EP, Drop 6, which she’d recorded throughout the quarantine. She also appeared in a regular role on the reboot of Top Boy, while recent debates about female rappers on Twitter have consistently surfaced her name among the genre’s most innovative and interesting female representatives.

Watch Little Simz’s “Introvert” video above.

Sometimes I Might Be Introvert is due 9/3. You can pre-save it here. Check out the tracklist and cover below.

1. “Introvert”
2. “Woman” feat. Cleo Sol
3. “Two Worlds Apart”
4. “I Love You, I Hate You”
5. “Little Q Pt 1 (Interlude)”
6. “Little Q Pt 2”
7. “Gems (Interlude)”
8. “Speed”
9. “Standing Ovation”
10. “I See You”
11. “The Rapper That Came to Tea (Interlude)”
12. “Rollin Stone”
13. “Protect My Energy”
14. “Never Make Promises (Interlude)”
15. “Point and Kill” feat. Obongjayar
16. “Fear No Man”
17. “The Garden (Interlude)”
18. “How Did You Get Here”
19. “Miss Understood”

Following her breakout success as Daenerys Targaryen in the HBO series Game of Thrones, Emilia Clarke is adding a new line to her impressive resume: comic book writer. After a night out with friends, the Khaleesi actress couldn’t get over a madcap idea she came up with as joke, so she teamed up with writer Marguerite Bennett to put the “f*cking cool” idea into writing. The result is a three issue mini-series for Image Comics called M.O.M.: Mother of Madness.

While the title sounds like a clever reference Clarke’s days as the Mother of Dragons, the book is anything but. Set in the present-day, M.O.M. will focus on Maya, a struggling, working mother who discovers she suddenly has freakish powers that seem to arrive at, uh, certain times of the month. Via Entertainment Weekly:

Clarke is deliberately vague about those powers — “There’s many, many things that she can do that are pretty cool,” she cryptically teases — but not about their source. “She can do a lot of stuff at certain moments in her month,” Clarke says with a laugh. “She can do all of these wicked things, but they all come from the fact that she is a woman who has a menstrual cycle. I thought it would be cool to have all the things that women don’t like about themselves, flip that, and make those the things that make her superhuman.”

Interestingly, M.O.M. isn’t Clarke’s only venture into the world of superheroes. She’s reportedly in talks to join Marvel’s Secret Invasion alongside Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury, who has to stop a hidden invasion of shape-shifting aliens with the help of one of their own: Ben Mendelsohn’s fan-favorite character, Talos, from Captain Marvel.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

Following the release of Illuminati Hotties’ revered debut record Kiss Yr Frenemies, the band found themselves in a tough spot. Their label Tiny Engines was embroiled in controversy and unable to put out their next album. So to break their contract, Illuminati Hotties released the mixtape Free I.H.: This Is Not The One You’ve Been Waiting For. But now, Illuminati Hotties vocalist Sarah Tudzin has found the perfect solution to getting out their music: launching their very own label.

Illuminati Hotties announced their new label Snack Shack Tracks, which is an imprint of Hopeless Records. To celebrate, the band shared a visual to the fiery track “Mmmoooaaaaayaya” alongside a slimy video. About her inspiration behind the visual, Tudzin states, “The springboard for the ‘Mmmoooaaaaayaya’ video pays tribute to the iconic music video for D’Angelo’s ‘Untitled (How Does It Feel)’ while demanding space for the subversion of male sexuality and flipping the dynamic of power throughout its three slimy minutes.”

In a statement about the Snack Shack Tracks label, Tudzin shared her excitement:

“I’m incredibly stoked to be partnering with Hopeless Records on my own imprint, Snack Shack Tracks! With everything that has brought me to where I am, I knew that the next time around I needed to seek support from folks who trusted me — who believed not only in illuminati hotties, but also in myself, and my curative vision as a creator at large. Hopeless is the perfect collaborator for IH and beyond. I am thrilled, grateful, and looking forward to an expansive future for the music that we’re all total nerds about!”

Watch Illuminati Hotties’ “Mmmoooaaaaayaya” video above.

There are well over 8,000 craft breweries in the United States. That number explodes once you go overseas, meaning we truly live in a golden era if you savor unique and local brews. That being said, it also means there are a lot of craft beer options to sort through on your local grocery or liquor store shelves. To help you sift through the nonstop deluge, we reached out to some bona fide beer experts to ask: “When the cameras are off, what do you actually drink?”

As a beer writer, I personally get to sample a huge amount of beers every year. But my beer sampling consumption pales in comparison to beer judges, editors, and brewers — whose entire lives revolve around the world of beer. As with most things, beer or not, there’s a lot of flat-out bad, mediocre, and perfectly passable examples out there. Few brews stand out, much less stand the test of time.

