On November 11, launch day arrived and something really odd happened: The PC version of the GTA trilogy went missing. While the game can currently be played on home consoles, PC players can’t find the game anywhere. This includes people who pre-ordered the game, because not only has GTA itself disappeared from places like Steam, but Rockstar’s launcher is also currently not working. Anyone trying to play a Rockstar game on PC right now, such as GTA Online or Red Dead Redemption, can’t get on to play.
Right now, the official word is that the launcher is down for maintenance, but this “maintenance” has been going on since Thursday.
Services for the Rockstar Games Launcher and supported titles are temporarily offline for maintenance. Services will return as soon as maintenance is completed.
Maintenance is necessary sometimes for servers and launchers, and the stress of a wave of people going online all at once to play a game can cause some of these to crash, but delisting the game from stores is not part of normal maintenance. For starters, nobody schedules maintenance the same day as the launch of a hugely-anticipated title. Not only that, but Rockstar would never let a cash cow like GTA Online be unplayable this long. All of this is very weird and tells us something has gone wrong, but what that something is can only be guessed because Rockstar has stayed quiet outside of one update indicating they’re aware of how long the maintenance is currently taking.
We thank you for your patience and understanding as we continue to work on restoring services for the Rockstar Games Launcher and supported titles.
Three songs into Teartracks, the effervescent new record from pop prodigy Banoffee, there’s a moment of deeply vulnerable, despairing honesty: “I’ll never get to f*ck anyone / The way I know how to, with you.” And then, as if in an attempt to shake off her blues, the beat kicks in. The interplay between high and low emotion on “Never Get To F*ck Any1” — the choice to pair bad times with bass drops — is a bit of a calling card for the Australian artist. Banoffee, born Martha Brown, has spent a half-decade in the music industry carving out a space in pop music that is both confessional and captivating.
First, her adventures in avant-pop took her to the legendary late hyperpop pioneer SOPHIE, then to an international Taylor Swift tour as a backup singer for Charli XCX. Brown has the Swiftian instinct for spinning individual anger into collective pop catharsis. Her 2020 full-length debut, Look At Us Now, Dad, turned the private details of her life — being stranded at a Chevron, struggling with malaria and subsequent fibromyalgia, searching for meaning after a breakup — into glistening, crystalline electronic pop. On her 2021 follow-up, she leans into her unflinching honesty, pushing her sound further into the digital diva ballads she hinted at in her first record.
It can be a bit of a risk to release an album without an over-the-top, all-out club banger, which is notably absent from the careful melodies of Teartracks. But as Brown, speaking over the phone from Melbourne, describes it, there wasn’t really a more marketable option: “I just had to be honest with myself, and not make it about if I’m going to make money, but as more of an emotional release.” She knows that outside of breakup scenes in sad movies, there isn’t a huge selling point for the mass marketing of her heartbreak; she sees the record as better suited for far more intimate settings: “I think that a lot of these songs are about having a cry in your car,” she says. “I love a lot of the crazy-sounding music that’s coming into the pop world. But this record wasn’t that.”
In many ways, the record in question was shaped by Brown’s physical surroundings: After spending the past few years in Los Angeles, studio-hopping, she returned to her home in Melbourne when the first pandemic restrictions took hold in early March 2020. The decision wasn’t so much a choice, as a necessary step taken for her own self-preservation. In addition to her concerns about being available to help in case her parents fell ill, she also faced the financial hurdles of being a working artist in the U.S. “As a musician who’s not from America, I wasn’t eligible for any of the unemployment benefits,” she recalls. “When all my work was canceled, I realized that there was no way I was going to be able to stay in my apartment. So it was just a necessity to get home where I could get help from the [Australian] government.”
To Brown, her return home was essential to the shape of her new album. “This record couldn’t have been made anywhere else because it’s really a topical record about what happened here,” she says. “Being in Melbourne in these very intense lockdowns meant that I had no choice but to stay at home and write.” And, she added with a slight laugh, “If I was in LA, maybe I wouldn’t have had to write a breakup album. You just never know what the sliding door moment would have been.”
