Guardian 28,081 / Picaroon

46 comments on “Guardian 28,081 / Picaroon”

1. Thanks to Picaroon and mhl. I did not know many of the beers (so I missed the theme) but I still finished fairly quickly. TIGER economies was new to me but I did know the cess in RECESS. LOI was EUROS.

2. Thanks mhl.As someone who drinks at least his fair share of beer I’m ashamed that I didn’t recognize the theme until the grid was very nearly complete. 15d was one of the LOIs and I hadn’t helped myself by pencilling in ‘great’ for the first word so it was a revelation when I realized my mistake and recognized a number of old friends.  Not sure you have to deliver a lot of aces to be an acer, one would do.

3. Thanks mhl. I think in 13ac, ‘getting louder’ refers to Piano changing to Fortissimo 🙂

4. Thanks Picaroon and mhl – I enjoyed this one a lot.  Hadn’t heard of EYRIE as a beer though; I thought the 10th was CORONA.

   Re 13a, I think it’s “getting louder” because it’s changing from P (p = piano = quiet) to F (f = forte = loud).

5. I’ve heard of CORONA, but not EYRIE beer. Thanks to Picaroon of course.

6. Crossed and crossed!

7. This was a goodie. My ten GUEST BEERS are almost the same as the blog but I’ve never heard of EYRIE.I did include DEMETER having looked it up because I’d never heard of that either. I’m a homebrew man and have been for a number of years, so the enforced pub closures won’t hit me quite so hard as some others.
   The rest of the puzzle was really enjoyable except perhaps for 23 dn. Stay safe everybody!
   Thanks Picaroon.

8. I really enjoyed this. Lots of cleverly puzzling definitions such as CUTICLE, ENTERITIS, and ACER. To the already impressive list of beers, you can add TSAR, GAME BIRD, and of course CORONA.

   mhl, I think that “initially getting louder” in 13a refers specifically to replacing the initial P (soft) with F (loud).

   Thanks to Picaroon and mhl.

9. Oops, lots of posts intervened while I was writing.

10. When I saw the GUEST BEER theme I wondered how it would go since being a guest is not an intrinsic characteristic but relative to who owns the property. In the end, not an issue at all. I had fun with this one, despite 23d!

11. Corporation – most likely a “beer belly” after consuming this puzzle !

12. Had a pint or two of Hobgoblin once in a tavern down an alley somewhere near Carfax, pretty strong as I remember, 9%-ish. Didn’t recognise all the beers here, but quite a few. And didn’t think of reignite for reviving, so reign was a lazy bung and shrug. Quite fun, thanks both, and we’ll see what today’s is like. Stay safe everyone.

13. Great puzzle -shame about the beer list.

    Corona made up my terrible ten. Had a nice wine from Eyrie once (Oregon?)

    I guess Bass still exists but I remember when it WAS Bass.It may be brewed at Marstons and owned by Coors

     

14. I was unfamiliar with all but a couple of the beers but knew that was the theme once I finally cracked 15d. Great to come here and find that exhaustive list.
    I liked a lot of the clues including 22d CANAPÉ and 24d HARP, but as others have said the topicality of 23d CORONA made it a stand-out clue.
    Thank you to mhl for your caring words in the Preamble, and to Picaroon for the charming distraction in this tough time. The cryptics I have done this week have kept me grounded and the familiarity and connection of the forum has been invaluable in helping with a sense of connection. I am very grateful to all.

15. I’m another who had to wait until GUEST BEERS before noticing the theme.

    As for CESS being Spenserian, I don’t think so – it was a widely used word for tax, especially in India and Scotland apparently, though has now fallen into obscurity.

    Many thanks to Picaroon and to mhl. And I think Julie speaks for all  of us with her well-chosen (as ever!) words about the importance of crosswords and this community in these frightening times.

16. An enjoyable puzzle.  I took ages getting 15dn, assuming that it was ‘great’ something, and, for some reason, convinced it was ‘great bears’.  Got there in the end.  Then I had the problem that I could find twelve beers in the grid!  Like others, I wondered if Corona and/or Demeter were intended, both being beers, according to the internet.

    Not too happy with 13ac.  I agree with DNC @ 8 as to the setter’s intention, but although there is indication that F comes at the beginning, there is no indication that it actually replaces the first letter of ‘posters’.

    Lots of great clues, though, particularly ENTERITIS, INGRATE, CUTICLE,  HOBGOBLIN.

    To grantinfreo @ 12 – Carfax in Oxford?  Happy student days, eh?

    Thanks to Picaroon and to mhl.

17. Anna@16, in music terms, F = Loud, not louder.  So it is not F replacing P as much as P changing to F for which I think “getting louder” is a witty, elegant indicator.  That became my favourite clue, from a strong list, once the penny dropped.

