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USA Today
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- USA Today
6 best imperial stouts of Great Taste of the Midwest 2025
Imperial stouts haven't quite reached the ubiquitous heights of big, bitter pale ales in the craft brewing explosion of the 2000s and early 2010s. Still, it seems like freeing a bold, boozy, thick-pouring stout from its oak stave prison is a badge of honor for rising and established breweries alike. Despite sharing common threads, there's a lovely amount of room to branch out across the realm of these dark beers. Goose Island frequently stretches its Bourbon County Stout lineup six deep each Black Friday. 3 Floyds has no fewer than 15 different variations of its Dark Lord in Beer Advocate's review database. Unsurprisingly, that meant there was plenty of room for dense, dark stouts clocking in around 15 percent alcohol by volume (ABV) at the 2025 Great Taste of the Midwest. The Great Taste is a beer nerd's wonderland, and brewers contributed to this boozy nirvana with plenty of imperial stouts to serve as the bold break between pale ales and pils. On Thursday, I broke down 2025's best non-stout beers here. Now let's talk about the imperial stouts that made the biggest impact on me at one of the world's best beer festivals. 3 Floyd's Dark Lord Marshmallow Handjee '24 imperial stout The first sip is an explosion of flavor. Of course it is; it's what 3 Floyds does best. You get those big soft s'mores notes, but most importantly you get a little bit of crispness to finish each gulp. This really ups the replay value of a heavy beer in a way that matters, allowing you an experience that betrays the 15.6 percent ABV underneath. The only giveaway this is a beer you should probably stop at two with is the dense, dark body and unmistakable smell of bourbon barrel aging floating off the top. 3 Sheeps' The Wolf 2025 imperial stout The Wolf was my first imperial stout of the day -- a foreboding task when it's 88 degrees out and sunny. It poured big and boozy, with a lovely copper head atop a dark coffee pour. The smell is split between bourbon and chocolate, with just a little sweet fruit (maybe cherry?) floating skyward. The first sip? Absolutely lovely. Despite the lack of carbonation in a thicker style of beer, if comes across your lips gently. Some barrel-aged stouts feel like a chore to drink. Not The Wolf. It's sweet but not overpoweringly so. It's boozy but not to the point where you'd stop yourself after one or even two. This beer is a problem in the best way. I am a fan. Pilot Project Brewing's Stave + Maple imperial stout This was a late pick-up -- probably a point where a boozy 12.5 percent ABV barrel-aged stout wasn't a great idea. But it sounded great and Pilot Project offered an opportunity to check in with a new brewery. The beer poured as dense as you'd expect. The smell leaned heavily into the whiskey-ringed oak where it reached maturity, but underneath was juuuuuust enough waffle vibes to let you know where this was going. Despite the thickness, this was very drinkable. The heaviness of the pour doesn't translate to your tongue. You get that maple sweetness with just enough Christmas vibes -- some cinnamon, a little chocolate and some spices. That all sounds like a lot, and it sounds exhausting. Pilot Project found a way to make it feel fresh with each sip. Revolution Brewing's Ryeway to Heaven imperial stout and X-Hero imperial IPA Allow me to cheat here. The Ryeway is a barleywine. The X-Hero is an imperial IPA. Both are big and boozy and, at the very least, Ryeway felt like it belonged. Let's roll with it. Barleywines typically aren't my jam, but Revolution delivered a flavor profile I love. The Ryeway gives you a dense, flavorful and sweet package of those cereal grains that can be a bit overwhelming at times. That would be an issue if this didn't clock in at 15 percent ABV, but it's clear you're dealing with a sipper that's not meant to be drank more than one or two at a time. You end up with a beer that's heavy in texture but lighter on your tongue. Heavy chocolate and malt flavors dance around to give you the impression you're drinking a special occasion beer. The X-Hero was exactly the kind of hit you'd expect from Revolution's "Hero" series. My first sip ended with an audible "whoa" as heavy tropical fruit flavors carried me away before a tight wave of hops snapped things off with some balancing bitterness. It never felt like a 10 percent ABV beer, but making big and boozy feel light and flavorful is Revolution's whole jam. Toppling Goliath's 2025 Koselig imperial stout The smell