Teartracks is an album that feels both grander and more intimate than Banoffee’s previous work. The record is brimming with the kind of contemplative, serious drama not often found in contemporary pop, like the solo piano at the center of the potent closer “Tears.” But there isn’t, despite titles like “I Hate It” and “Idiot,” a simple kiss-off to her ex on this breakup record. Unlike the excellent “Tennis Fan” on her previous record, the lyrics here don’t place blame on one person over another in the dissolution of their relationship. “I didn’t want to write a ‘f*ck you’ record. Because although that’s really satisfying, a lot of the time that it’s not reality. Most of the time, there’s two people going through something really hard when you break up. And I just wanted this to be more adult in that way, to acknowledge that you can be in pain and not write about the other person being wrong or a bad person.”
The shift between the ecstatic love of America and the isolated quarantine of Australia is perhaps best embodied by the transition between opener “Tapioca Cheeks,” with its shuffling percussion and effusive, autotuned chorus (“Everything you say/ makes me love you more”), and “Enough,” driven by a smoldering guitar and just the lightest touch of vocal processing. “Tapioca Cheeks” was the only Teartracks song recorded in a proper studio setting just prior to her return to Melbourne. Created with PC Music signees Planet 1999, the song came together remarkably quickly — it was a “15-minute track,” by Brown’s estimation.
She embarked on a wholly new creative process when she returned to Melbourne, building songs from stems sent over email, a method that both slowed the album’s production and led to emotional breakthroughs in her writing. “It definitely challenged me as a producer,” Brown said. “I’m quite a messy producer who really relies on collaborators. I couldn’t do that.” But virtual collaboration also seemed to remove some of the pressures of the studio, allowing her to track vocals without judgment. “When I wrote ‘Enough,’ I was in a really bad place,” she explains. “The original vocal for that is very teary, and I just couldn’t really face working on it any longer. I sent it to Charles [of Planet 1999], and it was really raw. You could tell that I was crying on the take, but it was okay, because I was just sending an email. I could work on something that I knew would be special because of its vulnerability, without the confrontation of having a bunch of people in the room staring at me while I lose my shit.”
Banoffee, from this vantage point, seems like an artist without a city to call her own. The isolation of Melbourne, while a fruitful ground for her lyrical experiments, ultimately slowed down the production process — the record’s release date was pushed back from October to early November, and Brown was still finalizing tracks for Teartracks when we spoke just a few weeks before its arrival. But at the same time, Los Angeles seemed to leave her feeling exhausted and cynical of the industry. So where does an artist like Banoffee find home? “I think I’ve learnt that there isn’t one,” she posited. “I’ve been looking around for the ideal place for everything that will make the perfect writing environment. And I think I’ve just realized, especially through this record, that it’s more about being in a place within yourself.” On Teartracks, Brown has crafted a gorgeous, complex place to call home.
While Martin Scorsese has shown his appreciation for Tony Bennett’s pipes by featuring a few of his tunes in his movies, most prominently using “Rags to Riches” in Goodfellas, it turns out that Bennett’s got a bit of a problem with Scorsese’s movies—at least according to Lady Gaga.
Marty’s name came up during a post-screening Q&A of the new Ridley Scott movie House of Gucci, in which Gaga plays Italian socialite Patrizia Reggiani, the ex-wife of Gucci heir Maurizio Gucci, whom she hired a hitman to kill. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Gaga—who reportedly spoke in an Italian accent for nine months straight while working on the movie—talked about how important it was to her to portray Reggiani as a fully fleshed-out character, and not just some “caricature” of an Italian woman. Which is when she then dropped the bombshell that:
“[Tony] famously talks about his distaste for Marty Scorsese’s films. How much he dislikes the way that Italians are portrayed in crime. Tony does not fully talk to me about this right now [because of] the state that he’s in [with Alzheimer’s], which is probably best for me, but I’ve tried to explain it to him.”
