Keeping track of the beer references in the crossword has become as much a part of my daily routine as solving the puzzle itself.¹ So it’s time again to take stock, see what made the cut, what patterns emerge, and consider what their sense of what people might know (or care about) can tell us about the status of beer and its subculture in the wider public consciousness.

There’s inevitably borderline cases of whether something is truly a “beer-related” clue. I skipped ‘Greek goddess whose name becomes a Mexican beer if you change the first letter to a T’ (hecate), for example. And ‘Tavern of TV animation’ (moes), as much as it pained me to cut a Simpsons reference — although a later duff one is included. So your judgements may vary slightly, but I found a total of 110 this time, up about 10% from 2024. They are:²

Date	Day	No.	Clue	Answer
Jan 2	Thu	61A	Miller option	LITE
Jan 6	Mon	40A	Brewery offering	ALE
Jan 10	Fri	50A	Rathskeller supply	STEINS
Jan 12	Sun	66A	Publican's offering	ALE
Jan 21	Tue	30D	Eats that pair well with beer	PUBGRUB
Jan 23	Thu	1A	Tavern regular	BARFLY
Jan 24	Fri	52D	Stock item in a brewery	KEG
Jan 26	Sun	33D	Public house offering	ALE
Feb 10	Mon	34D	Hoppy brew, in brief	IPA
Feb 12	Wed	63D	Inexpensive beer, informally	PBR
Feb 15	Sat	31D	Bitter brews, for short	IPAS
Feb 25	Tue	51D	Adams in a bar	SAMUEL
Mar 1	Sat	53A	Malty craft beer	RYEIPA
Mar 1	Sat	107A	Beers advertised with the slogan "La vida más fina"	CORONAS
Mar 7	Fri	44A	Cheep beer brand, for short	PBR
Mar 9	Sun	93D	48oz beer glass	YARD
Mar 12	Wed	4D	Lager alternative	ALE
Mar 13	Thu	59D	Six-pack that might be in the "Craft" section, for short	IPAS
Mar 18	Tue	23A	Pub drink	ALE
Mar 19	Wed	4D	Schooner filler	ALE
Mar 20	Thu	56D	Porter or pilsner alternative, in brief	IPA
Mar 21	Fri	26D	Sierra Nevadas, e.g.	ALES
Mar 23	Sun	106D	Some six-packs	ALES
Mar 23	Sun	35A	It follows Oktober	FEST
Mar 26	Wed	52D	I'd like a brewski	BEERME
Mar 26	Wed	51A	Alternative to Stella or Sam Adams	PBR
Mar 27	Thu	57D	Stout, for one	ALE
Mar 28	Fri	12D	Ones wise on Weizenbocks, perhaps	BEERSNOBS
Mar 29	Sat	14D	Brewer's need	HOPS
Apr 2	Wed	2D	Brew that generally has a higher-than-usual alcohol content	ICEBEER
Apr 5	Sat	92A	Brown beer	DARKALE
Apr 10	Thu	3D	Corona o Dos Equis	CERVEZA
Apr 11	Fri	17A	Activity with pints and points	BARTRIVIA
Apr 17	Thu	7D	Large cask for beer or wine	TUN
Apr 26	Sat	97D	Beers that might punnily have "hop" in their names, for short	IPAS
May 2	Fri	56A	They might be red or blonde	ALES
May 3	Sat	19A	Bass output	ALES
May 3	Sat	27A	Löwenbräu product	BIER
May 6	Tue	6D	Like some ales and health bars	OATY
May 6	Tue	58A	Disposable coaster at a bar	BEERMAT
May 7	Wed	39D	Hoppy bar choice, in brief	IPA
May 11	Sun	7D	Tavern offering	ALE
May 11	Sun	43A	Beers from Bremen, informally	STPAULIS
May 12	Mon	37D	Alternative to bottled	ONTAP
May 24	Sat	10D	Many Dogfish Head brews	IPAS
May 30	Fri	34D	Brown ___	ALE
Jun 2	Mon	47D	Beermaking establishment	BREWERY
