Category: News

Regardless of where you live, the winter months are probably relatively bleak, filled with uncomfortably short days, and seem to last forever. Whenever possible, you’re going to be looking for a respite from the cold (even if we’re just talking about California’s low-50s chill). Sure, you can enjoy warming cocktails (like a hot toddy or Irish coffee) this time of year, or you can transport yourself to a warmer, more tropical season with a tiki-style cocktail or a hazy, juicy, IPA.

With the holidays done and ski season looking mellow, we’re all about trying to forget about the wrath of Jack Frost, so we’re definitely feeling those tropical vibes right about now. To find the best offerings, we asked a handful of bartenders to tell us their favorite hazy IPAs for winter. Check their picks below!

Modern Times Space Ways

Demetrëa Dewald, lead bartender at Bar Mateo at Zinc Café in Los Angeles

Space Ways by Modern Times Beers is a fantastic hazy IPA and with its sweet tropical aromas, you’ll be transported to a warm paradise with every sip. Space Ways has a beautiful mix of sweet tropical fruits with a dry piney finish, it’s a perfect balance of smooth yet crisp.

On those cold and bleak winter days, this drinkable delight will transport you to warmer times.

Oskar Blues Can-O-Bliss Tropical IPA

Candace Marie Peterson, beertender at Lone Tree Brewing in Lone Tree, Colorado

I really don’t drink very many Hazy IPAs, because I’m more of a West Coast girl. One of the few that I do enjoy is Can-O-Bliss Tropical IPA from Oskar Blues. It has all of the flavors that you want when sitting on a beach (or imagining sitting on a beach during the winter months) and a nice, balanced bitterness.

Outer Range In The Steep

Sarah Kemp, beertender at Living The Dream Brewing in Littleton, Colorado

If I’m being honest, you can drink enough of any beer to forget how cold it is outside. However, I would much rather indulge with In The Steep from Outer Range. This classic DDH NEIPA, brewed with loads of Citra hops, is so refreshing due to its tropical and citrus fruit-forward notes.

An ale perfectly enjoyed cozying up at home or on the slopes. Also, shoutout to Trillium. Hazies are the bomb.

Biscayne Bay Tropical Bay IPA

Hayden Miller, head bartender at Bodega Taqueria y Tequila in Miami

The Tropical Bay IPA from Biscayne Bay makes for a great winter warmer – even outside of South Florida. Fresh, hoppy, and a mouthful of flavor.

Tired Hands HopHands

Alex Tack, bartender at Rex 1516 in Philadelphia

I associate the style with warm weather. Regardless of the temperature though, I have to say Tired Hands does it better than most. Almost all of the Tired Hands limited releases are worthwhile, but HopHands is their flagship New England-style IPA.

It’s like a beautifully balanced glass of floral, dank, pineapple-flavored orange juice, which is exactly what I think the style should be.

4 Hands Contact High Hazy

Andy Printy, beverage director at Chao Baan in St. Louis

Contact High Hazy from 4 Hands Brewery can definitely get you out of the frigid state of mind. Dry-hopped with copious amounts of American hops and fermented with a super hazy yeast strain. It has a great body and just the right amount of subtle tropical notes to transport you to warmer climates and keep the sand between your toes, if only momentarily.

Resident Culture Fire Walk With Me

Juan Fernandez, bartender at The Ballantyne, A Luxury Collection in Charlotte

Fire Walk With Me, from Resident Culture, is a double hazy IPA that is well balanced between ABVs to warm the chest, and nice citrus and warm peaches to refresh the palate.

Hi-Wire Lo-Pitch

Brandon “Habi” Habenstein, bartender at The Kitchen & Bar at Bardstown Bourbon Co. in Bardstown, Kentucky

Lo-Pitch from Hi-Wire Brewing is so thick and hazy, it’s more like drinking a can of juice than a beer. This beer is so packed with tropical fruit flavors, it’s impossible to drink it and not think about the beach. Drink it in front of a campfire, close your eyes, and just pretend you’re sunbathing.

Weird Beard F*ck You I Won’t Brew What You Tell Me

Tommy Cummins, head buyer at The Umbrella Project in London

My favorite at the moment is from a London Brewery called Weird Beard. They produce a beast called F*ck You I Won’t Brew What You Tell Me — a west coast IPA at 9.3%. Two of my favorite things coming together, beer and music. This hop monster is perfect for these long nights in front of your fire, while the name punches home the feeling of everyone being sick of being controlled.

When this bad boy is planted in your hand, expect the intense smell of grapefruit, squeezed orange juice, and pine aromas coming from Centennial, Columbus, Simcoe, and Chinook hoops.

Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing

Freddy Yanez, bartender at Unreserved Beer Garden at the JW Marriott Orlando Bonnet Creek Resort & Spa in Orlando

Hazy Little Thing from Sierra Nevada brewery is one of the best IPAs to drink in the winter. It has a medium body and fruit-forward flavor and an amazing blend of hops, keeping the flavors balanced.

When we look back at these last four years – which, depressingly, and maybe predictably, culminated (at least so far) on Wednesday with the U.S. Capitol being stormed by supporters of Donald Trump, reportedly leaving four people dead – the lasting time capsule to historians who, someday, might want to try and figure all this out, will be Late Night With Seth Meyers‘s “A Closer Look” segment. If you go back and just pick one at random from, say, two years ago, I promise you will most likely be stunned at how much you don’t remember. But, night after night, it’s like a complete set of whatever dumb thing happened that day; that just kept building up until we reached this moment.

On Wednesday night there was no “A Closer Look.” Late Night was live and it was just a somber Seth Meyers doing his best to make heads or tails of what happened earlier in the day. Since the pandemic started, and I think Meyers would be the first to admit, it’s pretty obvious he hasn’t felt totally comfortable delivering the opening monologue without an audience. (Which makes a lot of sense. Imagine just staring into your computer, in a room by yourself, trying to be funny, as Meyers had to do for a few months.) You can tell he feels awkward by how often he just starts laughing mid joke (which, as a viewer, I always get a kick out of seeing.)

When Meyers signed up to host Late Night, he’s been pretty clear this is not how he envisioned the show. His goal was a comedy show, not, as I said earlier, a time capsule of one of the most tumultuous stretches in recent U.S. history. I suspect the last thing Meyers ever wanted to do was give a solemn speech, live, on network television, that had to both give faith to people that there’s decency left and to hold those in power who orchestrated this accountable. It’s telling that the actual president didn’t address the American people live and try to calm down an enraged nation. No, instead, it was Seth Meyers.

Meyers’ address to the nation is truly remarkable because, for most of it at least, you can really make the case these are the words that would usually come from the president. (President-elect Biden made a fine speech yesterday, but his themes of “unity” are starting to look pretty unrealistic.) For all intents and purposes we have no functioning president at this given moment, so others like Meyers, have to fill that gap. And the part that really hit home was that, yes, again, people need to be held accountable.

“Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and the rest of the sedition caucus in the House and Senate goaded this on. They are responsible for this. They should wear this shame and disgrace for the rest of their lives. No one who aided and abetted today’s action should ever be allowed to serve in a democracy they so surly detest,” said Meyers. And the reality is that’s probably not going to happen. But it made me feel better having a reasonable voice say something like that. Watching Wednesday’s events, they were so surreal and so unprecedented that it makes a person question their own opinions and sanity. After it was over, there were members of Congress like Ben Sasse who gave folksy, ah shucks speeches about how great America is, just a few feet away from where a woman was shot and killed just a few hours before.

Even worse, people like Missouri Senator Josh Hawley (from my home state, which is especially heartbreaking) continued down the road of questioning the legitimacy of the election, apparently just choosing to decide that the events earlier in the day just didn’t happen. So, yes, it even led me to start questioning what I had seen with my own eyes. Why is everyone acting normal? Am I the crazy person?

And that’s why watching something like Meyers deliver his remarks, live, was so important. It was comforting. At least here’s a sane voice summing up what we all saw, and putting into context at least what should happen. Another part really stood out for me, early on, when Meyers said, “I think it’s important, as the first draft of history is being written, and as we are all processing what we are witnessing today, to be as plainspoken and clear-eyed as possible. What we saw today was a violent insurgency in an attempt to overthrow the legitimately elected government of the United States. And it was incited, directed, and encouraged by the president, Donald Trump.”

What he means is, as we are seeing, the far right-wing is already trying to rewrite what happened. A year from now, what happened Wednesday will probably cause arguments as to how it even happened. (Though, the MAGA people who stormed the Capitol seemed awfully proud of what they did. I’m not so sure they are going to be happy to hear now that Antifa is getting the “credit.”) What Meyers is doing is trying to set a historical reminder of what actually happened. It’s important he did that.