Though Gaga says Bennett “famously” talks about his disdain for Scorsese’s movies, it’s the first most people are hearing about this. And it might even come as a surprise to Scorsese himself, who back in August took time away from shooting his latest film to record a 95th birthday greeting for Bennett, in which he sent the crooner “love from Oklahoma,” and told him he’d see him soon. The video was posted to Bennett’ Facebook page with the caption: “What a day, and what a night! 95 feels great with the love from friends like Martin Scorsese. Thank you for this video. #happy95tony #igetakickoutofyou”
Rudy Giuliani visited the right-wing news network Newsmax on Thursday to try and gaslight the entire country with claims that the January 6th insurrection on Capitol Hill was all an “exaggeration.”
Giuliani, who’s currently being sued for billions by Dominion for spreading totally baseless voter fraud theories during the 2020 Presidential Election, told host Rob Schmitt that the current House Committee investigation into the attack on Congress earlier this year is just part of the Democrats plan to overthrow Donald Trump.
“This is really a coup that they carried right through to their exaggeration of Jan. 6, which they’re still carrying on, keeping those people in prison the way you would in a fascist country,” Giuliani said. He also went after Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, who has said he believes there is direct evidence that Trump worked with the Russians to secure a win during the 2016 Presidential Election.
“Why doesn’t anyone ask him who are those two people and that piece of paper that he said had direct evidence of Donald Trump being involved in Russian collusion? I’d like to see that piece of paper,” Giuliani ranted. “If he can’t produce it and there are no people, maybe they should throw him out of the Congress because he’s a damn liar. He also is a traitor, because to make a charge like that against a president hurts the United States of America.”
Rudy Giuliani on Newsmax: “This is really a coup that they carried right through to their exaggeration of January 6.” pic.twitter.com/wSpDpBAA3c
You know what else hurts the United States of America? Having a sitting president incite violence against members of Congress all because he lost an election. Giuliani is still a person of interest in the investigation into the Jan. 6th insurrection — which did happen, by the way — so it makes sense that he’d want to downplay the attack, which left hundreds injured and five dead, including a Capitol police officer. Four more officers who responded to the attack that day committed suicide in the months that followed.
That’s not an exaggeration, it’s a fact, something that Giuliani probably isn’t too familiar with after his years of service under Trump’s regime.
NASCAR wants nothing to do with the “Let’s Go Brandon,” and Lauren Boebert can’t be happy about that, given how awfully proud she was of her post-Halloween costume, a “Let’s Go Brandon” dress (for which she called the catchphrase/slur a “movement”). All of this followed NBC Sports reporter Kelli Stavast (while interviewing NASCAR driver Brandon Brown) mistaking a crowd chanting “f*ck Joe Biden” for “Let’s Go Brandon.” Boebert and the far-right enjoy this this so very much, and now, Boebert is seriously upset at Peloton because, I guess, she really would like the “freedom” to use the catchphrase as a username?
It’s very strange stuff, and of course, both NASCAR and Peloton, as private companies, are free to ban the use of any username in association with their brands and respective terms of service. Well, Boebert wants everyone to know how irked she is, so (naturally) she expressed her grievances on Twitter. “Peloton has blocked anyone from putting ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ in their usernames as they work out,” she wrote. “YouTube hides ALL dislikes as almost every Biden video has more dislikes than likes. Sorry, America hates the guy and you can’t cover it up!”
Peloton has blocked anyone from putting “Let’s Go Brandon” in their usernames as they work out.
YouTube hides ALL dislikes as almost every Biden video has more dislikes than likes.
Sorry, America hates the guy and you can’t cover it up!
Her concerns have been echoed by Fox News, which has relayed complaints that an “error message” pops up for username use or when users want to use the term as a hashtag. Apparently, the users are steamed because Black Lives Matter-associated hashtags aren’t banned, and of course, people want to make this a controversy, much like when the far-right attacked Biden for using a Peloton in the White House. With all of the true injustices in this world, it’s kind-of amazing that people are upset over, uh, “Let’s Go Brandon” and private companies that can shut down political speech as desired.
Foraging isn’t a trend. It’s something that has been part of human existence since we, well, existed. But as we moved into cities and capitalism took control of every aspect of our lives in order to make living in those cities viable, a lot of us stepped further and further away from nature. The thing is, it doesn’t have to be that way.
