The Los Angeles Lakers, led by LeBron James and Anthony Davis, are the team that contenders did not want to see in the first round of the Western Conference Playoffs. Still, the Lakers did enter the postseason as the No. 7 seed and, with a Game 1 loss to the Phoenix Suns on the road, the reigning champions enter Game 2 with a sense of urgency on Tuesday.
Los Angeles struggled to score in the series opener, failing to generate more than 25 points in any single quarter. Part of that can certainly be attributed to a stellar Suns defense, but Los Angeles also shot just 7-of-26 from the three-point line and 17-of-28 at the charity stripe in the game. The Lakers also did not receive top-shelf performances from either James or Davis, with the pair combining to shoot just 11-of-29 from the floor for 31 points in 75 combined minutes of action.
On the Phoenix side, Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton were tremendous in the opener. Booker led all scorers with an efficient 34 points, and he added eight assists as the team’s No. 1 option on a day when Chris Paul was limited. Ayton out-dueled the Lakers’ frontcourt with 21 points and 16 rebounds, reminding observers of his substantial upside. Still, the Suns can expect to take the best punch of what could be a desperate Lakers team in Game 2, and they must be prepared for that kind of inspired effort.
From a betting view, Game 1 went Under the total of 214 points and Phoenix covered the closing point spread of 2.5 points as a favorite.
Game 2 TV Info
Tip Time: Tuesday, May 25; 10:00 p.m. ET TV Network: TNT
Game 2 Betting Lines (via DraftKings Sportsbook)
Series Prices: Suns (-117), Lakers (-106) Spread: Lakers -1.5 (-112), Suns +1.5 (-110) Total: Over 208.5 (-112), Under 208.5 (-109) Money Line: Lakers (-121), Suns (+102)
For more than a half, the Boston Celtics put a charge into the Brooklyn Nets, leading for large portions of Game 1 at Barclays Center. Ultimately, though, the Nets prevailed by a 104-93 margin on Saturday to take a 1-0 lead in the first round series.
Boston largely built its first half around hot shooting. The Celtics converted 9-of-17 from beyond the three-point arc prior to halftime. At the same time, the Nets shot just 1-of-13 from long distance, which was unsustainably poor given Brooklyn’s elite shooting profile. Jayson Tatum (22 points) and Marcus Smart (17 points) did manage to prop up Boston’s offense to some degree, but the dam finally broke in the second half.
Part of that was Brooklyn shooting 58 percent from the floor with five three-pointers in the third quarter alone, erasing a deficit and taking a lead they would never relinquish. Overall, the trio of Nets superstars (Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving) each eclipsed the 20-point mark and, for brief moments, Brooklyn flashed the sky-high upside that makes them the betting favorite to reach the 2021 NBA Finals.
From a betting standpoint, Game 1 went Under the total of 232.5 points and Brooklyn covered the closing point spread of 8.5 points as a favorite.
Game 2 TV Info
Tip Time: Tuesday, May 25; 7:30 p.m. ET TV Network: TNT
Game 2 Betting Lines (via DraftKings Sportsbook)
Series Prices: Nets (-3335), Celtics (+1200) Spread: Nets -9.5 (-110), Celtics +9.5 (-110) Total: Over 227.5 (-108), Under 227.5 (-113) Money Line: Nets (-500), Celtics (+370)
Game 2 Player Scoring Props (via DraftKings Sportsbook)
When you’re a venture capitalist considering investing in a company that makes women-oriented products, you better be comfortable with all aspects of womanhood. That includes seeing the head of the company pregnant—with twins—while she makes her pitch.
CEO Joanna Griffiths made that perfectly clear while raising capitol last year for Knix Wear, the undergarment company she founded in 2013. After online sales during the pandemic pushed the company’s revenue in excess of $100 million, Griffiths decided it was time to expand. When approaching venture capitalists about investing, she had a rule—any investor who spoke negatively or disparagingly about her pregnancy, raising it as a concern about her company’s future, was automatically disqualified from investing.