And, frankly, over the coming years it’s going to become more and more apparent just how important a lot of these late night shows actually were. They are going to be one of the best sources of what actually happened. I often see people ask late night hosts some version of, “With Trump gone will that hurt comedy?” What on Earth? What Meyers and other late night hosts have been doing the last four years hasn’t been “comedy.” It’s been therapy. It’s been an honest attempt to try to hold things together. I’m not sure it worked, but I am appreciative they tried.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Following Wednesday’s attack on the Capitol by MAGA insurgents that unsuccessfully sought to prevent the verification of the 2020 presidential election, GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger (of Illinois) has broken ranks with his party by becoming the first GOP congressman to support removing Donald Trump from office. In a video posted to Twitter, Kinzinger calls for Vice President Mike Pence and members of the Cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment before he can do any more damage in his final two weeks as president.

Kinzinger made the call with a video posted to Twitter.

While lauding Congress for holding strong and protecting democracy by certifying the election following the assault, Kinzinger laid the blame for the storming of the Capitol building at Trump’s feet. “He invoked and inflamed passions that only gave fuel to the insurrection that we saw here,” Kinzinger said. When it game time to quell the violence, Kinzinger noted that Trump not only did the bare minimum, but he continued to support the perpetrators.”When pressed to move and denounce the violence, he barely did so while, of course, victimizing himself and seeming to give a wink and a nod to those doing it.” It’s the evidence of being “unmoored from reality itself” that prompted Kinzinger to seek Trump’s removal. Via Axios:

“It is for this reason that I call for the vice president and members of the Cabinet to ensure the next few weeks are safe for the American people and that we have a sane captain of the ship. It’s time to invoke the 25th Amendment and to end this nightmare … The president caused this, the president is unfit and the president is unwell, and the president must now relinquish control of the executive branch voluntarily or involuntarily.”

The Republican congressman is not alone in calling for Pence to invoke the 25th amendement. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also issued a statement on Thursday urging the use of the 25th amendment. If Pence won’t act, Schumer says Congress must reconvene and move for impeachment.

Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez has made the same call.

(Via Adam Kinzinger on Twitter & Axios)

It was all of yesterday when Meghan McCain was publicly campaigning for Senator Josh Hawley to be elected president in 2024 — the same Josh Hawley who the Kansas City Star wrote has “blood on his hands” after yesterday’s attempted coup at the Capitol building. But now, and only now, is she ready to speak out against the same Republican politicians (like Hawley) who “incited, directed, and encouraged” the violent riots.

On Thursday’s episode of The View, McCain called “on all Republicans and conservatives who still have clout. We have to invoke the 25th amendment. We cannot withstand this. Our country cannot go on like this, and we cannot possibly risk the idea that we could have more violence between now and President Biden getting inaugurated,” according to Mediaite. She then spoke directly to the domestic terrorists.

“You are not patriots! You do not represent America! You are scum of the Earth who are using and abusing and bastardizing all that I love and have grown up with for your own sick agenda! And that agenda has been directly sent by President Trump, and then he didn’t disavow it. He didn’t send in the National Guard, and then he called them ‘special’ and said ‘we love them.’ Ivanka Trump called these people ‘patriots.’ I am a patriot. I come from a patriotic family. I come from a family of service, as does everyone on this show,” she said, adding, “You are hurting our country! You are becoming a national embarrassment and we have to get him out immediately, because this cannot stand.”

You can watch the clip above.

(Via Mediaite)

From every corner of the NBA world, current and former players and coaches have excoriated the events that occurred in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. Immediate reactions on social media to the riot — in which supporters of president Donald Trump attended a rally before storming the U.S. Capitol as Congress certified the results of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lose to President-elect Joe Biden — eventually turned into demonstrations and comments before and after games took place.

One such person who was particularly outspoken was Sacramento Kings rookie Tyrese Haliburton, who used his Twitter account to, among other things, call Trump a “clown” as things were going down. And after the Kings beat Chicago, 128-124, on Wednesday evening, Haliburton spoke to the media and expanded on what he felt as he watched the scene in D.C.

“Obviously what’s happening right now in our world, and what happened today in particular, is nothing but a joke,” Haliburton said. “With everything that’s going on, the losses of many African-American lives and the plight of people of color, and then for these human beings to come out and act like they’re being discriminated against because they lost a fair election, or that they have to wear masks, is a complete joke. I think, obviously, the president is not going to say anything that means anything, and our president-to-be, Joe Biden, comes out and says, ‘America, we’re better than this. This is unAmerican.’ But to be honest, I’m 20-years-old, but I feel like this is as American as it gets. I think today was, of my lifetime, probably the biggest flex of white power and white privilege that there is.”