The nine craft beers featured below were named by people who drink beer every day for work. These are the beers that have grabbed their attention, the ones they’ve gone back to again and again, and the beers that occupy coveted fridge space at their homes. Check them out — with full tasting notes to make you extra thirsty!

Weihenstephaner Helles — Miguel Rivas, host of the “Every Beer Has a Story. Every Story Has a Beer” storytelling series on IGTV Live

Style: Helles Lager

ABV: 5.1%

The Beer:

For this new panel, I chose the exemplary Helles from the oldest brewery in the world, Weihenstephaner. Ever since my last trip to Germany and the Czech Republic back in 2018, I have become more enamored with lagers. There’s just something about hundreds of years of tradition, culture, and how people there embrace their beers that’s simply contagious.

I am very happy to see how in the last two to three years in the U.S. there has been this explosion of breweries making lagers. Some of them are making extraordinary beers that would rival any beer from the old continent, in my humble opinion. To me, it boils down to time, patience, and respect for the beer.

Tasting Notes:

This pours a crystal clear bright golden color. There are two to three fingers of frothy white head, great retention, and spotty lacing that decorates the glass. The aroma has notes of lightly sweet, bready malts. A subtle, doughy yeast presence comes through on the nose with light floral, herbal, and earthy hop notes coming through on the back end. Taste is consistent with notes of sweet bready malts, clean malt backbone, and very floral.

The mouthfeel is sublime, light, crisp, and extremely quaffable. There’s lively carbonation with a semi-dry finish.

Bottom Line:

This one is what I would call a textbook beer. It’s masterfully executed, checks all the boxes of the style, and is just a perfect beer for any occasion. The fact that it is now available — canned fresh in Germany and sent to the U.S. — is a real treat!

Lupulus Pils — Cristal Peck, Brewmaster and Malt Specialist at Boortmalt Innovation Center in Antwerp, Belgium

Style: Pilsner

ABV: 5%

The Beer:

Lupulus Pils is an organic pilsner brewed by a southern Wallonian Belgium craft brewery, Brasserie Lupulus. A level above the ubiquitous and overly hopped craft attempts at pils, this one is an excellent and high quality, heavily German-influenced pilsner.

Tasting Notes:

With aromas of soft sulfur and subdued graininess, fresh straw, and earthy hops, Lupulus pils pours a classic golden-yellow with a vibrant white and persisting head. Effervescent and dry, with a solid hop character, well-balanced but not shy bitterness, reminiscent of a traditional style, well-crafted German pilsner. From a glass, or direct from the bottle, it’s as refreshing as any German Fußpils, very thirst-quenching, and bloody delicious.

Bottom Line:

When I moved to Belgium, I assumed my beer-drinking agenda was sorted for life. The world became my oyster when it came to exotic Belgian ales, Trappist delights, and both delicate and extreme mixed fermentations. What I could never have known was just how I would come to miss something I had grown to take for granted throughout my time in Germany: A bloody solid pils!

Try as I might, the Belgian options continued to disappoint. Sweet, grainy, and overly esterery — due to forced fermentation times and adjuncts. Devoid of the nuanced lager yeast aroma and flavor complexities the majority of German breweries place such importance on, thanks to high-quality raw ingredients and prolonged lagering times.

Then I stumbled across this gem in my local organic grocery store. Seriously great and as close to my beloved Rothaus Pils as Belgians can get without a trip to Germany’s Black Forest!

Urban Chestnut Stammtisch — Joe Stange, co-author CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide To Belgium and managing editor Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine

Style: German Pilsner

ABV: 5.4%

The Beer:

This is a beautifully bitter pilsner from a St. Louis brewery with the Bavarian brewmaster (Florian Kuplent). While their Zwickel is a flagship, the Stammtisch is more of a local cult beer among the lagerheads and a favorite among the city’s brewers.

Tasting Notes:

Classically brewed with German Noble hops to the tune of 40 IBUs or so, this is how I want a pilsner to taste: Bitter, but with enough malt backbone to support it alongside plenty of spicy and herbal hop flavor.

Bottom Line:

Sometimes I neck it straight from the bottle, but it also looks great in the glass. It’s bright gold, with sturdy foam that lasts all the way through the glass and tells its tale with residual stripes of lace.

Green Bench Brewing Kulture ‘Tings — Latiesha Cook, Certified Cicerone® and president of Beer Kulture

Style: German Pilsner

ABV: 5.1%

The Beer:

The one craft beer I stock in my fridge is Kulture ‘Tings. Kulture ‘Tings is brewed with 100 percent Barke Pilsner Malt, German Tettnang, and is a single decoction German Pilsner.