Living in a city doesn’t mean you can’t forage for food. Taking a little time on days off to get back into the country is healthy for your body and soul. It can also really help you keep a cleaner, fresher, and healthier pantry too.
We’re not saying you should just go out in the woods and start poking around and hope for the best. Don’t do that. Successfully and safely foraging requires education about what is actually out there. That education used to feel a million miles away for some, especially if you were in an urban area. Today, more than ever, there are people who are doing the heavy lifting for you and then sharing that wisdom online, on their dinner plates, and in books. So we’re going to highlight three folks we think you should follow if you want to get into foraging and harvesting your own food, even in a small way.
Karl Holl:
Karl Holl
Meet Chef Karl Holl:
Chef Karl Holl didn’t reinvent the foraged menu. He knows that. But that doesn’t stop him from diving deep into the woods outside of Portland, Oregon in the pursuit of something that goes beyond just “local” for his menus at Spätzle & Speck.
Holl has been foraging for over 15 years now both for personal use and his kitchens. Holl has taken that knowledge of foraging for herbs, spices, and the illustrious dearth of Pacific Northwest mushrooms and rolled that into an outreach program called Forager Goods & Company. Based in Portland, Holl, and his team will take you out into the wilds and teach you how to find edible plants and fungi while also imparting knowledge about how to actually use them in your meals.
Advice for Getting Started:
Holl’s first bit of advice is about what your goals should be when foraging. “I don’t go out there and just focus on one thing,” Holl explains. “Of course, you target something that day. But there’s such an abundance that I feel like there are endless edibles that pop up throughout the season that you should be looking for.”
Then there’s the matter of knowing what to look for and Holl takes a laidback but very engaged approach that trades the library for a farmer’s market. Holl puts it this way, “you need to keep educating yourself and staying curious of what’s out there.” Holl continues, “but, I don’t find myself deep in books. I find myself spending more time at the farmer’s market and asking foragers and farmers I met there about their incredible finds, what grows where, and which windows you can actually harvest what they’re selling.” Holl says that connecting through the local community on a one-to-one basis is what really drives his education and ability to go out there in the woods and harvest for himself, his diners, and his community.
Indy Srinath
Indy Srinath
Meet Indy Srinath:
Indy Srinath wants you to source your own food, even if you’re living in a densely populated city. Srinath works as a model but her passion in life is in both urban farming and foraging for her food. Srinath’s engagement with foraging goes beyond just filling her own pantry, she’s deeply devoted to learning about the way things grow and why before she harvests, how those foods nourish our bodies and minds, and who she can learn from to better understand the ecosystem that we’re all a part of.
It’s in that last point that we can all learn something before we go out into nature ourselves. Srinath believes that a big part of harvesting wild foods is to listen to the plants and, most importantly, the people that came before us.
Advice for Getting Started:
Srinath took a unique approach to start her path as a forager. She wasn’t out in the wood going after honeypots of mushrooms after a rainstorm. Srinath breaks down her first experiences foraging like this, “When I started foraging, I actually studied identifying flowers because I feel like they’re really abundant, they’re all so unique and different, and there’s a lot of medicinal wildflowers.” Srinath started out by identifying the flowers that grew around her which is something pretty much any person can go out and do right now. “Violets, dandy lions, and goldenrod can be a great beginner exercise in foraging,” Srinath tells us. “And there’s a lot less chance of misidentification when you’re foraging for wildflowers.”
M. Karlos Baca
iCollective
Meet M. Karlos Baca:
M. Karlos Baca is an Indigenous (former) chef, harvester, farmer, activist, educator, and leader. Baca works directly with his community and other Indigenous nations to help them reconnect with their traditional foodways of both harvesting and farming, which starts with understanding the massive pantry that is the natural world all around us.