Haliburton explained that he sat on his phone for “an hour and a half” looking for something to say in the face of all of this, but ultimately, he said he felt like he couldn’t get it all into a tweet. He then referenced another thing that occurred this week: the decision to not press charges against the police officer who shot Jacob Blake, a Black man from Kenosha, Wisc.

“Yesterday, Jacob Blake in my home state, nothing happens,” Haliburton says. “Rusten Sheskey does not get charged for paralyzing a man, and I can’t even sit here and tell you that’s a joke, because there’s nothing funny about it. It’s just a shame, it’s just another example of this country failing African-Americans and people of color.”

The point was made by a number of individuals, including Haliburton on his Twitter account, that a major double-standard was on display in the response to Black Lives Matter protests over the summer and Wednesday’s situation in the capitol. While shows of force by police officers were both common and cheered on by the nation’s right wing as protestors demonstrated peacefully in support of racial justice and overthrowing systemic inequality, there was a far more subdued response as insurgents forced their way into the building in the name of the soon-to-be former president.

Chicago singer Jamila Woods shared her acclaimed LP Legacy! Legacy!, which stood as a tribute to several Black artists and visionaries throughout history, back in 2019. Woods followed up the album last August with “Sula (Paperback),” a tribute to the late Toni Morrison one year after her death. On Wednesday, Woods brought her moving Morrison tribute to a tranquil performance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.

Taking the dimly lit stage backed by a full band, including a string section, Woods tenderly delivered a moving rendition of the song. “Sula (Paperback)” is inspired by Toni Morrison’s 1973 novel Sula and is penned from the perspective of protagonist Sula Peace and her relationship depicted in the book. Speaking about her inspiration behind the single in a statement, Woods said:

“It’s the first Toni Morrison novel I ever read and it inspired the first chapbook of poems I ever wrote. The novel shows the evolution of a friendship between two Black women and how they choose to navigate society’s strict gender roles and rules of respectability. On Sula, Toni Morrison wrote, ‘living totally by the law and surrendering totally to it without questioning anything sometimes makes it impossible to know anything about yourself.’ Returning to the story several years later, it gave me permission to reject confining ideas about my identity designed to shrink my spirit. It reminded me to embrace my tenderness, my sensitivities, my ways of being in my body. This song is a mantra to allow myself space to experience my gender, love, intimacy, and sexuality on my own terms.”

Watch Woods perform “Sula (Paperback)” on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert above.

Yesterday was a dark day for the United States of America. As members of Congress met to officially count the 2020 presidential election votes from the Electoral College, a pro-Trump mob of insurrectionists broke into the Capitol building and stormed both chambers of Congress, forcing Senators and Representatives into hiding, and leaving a path of destruction in their wake.

The threat was, and is, real. United States lawmakers were temporarily prevented from performing their constitutional duty to count the certified election results—a duty that is necessary to ensure the orderly transition of power—by people who had just built gallows outside of the Capitol building and who carried guns and zip ties into Congress chambers. The storming of the Capitol was not a peaceful protest, but an act of terror by people who believe President Trump’s delusional rhetoric that he actually won the 2020 election in a landslide.

Unsurprisingly, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Shumer has called for President Trump to be removed from office, either via impeachment or the 25th amendment. Also unsurprisingly, other Democratic leaders have voiced support for the idea.

However, it’s not just Democrats who are now calling for such measures.

This morning, Republican representative Adam Kinzinger of the 16th district in Illinois took the bold step of calling for Trump to be removed from office via the 25th amendment.

In a video statement, Kinzinger said:

“Yesterday was a sad day, as we all know. It was the day where fires stoked by the president and other leaders finally leapt out of the pit, and it lit the trees. Thankfully, the strength of our Constitution and democracy help, and we emerge today a little battered, but resolved.

What happened yesterday is a wake-up call to many, but it’s a call to accountability for others. In the past few presidencies, the administrations have been so concerned about even a moment of weakness that the 25th Amendment was invoked during minor surgeries, passing the duties to the vice president while the president was under anesthesia, because even for that moment to have the captain of the ship absent could cause a major catastrophe.

Sadly, yesterday it became evident that not only has the president abdicated his duty to protect the American people and the people’s house, he invoked and inflamed passions that only gave fuel to the insurrection that we saw here. When pressed to move and denounce the violence, he barely did so, while of course, victimizing himself and seeming to give a wink and a nod to those doing it. All indications that the president has become unmoored, not just from his duty or even his oath, but from reality itself. It is for this reason that I call for the vice president and members of the Cabinet to ensure the next few weeks are safe for the American people and that we have a sane captain of the ship.