Jun 4	Wed	55A	Divine medicine, per the Greek physician Paracelsus	BEER
Jun 9	Mon	46A	Beermaker's supply	BREWERSYEAST
Jun 11	Wed	55A	Craft drafts, for short	IPAS
Jun 14	Sat	20A	Glass holding about three pints of ale	YARD
Jun 15	Sun	100D	Colorful selection at an Irish pub	REDALE
Jun 16	Mon	59D	Beer barrel	KEG
Jun 17	Tue	7D	Word after ginger or pale	ALE
Jun 18	Wed	45A	Brewer Coors	ADOLPH
Jun 18	Wed	50A	Hit the pubs	BARCRAWL
Jun 19	Thu	51A	Part of a beer name... or an instruction for answering 53-Across	ARTOIS
Jun 22	Sun	101D	Blue Ribbon beer	PABST
Jun 26	Thu	4A	Hoppy brew, for short	IPA
Jun 30	Mon	16A	Certain draft picks?	ALES
Jul 2	Wed	17A	Did you know?! The most common bar name in the U.K. is the Red Lion	PUBTRIVIA
Jul 5	Sat	23D	They're not as sweet as porters	ALES
Jul 12	Sat	15A	One might start fermenting in a kitchen	HOMEBREWER
Jul 22	Tue	64A	Some hoppy drinks at happy hour, in brief	IPAS
Jul 24	Thu	16A	It may be brown or blonde	ALE
Jul 25	Fri	54D	It's off limits if you 59-Across (TEETOTAL)	ALE
Aug 2	Sat	45A	European brewery with over 170 brands	HEINEKEN
Aug 3	Sun	122A	Some draft picks	BEERS
Aug 11	Mon	60A	Some hoppy brews, in brief	IPAS
Aug 17	Sun	99A	Czech brew	PILSENER
Aug 20	Wed	7D	Dutch bier	AMSTEL
Aug 21	Thu	56A	Brew designed to survive trips to the subcontinent, in brief	IPA
Aug 23	Sat	55A	Type of alcoholic beverage that originated in the U.K., despite its name	IPA
Aug 26	Tue	1A	Something tapped at a bar	KEG
Sep 4	Thu	14A	Tap it	ALE
Sep 5	Fri	50D	Cold one	BREW
Sep 7	Sun	57D	Bar with drafts	TAPROOM
Sep 12	Fri	34A	Case load?	BEERS
Sep 13	Sat	44A	Beer alternative to a 38-Down	LAGER
Sep 13	Sat	38D	Beer alternative to a 44-Across	PORTER
Sep 16	Tue	14A	Pub pintful	ALE
Sep 20	Sat	13D	Drink drunk the morning after, maybe	STALEBEER
Sep 25	Thu	48A	Bit of fraternity party headgear	BEERHAT
Sep 28	Sun	26A	Contents of a flagon	ALE
Sep 28	Sun	15D	Brewski	COLDONE
Oct 1	Wed	42A	Japanese beer brand	ASAHI
Oct 1	Wed	42D	Dutch beer brand	AMSTEL
Oct 3	Fri	56A	Something raised during Oktoberfest	BEERTENT
Oct 6	Mon	66A	Cold one	BEER
Oct 11	Sat	36D	Spot to order a witbier or hefeweizen	BRAUHAUS
Oct 15	Wed	9D	Artisanal brewers' offerings	CRAFTBEERS
Oct 20	Mon	23A	The "A" of IPA	ALE
Oct 21	Tue	60A	Pub order	ALE
Oct 30	Thu	41D	Beer brand on "The Simpsons"	DUFF
Nov 2	Sun	97A	Quarter barrel containers of beer	PONYKEGS
Nov 4	Tue	14A	It can be blonde or brown	ALE
Nov 5	Wed	62A	Blue Ribbon beer	PABST
Nov 9	Sun	10A	Popular Japanese beer	ASAHI
Nov 12	Wed	55A	Beer brand discontinued in 2021	BUDICE
Nov 30	Sun	2A	Brooklyn Brewery's Special Effects, e.g., in brief	IPA
Dec 2	Tue	47A	Blue Moon, for one	ALE
Dec 3	Wed	6D	Drink that may come in a yard	ALE
Dec 4	Thu	34D	Stein's contents	ALE
Dec 6	Sat	5A	Winter quaffs	SPICEDALES
Dec 9	Tue	12D	Light lager	PILSNER
Dec 9	Tue	8D	Asahi Super Dry or Kirin Lager	RICEBEER
Dec 16	Tue	28A	It may be blond or pale	ALE
Dec 19	Fri	6D	Yard sale?	ALE
Dec 24	Wed	31D	Convenient spot for a pint	CORNERPUB
Dec 28	Sun	56D	Blue Ribbon brand	PABST