No matter how much cash they could bring to the table, she didn’t want their money if they thought her pregnancy was going to devalue her company.
“Knix, at its core, is so rooted in women’s empowerment,” Griffiths said. “My viewpoint was if that was the way that they felt about me, then they were never going to understand what Knix was about and what we were trying to accomplish and they sure as hell weren’t going to be the right partners for me.”
The philosophy didn’t end up hurting Knix’s prospects. The company raised a whopping $53 million in capitol, taking in its final investments for the fundraising round just days before Griffith gave birth to her twin daughters.
“Last fall I had a new dream,” Griffiths wrote in a post on Instagram. “I wanted to raise a round of financing for Knix before giving birth to my twin girls. I wanted to prove that pregnancy or motherhood doesn’t have to be viewed as some kind of setback. I knew it would be hard. I knew that some people would underestimate or overlook me because of it. But I also knew I could do it….I closed the round on March 5th at 4:30 pm on my last day of work—three days before the girls were born.”
Griffiths told CTV News that the money will be used to increase the company’s product lineup, open more physical stores, and expand the brand’s storytelling.
“I’m really excited to lean into this momentum of growth and to continue to build the company,” said Griffiths.
Women have had to climb a steep hill to be taken seriously as entrepreneurs and heads of companies. Even with the strides that have been made, pregnancy can still be a sticking point for some people. Griffith’s insistence on standing up for herself and her position in the company was a way for her to challenge people’s assumptions and prejudices about moms in high-level careers. There’s no doubt that having kids changes your life, but that’s true for both moms and dads, and becoming a parent doesn’t automatically mean you won’t be able to do your job as well.
The support Griffiths has received for refusing funding from people who don’t get that has been overwhelming.
“I can’t keep up at this point with so many people reaching out and just saying how important it was for them to see this story,” Griffiths told CTV News. “Those unspoken rules… that you can’t fundraise pregnant, you can’t switch jobs while pregnant, you can’t get a promotion while pregnant, don’t have to apply, and they shouldn’t apply.”
For baseball fans of a certain age, there are few things that will take you back to a moment in time like seeing Fred McGriff in his giant blue hat telling you to buy Tom Emanski’s Baseball World Defensive Drills video because “it gets results.”
The commercial is legendary, as before you even watched that you could already see the Crime Dog pointing at you, that kid throw a ball in the bucket behind home on a relay throw, and a circle of youths slapping baseballs at each other on the ground. If you forever want to keep that memory pure, then please do not read any further into this post, because you will soon be wondering what else from your childhood was a lie.
On Monday night, Kenny Mayne hosted his final SportsCenter, in which a number of sports legends joined him to say farewell, from Aaron Rodgers to Marshawn Lynch to Sue Bird. Among them was Fred McGriff, who decided to break some news for Mayne on his final night, giving him the exclusive scoop that he has to this day never seen the skills video he endorsed, explaining how that entire promo came to be five years after he’d visited Emanski as a young player to work on his swing.
Fred McGriff says that he’s never actually seen the Tom Emanski defensive drills video (the instructional video that he said “gets results” in the commercial). pic.twitter.com/Of1iVCM5yM
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 25, 2021
If your parents shelled out $29.95 plus shipping and handling so you could get results, just know that it was all built on a lie.
In Game 1 of the Portland-Denver series, the Blazers put together a complete performance, headlined by Damian Lillard but with a number of players joining him in double figures to round out a thorough victory to swipe homecourt. In Game 2, Denver reversed those fortunes with an outstanding effort, headlined of course by the presumptive MVP in Nikola Jokic, but getting far better contributions overall from the rest of the team in a 128-109 win to even things at 1-1.
Jokic was outstanding from the jump, scoring 25 in the first half (38 for the game), and just dominating whatever matchup came his way, whether Jusuf Nurkic, Enes Kanter, or when Portland was silly enough to switch, a smaller defender. Denver ran out to an early double digit lead and threatened to run away with a blowout in a similar manner to the early game in Milwaukee, but Damian Lillard refused to let that happen, hitting a playoff record tying eight threes in the first half for 32 points.