off the top of this was rich raisins, a little bit of rum and a lot of bourbon barrel influence. It's rich, sweet and decadent. As has become a theme with the cream of the crop imperial stouts, everything here is lighter than you'd expect. You get a little bit of that 14.7 percent ABV up front, but it does little to flatten the flavors that come after it. The opening is boozy raisin and bread pudding. The finish is sweet, warm whiskey. That's a teeter-totter that shows off Toppling Goliath's range and reminds me, yet again, why the Decorah, Iowa brewer has established its place in my circle of trust. Une Annee/Hubbard's Cave Brewery's El Zacaton imperial stout Spicy. That was the first impression of this beer. Une Annee set itself apart from the field of big, boozy stouts with peppers -- guajillo, ancho and, importantly, habanero. With that and some chocolate and vanilla notes, you wind up with a mole-inspired beer. Neat. Despite that tang, the taste here makes it very easy to come back to. Each sip reminds you it's a high ABV beer -- it doesn't hide its booze nearly as well as its peers. At the same time, those rich flavors reward you with something unique for branching out and trying something new. You're left to deal with sweet chocolate notes, earthy spices and just a little bit of heat you'd expect from a habanero stout. That's an underserved category, in large part because there's a huge capacity for things to go wrong. Une Annee/Hubbard's Cafe took a big swing and it paid off. It's weird. It works.
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GMA Network
12-08-2025
- Entertainment
- GMA Network
'Into the Woods' creators on the Easter eggs making the musical a Filipino production through and through
The much awaited Theater Group Asia (TGA) production of "Into the Woods" opened last week with an all-star Filipino cast led by Lea Salonga. But as soon as curtains went up, it became evident there is more Filipino culture than the cast. Large capiz windows dominate the stage, with the floor covered by what looks like Spanish tiles. A huge chandelier hangs amid scattered tree trunks and immediately the audience will know this is an unabashedly Filipino production of the famous American musical about various fairytale characters. According to TGA's artistic and creative director Clint Ramos, they really wanted to be overt about it. "We still wanted to honor the intentions of the original creators but we wanted to find a way to make it ours, in a way that feels organic." In making "Into the Woods," TGA decided to lean in and include the many layers of Philippine history. The pre-colonial in the weaves featured in the costumes — Also, check out the pintados tattoos on The Wolf — the colonial in the silhouette of the boot, and perhaps the modern post-colonial in the Filipino diaspora represented by many of the actors. Creators Clint and director Chari Arespacochaga tell GMA News Online more about their creative decisions and their inspiration that led to a distinctly Filipino rendition of "Into the Woods." Below is our interview edited for length and clarity. TGA's Overall Artistic and Creative Director Clint Ramos and Director Chari Arespacochaga Courtesy: TGA Could you tell us more about the decision to use capiz windows and the floor tiles on the stage? Were those nods to our culture? if yes, was it difficult to do with "Into the Woods"? Clint: We never really thought to translate or adapt it. We never changed a single word in the musical, nor did we change anything in the music. But to give you a little bit of background, when the late Bobby Garcia and I were talking about starting TGA here in the Philippines, we really wanted to consider the Filipino condition. We didn't want to be heavy handed about it. For "Into the Woods," we still to honor the intentions of the original creators but we wanted to find a way to make it ours in a way that feels organic. So we kept thinking: How would you do it in Manila? How would you — what would we need to do to make this happen? Clearly we're doing it with an all Filipino cast and we wanted to engage Filipinos in the broader diaspora, but we wanted to build it here in Manila. For "Into the Woods," the mandate was: Without any rules, how we can um consider who we are, our history as a people? This musical is about fairy tales, and we want to lean into this idea of us as a people being storytellers. That's how it all kind of began. Those capiz windows are an interesting choice. Clearly you can see the colonial influence already. And that was a big thing for us. The scale of the capiz windows is big because we wanted to dwarf the actors — like it's bigger than them. But more than anything, we didn't want it to be naturalistic. We didn't want it to be like, 'here's the forest, and now here's the castle.' We didn't want it to be that way. We wanted to create a box, an envelope for the storytelling. It wasn't about convincing audiences that we're going to transport you into the forest. We we wanted to consider all of the layers of of Filipinos and that's also what we inspired our designers to do. To break the rules. There are no rules. You're ready Filipino. So what we wanted to do was create our unique Filipino facade, an envelope for the storytelling. So you have this box and then you put trees in it, and you have the orchestra up there and you're conscious of the thing being made, you know? The storytelling being made. The way Chari [Arespacochaga] staged the whole thing is very presentational. The musical is very presentational. You have characters entering, telling you who they are, telling you about like what's about to happen. There's a narrator. It's about storytelling. "Into the Woods" does feel very self-aware. We thought there were inside jokes in there. It is very self-conscious. It's like, the work of where you have to create a distance between who the audience is and these characters, and that kind of technique maximizes the audiences' identification with those characters. And because we're able to distance ourselves at first, it is able to honor the fairytale roots of the stories. That is a princess, or that is a prince, that is a wolf. But once [they start] spouting those lyrics, it's like, 'she literally my mother.' Or 'that is me.' And then the story flips on itself. You're also made to think more about yourself. Like, 'Would I have done what the Steward did?' And this is the funny thing. It's like going back to this idea of Filipino-ness. We really encourage the actors, because they had the same question: How do we present this in a Filipino context? And Chari and I were really encouraging them to just not even think about it. Was that difficult to do? Chari: It wasn't. A lot of the work was freeing them to say, 'Why do you think this mom is doing that?' To call from personal things. What is your experience of the first moment you had desires that a Catholic school told you was bad or what whatever, right? And so a lot of the process was freeing that thought and encouraging them to really be empowered to put those into their choices. Oh so that's why on opening night, Clint quoted Sodeheim in his opening message! About how being you makes it being true. That's literally what we were saying. There is no right or wrong way to do Filipino. As as Sodeheim had beautifully stated in one of his musicals,'everything you do, let it come from you and it be new.' But how about with the costumes and the textiles. Even the puppetry? Our costume designer [Raven Ong] really wanted to look at sort of the the materiality of Filipino culture, right? And not create our own rules in this fairy tale. There's there's some creatures from the Visayan myths that resemble dogs so that would the dog wolf. So this is from Visayas, so maybe we also infuse a little bit of the pintados in the design. When our costume designer said 'I wanna use habi,' I said, 'go for it.' It's very exciting, in the princes' costumes, there's all of that gold trim. And its ingenious and almost scholarly way to approach it. And the puppetry, we wanted to use puppets but wanted it Filipino, so Teatro Mulat of National Artist Amelia Bonifacio was a no brainer. The technique and the symbols that they used are drawn from Filipino culture. The birds are inspired by local birds. They created shadow puppets so the Filipino vines that go up balete trees, the beanstalk. The boot of the female giant! And the puppeteer is Amihan, the daughter of Amelia, our national artist. She was animating the cow, and was a big part of the production. Were there things that left you struggling, or left you both thinking, what would Bobby do? Clint: In my conversations with Bobby, one of the the first questions we asked each other was like, okay, so who are the giants in the sky, who seem to be omnipotent but also trampling on our land? all of this stuff. So we had really wanted to be intentional about that. We ran across this popular American caricature from the turn of the century — Uncle Sam's boot. So what did we do to make a nod to that, a little wink — not even a wink or a nod, but like can we be overt about that? If we are saying the box alludes to the Spanish, and we have all of this like pre-colonial motifs, you know. Maybe then we do this big thing, the