Section 4 of the 25th Amendment allows a majority of the Cabinet and the vice president to assume the duties of the office of presidency until the president is able to himself. It’s time to invoke the 25th Amendment and to end this nightmare. We will rise from this, but we cannot forget what led us here. The liars and the conspiracy authors are already at it again this morning with false narratives about yesterday’s disaster.

Here’s the truth — the president caused this. The president is unfit and the president is unwell, and the president must now relinquish control of the executive branch voluntarily or involuntarily. God bless you, and God bless our enduring democracy.”

What a time to be an American, when members of a president’s own party are calling for his removal two weeks before he’s going to lose power anyway. In a truly dark time for our nation, seeing glimmers of truth and reason peeking through offer glimpses of hope for the future of the U.S.

After months of speculation regarding shortstop Francisco Lindor’s future in Cleveland, the 27-year-old star has reportedly been dealt to the New York Mets, according to Jeff Passan of ESPN.

The deal will reportedly include Mets shortstop Andres Gimenez as well as 2019 second-round pick Ryan Wolf, a pitching prospect, and young outfielder Isaiah Greene going back to Cleveland, but most importantly gives New York a reliably solid two-way middle infielder in the prime of his career.

A report from Mike Feinsand of MLB.com indicated veteran Cleveland pitcher Carlos Carrasco would be headed to New York as well.

After a down year in 2020 during MLB’s condensed 60-game scheduled in which he batted just .258 with an 102 OPS+, Lindor’s value seemed to be depleted a bit, but the Mets pulled the trigger here, anyway. Assuming Lindor’s salary is somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 million after arbitration, the Mets are taking in a hefty salary for a player who will also be a free agent in 2022.

In a subsequent report, though, ESPN’s Buster Olney reported that Lindor could soon be in talks to negotiate an extension with the Mets, similar to what Mookie Betts did after being traded to the Dodgers last offseason.

Still, Lindor is still just 27, so there is every reason to believe that he could come out rejuvenated in 2021 with a new ballclub now that Cleveland’s run as a perennial seems to be winding down. A fresh start could be good for Lindor, who was an All-Star from 2016-2019 and received AL MVP votes in each of those four seasons.

Stars are just like us — at least when it comes to undergoing the mind-bending boredom of quarantine — in Slowthai’s surreal “Mazza” video with ASAP Rocky. In the eye-popping clip, Slowthai and Rocky are next-door neighbors in a hotel where both seem to be sweating out an isolation period and suffering its negative effects on their minds. Slowthai hallucinates and expels excess energy while Rocky imagines himself as a white person while watching TV. Interestingly, the press release for the video notes that both artists’ scenes were filmed in their respective home countries and directed via Zoom

“Mazza” is the latest single from Slowthai’s upcoming Tyron album, which comes out on February 5. Other videos from the album so far have included “NHS” and “Feel Away,” which both came out last year, while Slowthai’s “Thoughts” video allowed him to take a step away from the heady and personal subject matter of the album’s songs for a throwback freestyle in the original grime mode. Artists to be included on the project include grime godfather Skepta, Florida rabble-rouser Denzel Curry, alt-pop-rocker Dominic Fike, and underground pop artist Deb Never.

Watch the “Mazza” video above.

Tyron is due 2/5 via Method / AWGE / Interscope Records. You can pre-save it here.

Just a few weeks before major cities across the US went in to lockdown, Vagabon and Courtney Barnett shared the stage together in LA. As the two artists are both fans of each other’s music, they decided to team up to collaborate on a single. Now, nearly a year since they recorded the song together, Vagabon and Courtney Barnett unveil the twang-heavy cover of “Reason To Believe.”

The song, originally written and recorded by Tim Hardin in 1965, has been covered by many artists. For their rendition, Vagabon and Barnett elected to give their take on Karen Dalton’s 1966 version of the song.

“I recently discovered the Karen Dalton version of ‘Reason To Believe’ for the first time,” Vagabon said in a statement. “I became obsessed and so a few days after discovering it, I was encouraged to record a cover of it in my garage. The decision to have Courtney sing it with me came after we performed it together live at the Palace Theatre in Los Angeles on Valentine’s Day 2020, a month before lockdown. It was fresh in our brains then so not long after the show, CB came over and we recorded her parts. Oliver Hill plays slide guitar on it.”

Echoing Vagabon’s statement, Barnett said: “I’m a huge fan of Vagabon and Karen Dalton so this was a dream. They both have a voice that absolutely knocks the wind out of me. I really admire Laetitia and am constantly inspired by her songwriting, production, and our sporadic FaceTime chats.”

Listen to “Reason To Believe” above.