Through communities like iCollecitve, Baca has worked with other Indigenous chefs, bakers, seed-savers, foragers, and farmers to create an online journal called The Gathering Basket. The digital book is one-part cookbook and one-part community harvesting journal that’s “rooted in the cultivation of Indigenous food sovereignty and elevating and preserving Indigenous Narratives.” The book is available to anyone looking to learn from the original stewards of these lands for only $7 per issue.
Advice for Getting Started:
While subscribing to The Gathering Basket is the first step any budding forager should take, Baca has more insight to pass along to anyone looking to source their own wild foods. “When you finally decide that, ‘Okay, I’m not going to live this way [on industrialized food]. I don’t want to be an asshole anymore by playing my part in destroying the earth and engaging in this western white supremacy [food system].’ Once you start engaging in that way and you see a plant,” Karlos explains, “You can feel it call you. You can feel something tug and you go, ‘Hey, I’m going to introduce myself, I don’t know you. But I can tell that you’re trying to say something that I can’t hear yet.’” Karlos continues, “and so I always just ask for a teacher. I ask, ‘when you’re ready to bring a teacher to me, or that information forward for me to experience a relationship with you, then that’s what we’ll do.’”
Baca makes it clear that engaging with nature isn’t about just taking whatever you see. It’s about taking your time, listening to nature, and allowing your knowledge to build organically as you grow along with the rest of the world out there.
At last, Bruno Mars and Anderson. Paak’s new Silk Sonic album, An Evening With Silk Sonic, is finally out. With Mars and .Paak at the helm, there’s not much need for featured guests, but they packed a couple into one track: Bootsy Collins (who also serves as the album’s narrator) and Thundercat join the fun on the smooth and funky “After Last Night.”
Mars told Apple Music of the song, “That one got a lot of Bootsy on it. And my boy Thundercat came in and blessed us. It’s just one of them songs — everything was built to be played live, so that song is one of those we can keep going for 10 minutes.”
In an interview from March, Mars said of working with Collins, “He represents what a superstar is, from the whole package, everything. From the silhouette, the glasses, and we grew up listening to that. He’s got that iconic voice, so when me and Andy put this project together, I said, ‘It’d be cool to have Bootsy narrate this thing and thread all these songs together.’” .Paak added, “We put the setlist of doom together, you know, and we needed somebody, a real OG, to host it and guide everything along.
Meanwhile, Thundercat has been doing some tweeting about the album. Late last night, he shared a photo of himself with .Paak and Mars, and this morning, he revealed he apparently got a gift from Collins, as he posted a photo of a pair of flashy glasses and wrote, “Thank you uncle @Bootsy_Collins you have made me who I am & I love you so much. Blastin off into some good vibrations!!!”
Sitting at lunch in West Hollywood with rising pop star Faouzia a few weeks ago, she almost could’ve been any other 21-year-old excited about visiting Los Angeles. Almost, except very few other 21-year-olds could expertly describe the brilliant, stretchy black Annakiki dress she was rocking, a piece with striking, geometric shoulders that read high-fashion without any overbearing glitz and glam. As we settled in for an interview at Cavatina, an outdoor garden-side restaurant tucked just inside the Sunset Marquis Hotel, the Moroccan-born singer-songwriter immediately began to gush about the designs of Anna Kolomoiets, aka Annakiki, a Ukrainian designer who has caught her attention of late.
“I’m actually wearing Annakiki right now,” she says. “I’m a big fan of Annakiki because it’s a designer that has such unique shapes, very cool prints and very cool colors. It’s definitely a brand that stands out — in the way that you know it’s Annakiki when you see it.” Born Faouzia Ouihya in Casablanca, Morocco, the artist moved to Canada at a very young age and grew up in Manitoba, where fashion was always one of her interests. Along with a very obvious early talent for music, Faouzia has been paying attention to her own personal taste for a lot longer than the average twenty-something, partly due to the intersecting cultures in her background.
“I’m obsessed with style and fashion, that’s a really big world for me, even though music is the one that’s obviously the most apparent,” she continues. “I find it’s just as important and it’s truly a passion of mine.” And that isn’t just lip service, either — the day after our interview she flew to Dubai to attend the always exclusive Chanel fashion show there, and shoot a spread for Harper’s Bazaar, one of the most prestigious style magazines in the world. “I’m literally over the moon, I probably won’t be getting any sleep tonight,” she laughs, happy to withstand the grueling flight for the chance to preview a new season from one of her favorite brands.