physical representation of that alludes to a colonizing force or a big force like that, it strength on a on a people and creates kind of like havoc, right? And the people actually turning on themselves to blame each other for the things that go wrong. Like people say, yeah, the giant is the greed, you know, why what's happening to these characters is because of Jack, right? Like he went up there to get, you know, to get all of these riches. But where do those riches come from? It's very overt, but we wanted to be cheeky and funny. This is part of this is part of us. We think of being Filipino needs to be indigenous. Like that's not Filipino enough because that's not indigenous enough. But there are layers to us. So we wanted to pose that question to the ounce and whether they like it or not is really up to them. Is that something that you wish the audiences would you know it is it is it like a takeaway that you wish audiences would would have leaving the theater Chari: When we first started talking about this, I have not been home in, what, 12 years since I left to pursue directing in the United States, and I was really just looking back to that period. I had never felt more Filipino than when I had finally left and had to navigate up building a career in another country. So if what is taken away is a discourse about what it means for you to be Filipino today, great. If what you take away is a restored belief in our innate need for community, also, great. But also like come come and have fun at the show, coming and enjoy the show and allow for it to make you think about new ways of living today. It's a fairy tale after all. Clint: For me if they come if people come out of this show having a discourse, not only about and the brilliance of this musical, but what it means to consider the Filipino condition, then we've already done our job. Chari: But ultimately, what was really important to us was the question of what happens if a community is broken apart by big oppressive forces? The way through is for the community to come back together. Yes, exactly. It may not resemble the old community that was torn apart but it's almost like the only way out of hell is through it. So we acknowledge the damage and the rebuilding. Like if there's anything more Filipino with that resiliency, I mean, there's a reason why our you know our original architecture was really meant to be temporary. Clint: Ricky Lee was there on opening night, and he had seen the original Broadway production which was very ornate. We had a conversation after the show and he said, 'it seemed like you all pared it down and made this both presentational, with a real focus on the relationships. The way these characters reacted to each other and to the things that were happening around them. And he said how that was so incredibly Filipino. And it was really amazing to hear that from Ricky because in many ways, it was a reflection of what we were trying to do. — GMA Integrated News
Axios
26-06-2025
- General
- Axios
Review: Wolf of Tacos' new Central Fare spot is laid back, still delicious
I'm back with another resto review. Why it matters: Earlier this month, chef Eduardo Lara broke my heart when he announced the pop-up taco stand would be ending its residency at ZeyZey. But a week later, The Wolf opened its first brick-and-mortar location at Central Fare inside the downtown Brightlight station, and I had to check it out. State of plate: The menu includes the beloved classics like the al pastor, pollo asado and carne asada. It also featured a few new — or new to me — options, like the campechano (a mix of suadero and longaniza) and aquiles (wagyu beef tendon and chicharrón) tacos. Most tacos are served with a heaping pile of diced white onions and herbs. Diners can also help themselves to a variety of pickled vegetables and sauces when picking up their plates. What we ordered: Al pastor ($5.50), carne asada ($7.00), aquiles ($6.00) and the costilla ($8.50). The pastor and asada are classics for a reason — the pastors are cut fresh from a vertical spit and top contenders for best in town. But the standout was the aquiles. The meat was super fatty and had a delicious flavor, while the chicharrón offered the perfect counter crunch. The vibe: Casual and informal. Guests order at the counter and your buzzer lets you know when to pick it up. There's a full bar a few feet away, so we ordered a beer and ate our meal at the counter. Yes, but: Central Fare is a food hall, but as someone who used to take the Brightline fairly frequently, I found it hard to separate the space from feeling like a place of travel, not a food destination.