The star duel in the first half was sensational, but as the game wore on in the second half it devolved into a chippy, whistle-fest best exemplified by the fact that the foul calls go their own graphic midway through the fourth.
There’s been so many fouls in Blazers vs. Nuggets tonight that they’re getting their own graphic pic.twitter.com/KIf7bbnMRP
Through it all, Denver was able to stay on top thanks to Jokic’s brilliance and a much more well-rounded overall game offensively as a team. After having just one assist in Game 1, Jokic had eight in Game 2, figuring out how to orchestrate the offense out of single coverage as his teammates did better to work off the ball to get open rather than simply relying on him to pass them open out of doubles. Five others finished in double figures, led by Michael Porter Jr’s 18, and it was just a tremendous adjustment to what had been a good Blazers game plan in Game 1.
On the other side, the Blazers just seemed like a frustrated team outside of Lillard’s first half outburst, as he finished with 42 points while only CJ McCollum (21) and Norman Powell (15) reached double figures around him. Nurkic fouled out in the early fourth quarter and while there were certainly some questionable calls — like this flagrant assessed to McCollum — their inability to establish a rhythm was not just an issue of officiating interrupting the game but Denver doing a much better job defensively.
The icing on the cake for the Nuggets came late in the fourth on this give-and-go between Jokic and Campazzo, who went between McCollum’s legs on the bounce pass to set up the MVP for a layup.
The series now shifts back to Portland tied 1-1, with almost identical game flows to the first two games, just on different sides. In Game 1, it was the Blazers letting Jokic go off but not letting him get anyone else involved that stymied the Denver offense. In Game 2, Lillard went thermonuclear, but once Denver adjusted with Aaron Gordon on him, the rest of the Blazers seemed unable to shift out of “watch Dame carry us” mode and couldn’t keep up with a Nuggets offense that was running much better around Jokic.
Game 3 will offer some insights into what the next steps are for each team in adjusting to what the others are doing. There’s a familiarity between the two teams and coaches that lends itself to a lot of these game-to-game counters and then counters to counters, and while it hasn’t produced the drama of some of the other series, it figures to be a fascinating matchup going forward.
The Blazers and Nuggets met for Game 2 of their first round series in Denver on Monday night after Portland took Game 1 to swipe homecourt advantage. The first half unsurprisingly saw Denver come out hot after a bit of a flat offensive showing in Game 1, led by Nikola Jokic who had 25 points, to which Portland responded with an outrageous Damian Lillard stretch as he had 32 points including eight three-pointers in the first half.
While Dame went off, the rest of the Blazers struggled to get into a rhythm or consistently into the flow of the offense, and Denver was able to keep them at arm’s length for most of the game. That didn’t keep things from getting chippy, as there were kerfuffles going into timeouts between the two benches, hard fouls, and generally physical play. That led, somewhat disastrously, to the referees trying to get a hold of the game by calling a lot of fouls, including one of the softest flagrant fouls you’ll ever see.
In the third quarter, Facu Campazzo, Denver’s provocateur extaordinaire, was trying to get up into CJ McCollum’s body before an inbounds play and got a bit too close for McCollum’s liking, so he gave him a bit of a shove which led Campazzo to embellish as he is wont to do.
It is a rather unremarkable push and one that, maybe, could’ve been called a regular foul but is the kind of jockeying that happens a lot in these situations that Facu tried to sell. Unfortunately for the Blazers, the refs were buying, and went to take a look at the play on review and returned with a stunning Flagrant 1 call on McCollum, who was rightfully in disbelief at the whole situation.
The reverse angle really shows how Facu sold this, pulling McCollum into him before taking the dive.