If you’ve ever caught Faouzia at a live performance, or seen one of her colorful, carefully choreographed music videos, her emphasis on style as an element within her music will stand out immediately. Though she’s still starting out in her career as an artist, the singer-songwriter already has a signature style all her own, one that’s defined by high-fashion taste level, unexpected modern twists, and the balance between her stage persona, her at-home presence, and her Morrocan heritage.
“There’s three different Faouzias: Casual/dressed down Faouzia, show/artist Faouzia, and then there’s Moroccan Faouzia,” she explains. “I like to tap into those three categories and vary between them. Most of the time you’ll find me in the dressed-down Faouzia phase, where I resort to really big, oversized hoodies, a cool shoe with a pant, and then dress my hair and makeup up to do something cool with that.” And as she continues to establish herself as a performing artist, her stage look is getting the necessary attention from designers who want to be a part of the persona she’s building for the stage.
“I’ve been talking with fashion designers to build that brand and build that image for show Faouzia,” she says. “I want it to be very weird and cool, and play off shapes and colors. I like to stay very uniform with colors, so sticking to like two colors per outfit. And I like to be over-the-top when it comes to performing and the outfits I wear as artist Faouzia. I’m a big fan of really high heels, like chunky boots or chunky heels. And then for Moroccan Faouzia I would say it’s just traditional wear, like the kaftan, which is more traditional, dressed up attire, or the djellaba, which is more dressed down.”
Even after moving to Manitoba, Faouzia’s Moroccan heritage remained a huge part of her life. She describes her childhood home as a “mini Morocco” with a full Moroccan living room, and she spoke in Arabic or French with her parents at home. “I ate Morrocan food, and I’m still very tied to my roots,” she explains. “I don’t feel like I disconnected from my culture, which is really great. I got to really experience two different cultures growing up, Canadian culture and Moroccan culture.”
Along with Annakiki, Faouzia also lists Chanel, Prada, and Bulgari as other designers who have influenced her personal style.“Chanel is one of them, I’m a big big fan of Chanel,” she says of her couture picks. “Prada is another brand that I really love. They have really interesting shapes, too. I recently got a pair of Prada shoes and the bottom has two parts to it, a shape that almost looks like an animal or something. So if I turn to the side you can see the two different shapes — it’s a very cool shoe. Bulgari also has really amazing bags and accessories. They focus mainly on purses and bags, but they’re mostly known for their bags. Those are probably my top three.”
But long before she was old enough to be interested in couture, Faouzia’s powerhouse voice was turning heads globally. As a teenager, she won so many local contests and competitions that Paradigm Talent Agency signed her — and Atlantic Records followed shortly after and she began releasing a steady stream of singles. Last year’s Stripped EP, includes six of her songs pared down to their simplest form to highlight her voice, and she’s continued releasing new music throughout this year, too. 2020’s standout included a duet with John Legend on the grief-stricken, elegant piano ballad “Minefields,” and this year’s offerings, “Hero” and her latest single “Puppet,” emphasize a fierce independence that comes through in everything she does.
As a Muslim woman, Faouzia’s identity intersects with her style in another key way — she prefers modesty even while building her own iconic looks. And it isn’t always super accessible to lock in the fresh, hip looks while also covering up. “I’ve always strived to dress modestly and be as covered up as possible,” she says. “But I’ve always wanted to do that in a way that felt like I was being true to myself and my creative direction. It’s been a lot of fun exploring this world of artistry, but also being covered up. I just want to prove to myself and to any other young girls like me that you can do that. I just want there to be a space for people who want to be fashionable and have a signature look, and do want to cover up.”