Yahoo
20-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Fraudulent City boss ordered to pay back £64 million
A City boss compared to the The Wolf Of Wall Street has been ordered to pay back £64 million over his role in a multi-million pound Ponzi-style investment scam, prosecutors said. Anthony Constantinou remains on the run after he fled the UK during his fraud trial at London's Southwark Crown Court in June 2023. Hundreds of investors were duped out of a total of £70 million between 2013 and 2015 while he ran Capital World Markets (CWM). A spokesman for City of London Police said a confiscation order was made against him on Thursday for the sum of £64 million, which is payable within three months. The default period of imprisonment was set at 14 years. Police released photographs of some of the luxury vehicles Constantinou spent his fraudulent money on, including a Porsche, Range Rover and luxury motorbike. They previously said he was thought to be in Turkey or Dubai after being stopped in Bulgaria with a fake Spanish passport. CWM had high-profile sponsorship deals with the Honda Moto GP, Chelsea Football Club, Wigan Warriors rugby league club, Cyclone Boxing Promotions and the London Boat Show. The seven-week trial heard how Constantinou spent £2.5 million of investors' money on his 'no expense spared' wedding on the Greek island of Santorini in September 2014, while his son's first birthday party a few days earlier cost more than £70,000. More than £470,000 was paid for private jet hire to fly him and his associates to Moto GP races across Europe as well as a return flight to Nice for a 150,000-euro five-day yacht cruise around the Mediterranean to Monaco. The firm paid £200,000 a quarter to rent 'plush' offices in the City's Heron Tower, while nearly £600,000 was spent on just six months' rent of his large home in Hampstead, north-west London, where his luxury cars were parked in the drive. Promised returns of 60% per year on risk-free foreign exchange (FX) markets, a total of 312 investors trusted their money to CWM. Some were professionals but most were individuals who handed over their life savings or pension pots, with a large number of Gurkhas paying into the scheme, said prosecutor David Durose KC. Constantinou denied wrongdoing but was found guilty of one count of fraud, two counts of fraudulent trading and four counts of money laundering and sentenced to 14 years in prison in his absence. Adrian Foster, of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said: 'This was a callous scam targeting members of the public. Many people lost their hard-earned money because of Constantinou's greed and false promises in this fake investment scheme. 'We continue to pursue the proceeds of crime robustly with the City of London Police, where we identify available assets to disrupt and deter large-scale frauds like this case. 'In the last five years, over £478 million has been recovered from CPS obtained confiscation orders, ensuring that thousands of convicted criminals cannot profit from their offending. £95 million of that amount has been returned to victims of crime, by way of compensation.' Constantinou was previously jailed for a year at the Old Bailey in 2016 after being found guilty of sexually assaulting two women during after-work drinks. One of the victims described how the parties were just like the raucous scenes depicted in Martin Scorsese's The Wolf Of Wall Street, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as rogue New York trader Jordan Belfort.
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Married Indiana-based novelists appear at Fables Books in Goshen as part of First Fridays
GOSHEN — Indiana-based novelists Kathryn and Steven Cain will hold a meet-and-greet event from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 7 at Fables Books, 215 S. Main St. The married couple write side-by-side but separately, mainly during the Indiana winters. Their novels cover a range of genres, including thrillers, science fiction, historical, romance, horror, inspirational and fantasy. Kathryn's books are 'The Prophecy' (thriller), 'The Uniting of Harverness' (historical romance), 'Simon Hunter' (fantasy) and 'The Wolf' (fantasy horror). Steven's books are 'Sunset Kings' (historical), 'War at Home' (sequel), 'The Accident in Larson' (sci-fi thriller) and 'Bets & Breakfasts' (horror). In 2024, they published their first anthology of short stories and poems, 'Poet Tree.' All of Steven's books take place in fictional towns in Indiana. Several of Kathryn's do as well, although her romance novel takes place in a 13th-century castle. The authors are recognized as finalists in the American Writing Awards, Outstanding Creator Awards and honorable mention with the Hollywood Book Festival. For more information, visit the websites and This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Indiana-based novelists Kathryn and Steven Cain appear at Fables Books