— CJ Fogler #BlackLivesMatter (@cjzero) May 25, 2021
That the refs looked at this on the monitor and had this angle and still gave the flagrant is truly wild, and had Blazers fans — and most every casual observer who isn’t a Nuggets fan — very confused and upset. What made it even worse was that Facu flopped into the legs of Nikola Jokic, risking the potential injury of his MVP frontrunner teammate for this sell job. Happily, Jokic was able to hop out of the way of disaster, but at the very least, if Facu is going to flop so dramatically, he should consider his surroundings better.
As part of Mayne’s curtain call, he interviewed Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who has been prominently in the news throughout the NFL offseason. Part of the interview touched on Rodgers’ current feelings about his standing with the Packers, including the assertion that he is fond of Jordan Love, Green Bay’s fan base and his fellow players, but not quite as excited about the team’s “philosophy.”
That clip certainly made the rounds, as every twist and turn from Rodgers is (rightfully) covered with bated breath. From there, though, Mayne left his imprint on the interview, signing off by pretty much dropping the mic on Rodgers by playfully ripping him for his takes on cryptocurrency and dropping an expletive on the way out.
This is something that Mayne can pull off with gusto, as evidenced by Rodgers laughing through it and sharing his appreciation for the beloved anchor. Obviously, this would not have worked with just anyone, but Mayne walking the tight rope between the real news with Rodgers to making everybody laugh is a perfect encapsulation of his appeal on the air in Bristol since 1994.
Sierra Nevada/Bell’s/Brooklyn/Firestone Walker/istock/Uproxx
The only thing better than standing over a grill, flipping steaks, sausages, and burgers on a hot, sunny day is doing it while sipping a frosty, refreshing beer. Crisp, thirst-quenching pale ales, pilsners, lagers, and IPAs were literally designed for hot, hazy days and long, humid nights. They’re also the perfect complement to grilled foods.
Whether you love steaks, chicken wings, carne asada, or portabella mushrooms, there’s a beer just waiting to be paired with the grilled meal of your choice. Below, you’ll find my 18 favorite beers to drink when I’m cooking over an open flame. Do you agree with my picks? If not, where did I go wrong?
If you get thirsty, click the prices. There’s sure to be at least one beer that becomes your next grilling go-to.
Beer geeks might scoff at this choice, but we challenge you to find a better example of a crushable beer to sip on while you grill. First launched in 1903, this crisp, easy-drinking beer stands the test of time thanks to malted barley, proprietary yeast, and Galena hops.
Tasting Notes:
It might seem silly to nose this beer, but if you do, you’ll be met with aromas of sweet corn, freshly baked bread, and sweet malts. The taste is that of fresh-cut grass. It’s subtly floral with hints of corn, biscuity sweetness, and just a touch of citrus hops at the very end.
Bottom Line:
This beer is dirt cheap. It’s highly crushable and pairs well with hot days and grilled meats, vegetables, and anything else you want to toss on a grill.
This 5% pale ale is only available from March until August. It’s brewed with 2-Row malts and a combination of German and American hops to guarantee a crisp, thirst-quenching summery brew.
Tasting Notes:
On the nose, you’ll find scents of fresh grapefruit, orange peel, lemon zest, freshly cut grass, and subtle resinous hops. The palate is filled with more grass, wildflowers, caramel malts, and vibrant, citrus hops. The close is refreshing, light, and dry.
Bottom Line:
Brooklyn’s Summer Ale is a seasonal classic that pairs well with yard games, grilled foods, and warm weather.
No refreshing, summery grilling beer story is complete without Corona. It might not seem like the most craft-centric of choices, but is there anything better than drinking down a few Corona’s with lime on a hot day? This pale Mexican lager is simple, refreshing, and goes down easy.
Tasting Notes:
Honestly, there isn’t much going on with this beer’s nose. You can smell faintly bitter, floral hops and corn-like sweetness. Take a sip and you’ll find a sweet, malty, subtly citrus-driven (especially with the customary lime wedge) brew. It all leads to a sweet, floral hoppy end. But the truth is you’ll be drinking it so fast you probably won’t taste much of it anyway.