Tasting Notes:

It pours clear yellow, with a white head and gives off a pilsner biscuit bouquet. Kulture ‘Tings is clean and super refreshing with bready and malty highlights. It’s a snappy, dry, and effervescent beer.

Bottom Line:

I stock this beer because it’s such a beautifully made pilsner. It’s the perfect crusher after a day’s work. Everyone should be drinking it because simply put, it’s delicious. It’s also the flagship of an amazing nonprofit.

Elusive Brewing Oregon Trail IPA — Matthew Curtis, founder/editor in chief of Pellicle Magazine

Style: West Coast IPA

ABV: 5.8%

The Beer:

I’m a pub creature at heart, but even though the U.K.’s boozers have finally reopened for drinking this week — outdoors, anyway — l always try to make sure I’ve got something delicious and refreshing in the fridge to help bridge the gap between work and rest. My go-to style is West Coast IPA. And although Elusive Brewery is based in Berkshire, England, and not San Diego, it’s perfectly channeled the flavor and spirit of California into its Oregon Trail IPA.

Tasting Notes:

Oregon Trail IPA has got that classic flavor/aroma combo of grapefruit zest and fresh pine. But what really makes this beer stand out is its firm fixture of malted barley, giving the beer a perfectly bittersweet character that makes it difficult to put down.

Bottom Line:

This is also a more sensible 5.8 percent ABV — a strength that means its flavor isn’t impacted but you can throw back a couple of cans in quick succession without feeling giddy. Unfortunately for my U.S. friends, you’ll need to come to the U.K./EU to try it. And when it’s safe to do so, I really hope you do.

Odell IPA — Dave Carpenter, editor-in-chief of Zymurgy, Certified Cicerone®, and author of Lager: The Definitive Guide to Tasting and Brewing the World’s Most Popular Beer Styles

Style: American IPA

ABV: 7%

The Beer:

Odell IPA is an American-style IPA from Odell Brewing Co. in Fort Collins, Colorado. In addition to the standard 12 fl. oz. cans and bottles, it’s also available in tall cans that deliver a thirst-quenching imperial pint (19.2 fl. oz.).

Tasting Notes:

Expect clean, dry malt with just enough toast and light caramel sweetness to serve as foils to the firm 60 IBUs of bitterness. The hops profile is built on a solid foundation of classic American IPA citrus and evergreen, but you’ll also uncover hints of pineapple and mango.

Bottom Line:

Odell IPA is almost always in our fridge because the brewery is less than a mile from our house and it’s easy to get fresh product. This locally brewed, world-renowned beer is always available and never goes out of style.

Lucky Saint Lager — Mark Dredge, award-winning author of A Brief History of Lager and founder of BeerDredge.com

Style: German Pilsner

ABV: 0.5%

The Beer:

There are two beers that are always in my fridge. First, there’s Duvel, which is my favorite beer. I love it because it’s as lean, light, and refreshing as a pilsner, yet powerful, impactful in flavor, and always delicious. Next to the Duvel is the Lucky Saint, my favorite alcohol-free beer. I drink a lot of alcohol-free beer, mostly because I get up early to work or go for a run, and the Duvel might slow me down in either of those activities, but the Lucky Saint won’t.

Tasting Notes:

Lucky Saint is a German-brewed 0.5 percent unfiltered lager. It’s the ideal combination of slightly sweet, almost toasty, or chewy malts, and deeply refreshing with a dry lemon pith bitterness. There’s something wonderfully quenching yet also comforting about the flavor. I personally need the balance on days when I don’t drink alcohol. But with this beer, I don’t feel like I’m sacrificing anything. It’s just a good lager.

Bottom Line:

By the way, I’ve only now just noticed how the Devil and the Saint stand side-by-side in my fridge, perfectly characterizing the conscience on either of my shoulders — Drink the Duvel! Be a Saint!

Springdale IPA — Christopher Osburn, Beer Writer / Editor

Style: West Coast IPA

ABV: 6.2%

The Beer:

If you don’t know about Springdale, you’re really missing out. While Jack’s Abby only makes lagers, this “other brewery” from the famed craft brand makes every other style. Its flagship brew is its Springdale IPA. Instead of settling for a simple West Coast IPA (which would have been amazing no doubt), the folks at Springdale made a beer that takes the best aspects from both the bitter, hoppy West Coast IPA and the more fruity, less bitter East Coast IPA — using Citra, Sultana, Amarillo, and Galaxy hops.