As she continues to explore what works best for her personal style and artistic persona, there are lots of female role models in the pop world that Faouzia looks up to. “Rihanna is the style icon,” she laughs. “I’m always anticipating what she’s going to wear, and she never disappoints. And then Lady Gaga, because she’s always out of the box. She makes choices that people would think are weird into something fashionable. Also, Ariana Grande has a very simple and sweet style that I like. There’s something about taking something so simple and making it feel so elevated.”
Faouzia is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
It’s impossible to deny that travel has a massive ecological impact on the planet. From emissions to single-use products to entire accessory industries built around cheap plastic (looking at you, the luggage industry), the effect is massive and needs to change. It’s time to start taking the idea of making changes seriously and for all of us to start doing our part to forge greener solutions.
A small place to start would be by making smarter purchases for your own travel needs. It’s not going to fix everything, but it is a step in the right direction towards a greener life. And that’s where the eco-leaders below come in.
We’ve compiled a list of forward-thinkers working in the travel space who want to offer you a chance to green your gear when you travel. This covers everything from who your money supports when you book a hotel to the shoes on your feet. Hopefully, the four entries below will help you on your own journey to making more environmentally solid choices when you travel.
Kind Traveler is the first socially conscious Give + Get hotel booking platform that allows travelers to impact the communities they visit positively. Co-Founded by Jessica Blotter and Sean Krejci, the pair designed Kind Traveler to help people unlock exclusive hotel rates and perks in exchange for a $10 nightly donation to a highlighted local charity. 100 percent of the proceeds from the donations are given to charities.
Kind Traveler is growing a global movement that helps travelers give back to locals while also supporting hotels, allowing these businesses to make a comeback after long setbacks. To help better support the return of travel and local charities even more broadly, Blotter and Krejci launch Kind Traveler 2.0. They’re expanding destinations, hotels, and charities with even more opportunities for positive impact.
Mark Tsigounis — The Hibear All Day Adventure Flask
Mark Tsigounis
Bringing consciousness and sustainability to the adventure community was an essential goal for Mark Tsigounis. After traveling around the world, Mark learned the value of doing more than just talking about the environment. He wanted to contribute something, so he developed The Hibear All Day Adventure Flask.
The flask was explicitly designed to provide travelers with a better and more sustainable bottle for everyday adventures. This award-winning all-day adventure flask has a stylish design and is often referred to as the Swiss Army Knife of bottles. The 32-oz. vacuum insulated bottle has a built-in pour-over feature that works for everything from coffee and tea to margaritas to hearty clam chowder.
From luggage to bags to organizers, co-founders Indré Rockefeller and Andy Krantz started Paravel in 2016 to create travel goods that feature a timeless aesthetic, exceptional functionality, and forward-thinking sustainability. These two spent years comparing travel hacks and notes on luggage but could never find a brand that checked all the boxes. So, they decided to make the products they couldn’t find themselves.
Recently awarded the 2021 Travel + Leisure Global Vision Award, they constructed luggage goods sustainably with EcoCraft Canvas made from upcycled water bottles, recycled vegan leather, recycled zippers, and recycled polycarbonate. Paravel has upcycled over two million plastic water bottles to date, offset 8,150 tons of Co2 through their carbon-neutral shipping program, and planted over 35,000 trees with their Eden Reforestation Projects. So next time you are packing up to go anywhere, invest in luggage that supports better choices for your journeys ahead.
SUAVS Founder Monxi Garza couldn’t find the travel shoe she wanted, so she made one. Garza designed a sustainable travel shoe built to withstand the all-day wear that comes with walking the streets of a new city. They are also designed to help keep your feet dry and prevent blisters, which is crucial for any globetrotting traveler out there.
All of Garza’s shoes are made with one hundred percent recycled knit derived from post-consumer recycled plastic bottles. An average of eight bottles go into each pair of shoes instead of into a landfill. Garza also sources 100 percent vegan materials, packages her shoes in dual-purpose boxes, and donates all extra footwear to organizations like Soles4Souls.
What do you think of when you imagine a beer? Whatever you see in your mind’s eye is probably your favorite beer. If you love Pilsner Urquell, you likely imagine a pint of that crisp, refreshing, classic beer. If you prefer barrel-aged stouts, maybe you envision a tulip glass with Founders KBS or Fremont Barrel Aged Dark Star. But what if we told you that you could only pick one beer for the rest of your life, what would you pick?