Bottom Line:
Corona was meant for hot weather. Since many of us have to wait until the summer for that inevitable heatwave, we spend the season drinking as many lime-filled Coronas as possible.
Boston’s Harpoon launched Rec. League a few years ago. This surprisingly complex sessionable, hazy pale ale was brewed Cascade, Mosaic, Simcoe, Ekuanot, and Citra hops as well as some unique ingredients like buckwheat, sea salt, and chia seeds.
Tasting Notes:
Before sipping, take a moment to breathe in the scents of tropical mangos, guavas, and pineapples. This evolves into fresh limes and grapefruits. Taking a sip reveals flavors of grapefruit, lemons, sweet malts, and just a hint of tangy salt. It ends with a clean, refreshing sweet finish.
Bottom Line:
This beer was created to be enjoyed while you play kickball or slow pitch softball. Polish off the four-pack with an afternoon of grilling.
We easily could have put Narragansett Lager in this spot, but we prefer the crisp, bright flavor of Fresh Catch during the summer months. This sessionable blonde ale gets its subtly tart, highly crushable flavor from being dry-hopped with Citra hops.
Tasting Notes:
On the nose, you’ll be greeted with aromas of juicy tropical fruits, fresh grapefruit, and tangerine. Sipping opens up flavors of ripe oranges, grapefruit, mango, sweet malts, and subtly bitter hops. The last few sips are sweet, fresh, and filled with citrus flavors.
Bottom Line:
The folks at Narragansett crafted this beer to be paired with shellfish (as is evident from the can), but even if you don’t grill up lobster, you can still pair it with a nice, charred burger.
This beer totally lives up to its name. If you like to pair your go-to grilled foods with a juicy, hazy, fresh beer that tastes more like a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice than a classic adjunct lager, this is your beer. Sloop’s flagship beer is filled to the brim with citrus-flavored American hops and has little to no bitterness.
Tasting Notes:
Breathe in the scents of guava, mango, passion fruit, and grapefruit before taking your first sip. When you do drink this beer, you’ll find notes of grapefruit, pineapple, and melted orange creamsicles. It closes out with juicy, sweet, and dominant tropical fruit and citrus flavors.
Bottom Line:
This juicy, hazy beer pairs well with rich, seasoned steaks and grilled chicken. It also pairs well with simply standing next to a grill while someone else cooks the aforementioned food.
There’s a reason Ballast Point Sculpin IPA is one of the best-rated beers in the world. This award-winning, 7%, year-round offering gets its vibrant, crisp, tart flavors from being hopped at five different times during the brewing process. Named for the sting of the Sculpin fish, it carries just the right amount of spicy, bitter hops.
Tasting Notes:
After you crack open a bottle of this iconic brew, take time to smell the overwhelming aromas of a forest of pine trees. This is followed quickly behind by a combination of sweet malts and tangy citrus. The flavors you’ll find when sipping this beer include fresh grapefruit, pineapple, lemon zest, and a whole slew of resinous, slightly bitter pine at the very end.
Bottom Line:
This tart, slightly bitter, citrus-filled IPA pairs well with spicy foods. Pair it with spice-rubbed ribs or jalapeno, cheddar burgers.
It’s tempting to Sierra Nevada’s iconic Pale Ale here, but grilling is a time for summery beers. The brand’s Summerfest is Czech-style pilsner brewed with 2-Row, Pilsner, and Munich malts, as well as Perle, Saaz, and Spalter Select hops. It’s known for its golden color, crisp flavor, and refreshing flavors.
Tasting Notes:
Before taking your first sip, breathe in the scents of lemon zest, cereal sweetness, clover honey, and light, floral hops. Sipping this beer reveals sweet corn, fresh grass, and a nice mix of citrus and floral hops. It doesn’t have much hop bitterness but finishes sweet and crisp.
Bottom Line:
This is an easy-drinking beer. It lives up to its name and makes us want to attend as many grilled-food-and-yard-game-centric festivals as possible this year.