Tasting Notes:

On the nose, you’ll find aromas of a field of Christmas trees, ripe pineapple, cantaloupe, and subtle citrus zest. On the palate, you’ll be greeted with juicy grapefruit, ripe tangerines, peaches, and a nice kick of pine resin. The finish is filled with tropical fruit flavors, bright citrus, and just a hint of bitter hops presence.

Bottom Line:

As I get older, I have less of a desire to be knocked off my feet by overly bitter, hoppy, West Coast-style IPAs. This IPA is perfect because it bridges the gap between the two iconic varieties. It’s fruity, sweet, and hoppy enough to make everyone happy.

Writer’s Pick: Alaskan Smoked Porter — Zach Johnston, Deputy Editor UPROXX Life, podcaster One More Road For The Beer

Style: Smoked Porter

ABV: 6.5%

The Beer:

Alaskan Brewing’s Smoked Porter is a special beer. It has somehow survived decades of craft waves. The beer is made with smoked malts, giving the final product its signature smokiness. The brew is released once a year, in November as a vintage, and can be aged for years and years in a cellar, if you want.

Tasting Notes:

Generally speaking, you’re going to be greeted with a well-used backyard smoker that’s part fatty smoked brisket, part smoked salmon fat, and a part smoked brown sugars. The bitterness leans more towards coffee beans with a hint of vanilla lurking in the background and maybe a touch of eggnog spice. The maltiness is light, while the body of the beer is somewhat hefty but never overpowering.

Bottom Line:

The beauty of this beer is that it changes as it ages. That means that I can stock up on bottles when I travel back to the Pacific Northwest and keep a fair amount in the cellar (for later) and the fridge (for now). There’s an evolution to the beer as the years tick past that really enthralls me.

But it’s more than that, too. This beer takes me home to Washington State. It takes me to oyster saloons, backyard salmon smokers, and those campfires that spit and crackle under a steady rainforest drizzle. It’s a beer that transcends and transports. You can’t beat that.

With Marvel’s release of the Shang-Chi trailer on Monday, expect kung-fu movies to start making a big comeback in the coming year (if they haven’t already; see Raya And The Last Dragon, the renewal of Warrior on HBO Max, and the recently premiered reboot of the classic show Kung-Fu). It’s likely that no one is more ecstatic about this turn of events than RZA, who based the Wu-Tang Clan’s entire aesthetic on hs Saturday afternoon forays to the matinee to catch the latest Shaw Brothers movies growing up in Staten Island, New York.

RZA is about to pay further homage to his first love as he revives his 36 Cinema platform he started at the outset of the pandemic, which hosts weekly screenings of classic kung-fu and blaxploitation films with live commentary from RZA and weekly guests. His new programming slate is fitting titled “Saturday Afternoon Kung Fu Theater” and kicks off — heh — this Saturday, April 24 with a screening of Heroes Of The East at 9 pm ET with Portland’s Hollywood Theatre’s head programmer Dan Halsted.

Celebrating the announcement, RZA also resurrected his Bobby Digital persona for a new single called “Pugilism” — the first such release since 2008’s Digi Snacks album. It’s the first single from RZA’s upcoming fourth solo album, Bobby Digital: Digital Potions, which he’ll share more info about during this Saturday’s screening.

Listen to “Pugilism” above and get tickets for the inaugural Saturday Afternoon Kung Fu Theater showing of “Heroes Of The East” here.

Earlier today, GameStop’s official Twitter account tweeted that the Xbox Series X model was now available to purchase through their Xbox All Access package. However, within two hours of the tweet — posted at 7 AM PST this morning — the console was reported as sold out. In addition, customers who were able to snag one of the coveted next-generation systems were faced with a variety of obstacles, such as broken links and the consoles being marked as ‘not available’ until the page was refreshed multiple times.

The available consoles were offered as part of the Xbox All Access package, a subscription program that allows buyers to pay $35 per month for 24 months at a 0% APR interest rate–provided they are approved. In addition to the system, the package included a subscription to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which costs $15 per month when bought separately. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which also includes Xbox Live Gold and EA Play, gives players access to more than 100 titles, ranging from high-budget hits such as Grand Theft Auto V and Outriders, as well as dozens of up-and-coming independent titles.

After the 24-month payment plan ends, buyers will completely own their new console and have paid a grand total of $840. While that seems a hefty sum for the $500 console, the package winds up saving customers $20, as two years of Game Pass Ultimate runs $360 and would push the grand total without Xbox All Access to $860.

For those feeling frustrated by the console’s lack of availability, you’re not alone. Since its November 10, 2020 release date, the Xbox Series X has consistently been in high demand and low stock. One of the best ways to keep tabs on when the console is available is to follow the Twitter accounts of retailers such as GameStop and Best Buy.

In the meantime, we’ve written a piece on how to cope with being unable to snag a new system.