18. Ah, thanks KLColin @ 17.

19. Thanks to every who pointed out piano -> forte – I’ve corrected that in the post! Also I’ve added CORONA to the list of beers.

20. Like others, GUEST BEERS was a very late entry for me, so the relevation of the theme lurking in plain sight was very satisfying.  The topicality of COBRA and CORONA completely threw me off the scent.

    I didn’t parse FOSTERS properly hence the value of these posts.  I’m ashamed as a musician that I didn’t figure out the crescendo – excellent clue!

    Thanks mhl and Picaroon.

21. Thanks to Picaroon and MHL. Very enjoyable. We wondered at one point if the guest beers wd each be from a different country (guest) but couldnt quite make it work. TSAR is also a beer.

22. A fascinating puzzle with a clever theme, revealed elegantly by 15d. Timely, as many of us (those whose income has not run out) will be taking to the beer for some while now. I failed to complete correctly, as I did not know CESS, and made a wild guess at 4d which turned out to be wrong.

    I am disappointed that Picaroon referred to ten in 15d – we have identified at least sixteen. In my case, I found a few beers early on, then solved 15d, identified the number of ten beers, but then came to 13a, which was obviously FOSTERS, though I could not parse it (thanks, mhl and others for helping there), so I spent ages trying to work out what had gone wrong. Simply saying “there are several here” would have been nearer the mark.

23. Anna@16, no, sadly, just visiting a young postgrad there, son of family friends. Well done if Oxford was your alma mater.

24. For once I got the theme, since GUEST BEERS was one of my early ones in (though I wouldn’t much want to visit a pub whose guest beer list comprised the 10 well-known ones in this puzzle). (But following yesterday’s announcement, it would be nice to be able to visit any pub!)

    A dnf as I had unparsed LEVELS (as in Somerset …) for 4d; and even after revealing the answer I couldn’t parse it until I came here, though I vaguely knew cess=tax.

    My favourites included INGRATE and GAME BIRD.

    Thanks Picaroon and mhl.

25. Didn’t quite finish, partly as CESS was unfamiliar as tax, and also as we’d confidently entered SCRAPPAGE for 9a (P = little cash, AGE = losing face, which we thought was a little hard on the elderly, but fair!, one does lose one’s face somewhat as one ages).

26. Super puzzle.  Thanks to all.  Keep safe and well in these dangerous days.

27. Thanks Picaroon and MHL. We missed ABs as, of course, the much favoured shorthand for sailors in 7d, in this case ratings. We assumed it was As and Bs as in marks for essays! Also smacking forehead at parsing for Fosters – great clue. Like Anna we had Great Bears at 15d and for a while and were looking for obscure stars. Somewhat embarrassing as we have drunk most of the beers listed, quite a few in dark alleys off Carfax! Grantifer’s enjoyment of our famous Oxfordshire beer can be rekindled with a purchase from most large UK supermarkets (bottles but sadly only about 4.2%) although maybe when things have calmed down a bit.

28. Not sure lagers count for those of us who are real ale fanatics… Caroller is however a real ale. Nice one Picaroon. Didn’t know cess.

29. Like beaulieu@24 I’d be disappointed (outraged!) if this was a guest beer list. Fortunately the puzzle was much better than that and it made a great theme – although like Anna I did play with GREAT BEARS for a while. Thanks to Picaroon and mhl

30. Excellent fun I thought – I am another who found the theme only right at the end and then went back to count the most obvious ten beers I could remember. A theme like this (like names of bands) is bound to throw up a lot of random hits too so I agree with the modified list as being the biggest brews out there.

    When I think of alleys near Carfax I think of all those little passageways off the High Street which had pubs, restaurants, the dentist, an ironmongers…probably all sadly gone now.

    In “cobra” I’m not bothered by the metonomy of the use of the room for the committee as it is commonplace across the news, not an invention of Picaroon. I am going to be pedantic about “in Ohm’s law, say” (16dn, where I=current). <pedanticmode> It’s Ohm’s equation (V=IR) that contains the symbols for current etc. Ohm’s Law is the statement that, under constant temperature and other conditions, the voltage is proportional to the current for metallic conductors. </pedanticmode>

    Thank you Picaroon and thanks MHL for blogging it. Cheers!

31. Super puzzle, I thought. For once, I did see the theme and enjoyed it.

    Lots of lovely clues; I particularly enjoyed FOSTERS and the fat ed. Pity in 19D that both clue and answer had CAR – limousine or some such could have been used instead.

    Thanks Picaroon and mhl.

32. Thank you to Picaroon and mhl.

    A puzzle to cheer one up in these difficult times. I got guest beers early on, so for once the theme words worked for me. I was on the look out for Corona.