Dogfish Head SeaQuench is a great change of pace beer from the usual lagers, pilsner, and IPAs of grilling season. It all starts with a thirst-quenching Kölsch-style beer. That alone would be enough, but the folks at Dogfish Head mixed it with a salty gose and a Berliner Weiss before adding black limes, lime juice, and sea salt.
Tasting Notes:
The nose is wall to wall lime. So citrus fans should be pretty stoked. You’ll also find citrus zest and just a hint of salinity. The palate is full of flavors like tangy, tart lime zest, subtle spices, sweet wheat, and a nice, salty, briny backbone that leaves you craving more.
Bottom Line:
This salty, sweet, tangy beer was designed to be the most thirst-quenching beer ever made. It lives up to the hype. It’s a great grill side sipper on a hot day.
When warmer weather strikes, we often forget about the hazy, flavorful wheat beer. But one sip of Oberon and you’ll continue drinking it all summer long. This 5.8% ABV brew is made using Bell’s proprietary house ale yeast. The wheat flavor is kicked up with the addition of wheat malt.
Tasting Notes:
A complex, hazy wheat beer of this magnitude is best enjoyed after a proper nosing. You’ll find strong aromas of candied orange peels, sweet honey, wet grass, and a bready sweetness. After that, when you take a drink, you’ll find a nice mixture of tropical fruits, ripe tangerines, and a nice kick of banana-like yeast. The finish is all citrus and spices.
Bottom Line:
Oberon is one of the eagerly-awaited seasonal beers from Bell’s for a reason. It’s hazy, juicy, and refreshing. It also pairs beautifully with marinated meat skewers and grilled vegetables.
When it comes to grilling beer hierarchy, Mexican-style lagers are high on the list. One of the best is Ska Brewing’s Mexican Logger. This award-winning, Mexican-style lager gets its refreshing bite from the use of Saaz hops. It’s sessionable, light, and pairs well with humid days and good times.
Tasting Notes:
You’re going to want to give this beer a nosing before taking a sip. You’ll find aromas of caramel malts, subtle citrus zest, floral hops, and just a bit of nutty sweetness. After your first sip, you’ll open a world of corny sweetness, clover honey, sweet malts, and just a hint of bitter, floral hops at the very end.
Bottom Line:
While we enjoy a true Mexican lager while we grill, this Saaz hop-centric beer is the perfect change of pace from your usual Tecate or Sol.
When it comes to the best hazy wheat beers well-suited for summer imbibing, there’s Bell’s Oberon and Allagash White. While we’re happy with either, if we had our choice, we’d pick Allagash. This Belgian-style wheat beer is brewed with malted wheat, raw wheat, and oats, as well as coriander and orange peels.
Tasting Notes:
This is the kind of beer that tastes even better when you give it a nice nosing before taking a sip. While the wheat isn’t overly abundant, there are obvious notes of coriander and other spices as well as ripe orange. This beer is sweet and filled with flavors of dried orange peels, sweet malts, banana yeast, and just a hint of spice at the finish.
Bottom Line:
This flavorful, hazy beer pairs well with many types of grilled foods. It shines when paired with grilled swordfish and other grilled seafood.
One of the most respected West Coast-style IPAs ever made, Stone IPA was first brewed back in 1997 to celebrate the brewery’s first anniversary. Since then, this resinous, citrus-filled, surprisingly well-balanced IPA has become its flagship beer and one of the most respected and award-winning of the style.
Tasting Notes:
On the nose, you’ll find scents of orange peels, sweet malts, grapefruit, and just a hint of cracked black pepper. The flavor is well-balanced with notes of orange, pineapple, grapefruit, caramel malts, and resinous, dank hops at the very end. It has the bitterness West Coast IPA fans love, but it’s tempered by all of the other flavors.
Bottom Line:
IPAs like Stone were made to sit beside a grill. The slightly bitter, citrus flavor works well with fatty, rich meats because its bitter, effervescent nature helps to cleanse your palate in between dishes.