In the past, we’ve asked craft beer experts to tell us their favorite stouts, porters, and fall beers. Asking about IPAs, stouts, and other specific styles leads you to a pretty direct path to some well-known favorites. Even asking for fall beer picks leads to Oktoberfest beers, wet-hopped IPAs, and other fall favorites. Today, we decided to get wild with it. Instead of asking for a specific season or style, we asked some craft beer experts to tell us their all-time favorite beers.
And when we say all-time favorite beers, we’re literally talking about any beer style they imbibe any time of year. Their answers definitely didn’t disappoint. They gave us a mix of American and European beers, pilsner, lagers, rauchbiers, and even trappist ales. Keep scrolling to see their selections. Comment at the end and tell us your all-time favorite beers.
It’s not the smokiest of the Bamberg beers but they still smoke all their own malts in the brewery themselves. It’s sort of a coppery-ambery style beer. It’s an awesome beer year-round. This beer reminds me of being in Bamberg. I loved smoked beers. People get scared off by these beers because of the smoke flavor. It’s really unfortunate because they are really missing out. It’s not one of the over-the-top smokey beers, so it’s still mainly malty with more traditional lager flavors.
For me, when choosing a beer that I’ll drink forever, it needs to have high drinkability. It should be pleasant, approachable, and accessible for all occasions. Coors Banquet is that beer for me (bring on the hate mail beer people!) with its refreshing sweet notes, light malt aroma, and zippy carbonation.
Duchesse de Bourgogne
Duchesse de Bourgogne
David “Zambo” Szamborski, brewmaster at Paperback Brewing in Glendale, California
I wish I could brew Flemish beers without tainting my whole brewery. Rodenbach and Duchesse de Bourgogne are both favorites. The sour cherry notes are balanced by rich malt flavors.
Leffe Blonde
Leffe
Jerry Siotte, co-owner and director of brewhouse operations at Lone Tree Brewing in Lone Tree, Colorado
Munich Helles is crisp and clean with a little malt backbone to it. Just a quintessential German-style that never disappoints. It’s hard to beat Hofbräu München Original. It’s classic, crisp, and perfect any time of year.
This authentic Trappist ale is truly one of a kind. This beer truly is alive with flavors and when properly cellared evolves beautifully. Slight fruity notes of apricot, tropical fruit with mild spicy notes from both the fermentation, and dry hopping blend with a pronounced bitterness that invites drinkability. Add in the twist of conditioning with a touch of wild yeast and this beer’s flavor will continue to evolve over time. Amazing.
Poperings Hommel Bier is a hopped-up Belgian brew that defies easy categorization. Belgian IPA? Hoppy Belgian Strong? I first seriously dove into the beer world while working at a wine shop where we had two coolers of bottled beer, one for German beer and one for Belgian beer. This beer has very floral Belgian esters, grassy hop character, plus orange blossom and grapefruit pith. I still need to make the trip out to Poperings’ hop festival.
Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier is a classic. When I am overwhelmed with over-the-top beers, I seek this out. This beer is flavorful and rich, which is achieved through a great balance among only malt, hops, and yeast. The banana aroma is perfect.
Pinthouse Pizza Electric Jellyfish is a great beer for any setting. It is an easily-approachable IPA for any beer drinker. Big notes of mango and citrus, while maintaining a great balance of piney bitterness.
Carlsberg’s insatiable curiosity gave us the pH scale, pure yeast cultures, and one fine pilsner. It’s round and soft with pleasingly understated carbonation and finishes crisp and clean. Far different than its Bavarian and Czech cousins, Carlsberg is less about hop forward bitter, and more about crisp balance. It approaches beer-drinking Nirvana.
This has beautiful farmhouse ale-level acidity with a funky aroma at a crushable ABV. Beers like this make so much sense to my palate. My mind thinks of putting in a hard day’s work in the sun, then rewarding yourself with something refreshing. This is that beer.
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