    I attended some Cobra meetings in the late 90s/early 2000s. To add to the pedantry, it is not Room A: the A just derives from the pronunciation. The joke was that if you looked at the maps up round the walls you could tell where the next war would be.

    TheZed @30 – there still are lots of little shops and restaurants in Oxford, plus the covered market. The St Scholastica Day riot started in a tavern on Carfax in 1355: I thought it might link to the theme, but it started over the quality of the wine, not the beer.

33. A great puzzle  – I even spotted the theme

    Thanks to Picaroon and mhl

34. I hadn’t come across “I don’t know about” giving “re” but what a great phrase for setters with so many words beginning with “re”.

    I got Esperanto but thought the clue was “European language” which I thought was weird and that “spelling” was some sort of ESP.

    For 18d, I spent a while wondering why a quail would be a “nose bird” thinking that issue was “son”.

    For 15d, is “involved” considered OK as an anagram indicator ?

    For 19d, singer obviously had to be Cher so the car must be a Chrysler but what is a “rysl” ?

    And no, I have not been on the beer. Keep safe everyone.

35. Great puzzle, great blog so thanks both!!  I’m with those who would be disappointed if many of these beers were on the guest list in my local, but I did enjoy the theme, which I only got when I finally entered GUEST BEERS. Favourites were COBRA, HOBGOBLIN and SPITFIRE the latter because it is made by Shepherd Neame, Britain’s oldest brewery and a classic of my county Kent.  And to reminds me of many a pint sunk while watching cricket at the St Lawrence Ground.  I would just like to second all those who have extolled the virtues of crosswords at this difficult time, and the importance of Fifteensquared in establishing a link for all of us who are locked-in wherever that may be.  Finally please, all of you keep well!!

36. Sugarbutties @ 34 I took it as ‘I don’t know’ = ER about =RE.

37. Sorry, I should have checked, Mine @ 36 is exactly what mhl wrote in the blog!!!

38. SPanza at 36 – I got it but had not come across it before

39. I knew CESS — I think it’s an obscure Scottish noun, not a verb, as in “Bad cess to you.”  Spencerian I wouldn’t know.

    I hadn’t heard of all of the beers, but I took the Sherlockian approach of eliminating the it-must-be-impossibles — there couldn’t be a brand of beer called “Scrapheap” or “Enteritis,” could there? — and then googling the others to see if they were beers.   Somehow I ended up with “Tsar,” missed the much more obvious “Skol.”

    I didn’t realize until reading the comments that “guest beer” was a thing.  We don’t have tied pubs over here.

    My state, Connecticut, has just notified us that it’s going on lockdown Monday evening and after that only a few types of business will be open.  Same in four or five other states — so far.

40. Thanks mhl. Like sjshart@22 I identified 16. These are your chosen 10, the 4 you exclude as obscure, ‘tsar’ and ”game bird’.

    Picaroon states there are 10. Is he differentiating between lagers and beers? That would be correct  as ‘skol’, ‘harp’, ‘corona’, ‘fosters’, ‘cobra’ and ‘tiger’ would not be thematic.

41. Thanks Mhl. The ten beers you’ve identified have to be the ten intended as they are far more common than the others that have been mentioned. I suspect Picaroon was thinking of them as “guests” in the grid.

42. There was a time when most pubs were owned by a brewery and were “tied” to selling its beers. Then came the Monopolies Commission and they all had to sell one guest beer from another brewery. A pub owned by one of the Big Five or however many it was would never sell a beer from one of the others. Lagers and foreign beers were also excluded. So only Brains, Hobgoblin, and Spitfire would ever be a guest beer. I think DuncT @ 41 is right and Picaroon was thinking of them as guests in the grid.
    Thanks to Picaroon and manehi.

43. [Marienkaefer @32 Glad to hear it. While my gas has been off the past day or so I’ve been wearing a sweater I bought at “next to nothing” a quarter of a century ago (or more!). Not sure how much of the town centre I’d recognise these days – must be 8 or 9 years since I last went in. That time I took my then 10 year old son into the Norrington Room of Blackwells and watched his jaw drop in amazement. One of those “firsts” you never forget!]

44. Enjoyed this Picaroon puzzle on my favourite theme.

    I’m reminded of the joke:

    “In the pub last night, I had my beer served to me by a small mischievous sprite dressed in green.”

    “A leprechaun?”

    “No – Hobgoblin. Nice drop.”

45. With COBRA and CORONA in the grid, you can’t help feeling that this puzzle was created very recently and that it was perhaps noticing that they were both beers that led to the theme?

46. I wonder if Picaroon expected and enjoyed the discussion here about what the ten beers were and whether the likes of Fosters qualify. (In my book, it and several others are disqualified even if you include lagers in the ten).

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