Just looking at this can make us think of hazy, humid late spring and early summer days spent grilling and relaxing on a deck or porch. This unfiltered Belgian-style pilsner is brewed with Belgian lager yeast and floor malted Czech barley. It’s cellared until it reaches exactly the perfect fermentation level.
Tasting Notes:
Your nostrils will fill with the scents of honey, candied orange peels, citrus zest, and sweet, wheaty malts if you allow for a nosing before taking a sip. Tangerine, grapefruit, cereal malts, and honey are prevalent on the palate. The ending is crisp, hoppy, and finishes with subtle banana flavors.
Bottom Line:
Hazy summer days were made for Idyll Days Pilsner. It’s so thirst-quenching and complex, you’ll drink it all day — especially when you’re standing beside the grill.
This classic low-ABV pilsner was made in the traditional German style using both hops sourced from Bavaria as well as malts. This beer was crafted to be the first one you crack open after a long day at the office (or wherever you work). It’s known for its refreshing, subtly malty, easy-drinking nature.
Tasting Notes:
The first aromas you’ll notice when nosing this beer are those of citrus rinds, noble hops, and sweet, cereal malts. Crisp flavors of biscuit malts, fresh-baked bread, orange, and subtly bitter, floral hops are pronounced. All of this leads to a clean, thirst-quenching sweet finish.
Bottom Line:
This beer was created to be enjoyed after a long day of work. So do just that. Crack one open, throw a few steaks on the grill, and enjoy your evening the right way.
With a name like Sun Crusher, you better believe this 5.3% ABV summer ale is up to the challenge. It’s juicy, filled with citrus flavors, and highly crushable with Apollo and Amarilla hops. It gets an extra kick from being dry-hopped with Crystal, Amarillo, and Mosaic hops.
Tasting Notes:
Don’t drink this summer ale without first giving it a nice nosing. You’ll find aromas of grapefruit, tangerines, and lemon zest, as well as light piney hops. When you do drink it, you’ll notice hints of orange peels, sweet wheat, grapefruit, tangerine, and a nice hit of resin and pine at the very end.
Bottom Line:
You can crush the summer sun by drinking this complex, citrusy beer on a hot day. Pair it with rich, cheesy burgers and you’re all set for a great season.
This 7% IPA from Maine Beer actually wasn’t named for our favorite mid-day meal, it was named for a whale that’s been seen swimming along the coast of the state since 1982. Brewed with Amarillo, Centennial, and Simcoe hops, as well as 2-Row, Carapils, Caramel 40L, Munich 10L malts, and red wheat, this is a complex, grill-friendly, memorable beer.
Tasting Notes:
The well-rounded flavor profile begins with the nose of ripe grapefruit, lemon zest, mango, and sweet malts. Take a sip and you’ll be transported to a world of guava, pineapple, tangerine, caramel malts, and resinous, piney hops. It all ends with a nice mix of tropical fruits and citrus.
Bottom Line:
This isn’t the type of beer you crack open and guzzle as you grill. In fact, it doesn’t even come in cans. Open a bottle, pour yourself a pint, and enjoy it slowly while you stand behind a grill on a hot day.
You might be surprised to find a pilsner taking the top spot on this list. But if you think about it, a crisp, refreshing, dry-hopped American pilsner is exactly the type of beer any griller would love to crush. This European-influenced beer is brewed with Spalter Select, Tradition, and Saphir hops before being dry-hopped with more Saphir hops.
Tasting Notes:
Pivo has aromatic scents of fresh-baked bread, caramel malts, and a good deal of floral hops. On the palate, you’ll find hints of wet grass, tropical fruits, noble hops, and subtle pine. This beer closes with a crisp, fresh, floral, and sweet ending.
Bottom Line:
This well-rounded pilsner gets ramped up in the flavor department due to dry-hopping. It pairs well with spicy, grilled chicken wings and anything else you’d like to slather in hot sauce.
As a Drizly affiliate, Uproxx may receive a commission pursuant to certain items on this list.
