Land of 10,000 Beers Midrash

Land of 10,000 Beers by George Barany, John Child, and Phil Platt
"Midrash" by George Barany (Winter 2016)

Phil Platt, who I befriended at the Campus Club at the University of Minnesota, is the outgoing Executive Director of the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild and this is his first crossword puzzle. After pitching the idea of this puzzle to Phil, I recruited my friend John Child to join the effort, and the final product reflects ideas and contributions from all three of us.

The idea of the puzzle is very simple. The name of Phil's organization is 68-Across / 104-Down. The puzzle showcases ten breweries, but all ten of them are clued in an orthogonal manner, i.e., in a way that has nothing to do with the brewery's name. As for the puzzle's title, it riffs on Minnesota's informal state motto.

Breweries mentioned in the puzzle, together with links and further explanations, are:

Across:

TOWN HALL Brewery, clued with respect to town hall meetings that are a current feature of the political landscape.
EXCELSIOR Brewing Co., clued with respect to the motto of New York State.
The FREEHOUSE, clued with respect to this thoroughbred racehorse.
SISYPHUS Brewing, clued with respect to this tormented king from Greek mythology.

Down:

INSIGHT Brewing Co., clued with respect to the word's dictionary definition.
JUNKYARD Brewing Company, clued with respect to a memorable line in this Jim Croce song.
VOYAGEUR Brewing Company, clued with respect to the fur traders and the Minnesota national park.
STEEL TOE Brewing, clued with respect to this footwear.
JACK PINE Brewery, clued with respect to this tree.
MANKATO Brewery, clued with respect to the hometown of Glen Taylor, owner of the local professional basketball teams [we've even written puzzles about one of these teams, as seen here and here] and a lot of other stuff!

Please understand that there are any number of additional fine Minnesota breweries—e.g., LAKE SUPERIOR, URBAN GROWLER, NORTHBOUND, ROCKBOTTOM, BAUHAUS, BEMIDJI, INDEED, SUMMIT, LUCID, and SURLY—that we would have loved to work into the puzzle, except that the crossword symmetry rules and/or the absence of orthogonal cluing possibilities got in the way. Maybe another puzzle, in the future?!

There are additional answer words and/or clues in the puzzle that might interest or amuse its solvers. Examples include:

The timely clue for YODA is a faint echo of arguably the greatest five-word phrase to ever appear in a movie review (you'll know it when you see it!)

The BUNNY HUG was a dance craze in the early 20^th century, but we clued it in a jokey fashion.

Paul Molitor currently MANAGES the Minnesota Twins. When they lose, we say "there IS_NO joy in Mudville."

The definition of CHUTZPAH is classic.

LSD is colloquially referred to as "acid," but when you look at its chemical structure, it's actually a base. Which reminds us of the Meghan Trainor hit, "All About That BASS," covered here by Kate Davis in retro-swing style. Back to chemistry, alprazolam has the trade name Xanax, but this is referred to in phonetic slang as ZAN.

From the technical point-of-view, the puzzle's high theme density led us to use a somewhat higher word count (144 words) and percentage blocks (18.1%) than the customary limits for a Sunday New York Times puzzle (respectively 140 words and 16.7%). Still, we trust you will enjoy what we've brewed for you.

Cheers!

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