We live in an almost certainly worrying era of big mergers, with large companies being devoured by even larger companies, with no government regulations to keep them from getting too big. This isn’t as troubling as Disney swallowing up Fox, but it’s still: According to The Hollywood Reporter, the already ginormous Amazon is very close to finalizing a deal to buy MGM, the legendary but troubled media company whose biggest asset is no less than James Bond.
Should the deal, which is reportedly going for “almost $9 billion,” go through, they’ll acquire — among many, many other things — a franchise that’s been effectively homeless since 2015. Sony lost the rights to the 007 series after Spectre, and its long-delayed latest, No Time to Die, is being released by MGM in tandem with United Artists Releasing, with Universal handling the international wing. Will that mean that the previous 24 entries, which have long drifted from streamer to streamer, will have a permanent home on Amazon Prime? It’s still too early to tell.
Amazon also stands to gain 4,000 movies and 17,000 hours of television, though not much of that will be from MGM’s vast back catalogue. A large section of that was long ago sold to Warner Bros., which is one reason why HBO Max is relatively lousy with classic Hollywood fare, at least compared to other streamers.
During the Golden Age of Hollywood, MGM was one of what they called the “Big Five,” along with Warner Bros., Paramount, 20th Century Fox, and RKO. But that was some seven decades ago. Nowadays they’re struggling. The company emerged from bankruptcy in 2010 and has cautiously stayed afloat. They were recently nearing a deal with Apple, but it appears Amazon has stepped in for their own big merger. A deal reportedly could be announced as early as next week, though it will likely take a bit longer for you to be able to casually watch Octopussy on Prime.
Game of Thrones came under quite a bit of fire for how it treated its female characters, as well as the actresses who played them. Early seasons were heavy on rape scenes, and the backlash — including from its own cast — was such that they eventually started rewriting such moments from the books. But there was one instance where they over-corrected, resulting in a scene where an actress found herself being waterboarded for 10 hours on set.
Hannah Waddingham now appears on Ted Lasso, but she spent eight episodes of in the fifth and sixth seasons as Septa Unella, the religious zealot best known for the “shame” meme. She talked about her experiences on Collider Ladies Night, and they weren’t pretty. There was one torture scene that was as written had her being raped by Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson’s Gregor Clegane, a.k.a. the Mountain. But when she got off the plane and arrived on set, she discovered it had been suddenly rewritten so that she underwent the kind of water torture the George W. Bush administration inflicted on prisoners during the Iraq War.
“I think they’d had so many complaints about the rape of Sansa [Sophie Turner] that they chose not to go with it,” she said during the chat. “Unbelievably, they changed it quite at the last minute. I think they possibly changed it when I was mid-air flying to Belfast because suddenly I got sent these new sides that said I would need a wetsuit top. I thought they’d sent me the wrong bits.”
When she asked the filmmakers for assurance that they weren’t actually going to waterboard her, they said, she claimed, “No, no, no, we are.”
And so Waddingham spent 10 hours bound with “proper big straps” to a wooden table as Lena Headey’s Cersei poured wine over her face, over and over and over again.
“Definitely other than childbirth, [it] was the worst day of my life,” Waddingham said. “Lena was uncomfortable pouring liquid in my face for that long, and I was beside myself. But in those moments, you go, ‘Do you serve the piece and get on with it?’ Or do you chicken out and go, ‘This isn’t what I signed up for.’”
When it was all over, she said, she walked past the episode’s director, Michael Sapochnik, who asked if she was alright. “Not really,” she said she told him. When she arrived back at her hotel, she said she was so traumatized that she could barely speak above a whisper and that there were “bruises already coming up like I’d been attacked.”
As anyone who’s been unfortunate enough to be waterboarded will tell you, its effects are long-lasting. “It definitely gave me claustrophobia around water,” Waddingham said. “It’s quite full on being waterboarded for 10 hours — and then, for only one minute and 37 seconds to be used on camera.”
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