The over-reliance on ale and ipa (and their plurals) has increased. They were about a quarter of last year’s references; now it’s 40%. That kind of frequency means there’s an impossible choice between repeating the same clue over and over, or reaching for one that’s only less common because it’s not very good. ale appeared on successive days several times — often with grim setups like ‘Pub drink’ or ‘Pub order’ — and one bleak fortnight³ had five of them, interspersed with two ipas, none with great clues.

Between the two of them, ale is taking a much greater share. That’s understandable given it’s the broader term⁴ and contains fractionally more-common letters — but they were about even in 2024. Given that I started this endeavour by noticing that a certain kind of IPA (i.e., “hazy”) had achieved whatever legitimacy inclusion in the crossword bestows, I can’t help but note that it seems to be crashing out a little. There’s only been one IPA reference in the last six months, last November;⁵ 2026 hasn’t had one yet.

That said, one of the more surprising style-specific answers was ryeipa as a ‘Malty craft beer.’ That struck me as fairly niche and under-described; my first guess was porter, especially since the clue lacked the usual hints that an abbreviation was in the mix — like “in brief” or “for short.” Red, blonde, brown and “dark” ales were all included in various ways, and spicedales made an appropriately seasonal December appearance. icebeer and ricebeer rated a mention each; the former mostly exists as catchy branding these days (though the clue alludes to a real and interesting history), while the latter is popping up on shelves increasingly often — at least as “rice lager.” But there weren’t any debuts of new terms that seemed to signal any kind of shift in the zeitgeist, this time around.

Describing stalebeer as ‘Drink drunk the morning after, maybe’ is weirdly dire. There’s an obscure old sense in which “stale beer” simply meant “aged” (in a good way), but even if that’s way too technical for a modern crossword (and it is), why imagine someone drinking that neglected beer rather than just finding it and throwing it away? Yikes. That weizenbock reference though? Sublime. I usually flinch from using “snobs” as a shorthand for subculture enthusiasts (except if you really do mean it as a pejorative), but here the sassy sense of “wise” has things covered. Clue of the year. The obvious choice for my title, here.

Sadly, the opposite award is equally easy to assign, and takes us back to ales. ‘They’re not as sweet as porters’? Madness. Rubbish. Nonsense. A category error akin to saying “fruits aren’t as red as tomatoes.” On the usual understanding, a porter is a kind of ale⁶ just as a tomato is a kind of fruit.⁷ And they’re not all sweet; a bracingly bitter one is about as easy to find as a green or yellow heirloom cultivar for your BLT. Besides that — and noting that hops aren’t strictly speaking a ‘Brewer’s need’ — I feel like I have fewer factual quibbles than last year. So perhaps that’s progress.

Terminology raised a few small red flags, though. They can’t decide between pilsner and pilsener, but that feels like a “both is fine” situation and the puzzle does reach for variant spellings when it’s convenient. Using the German word brauhaus as the answer to ‘Spot to order a witbier or hefeweizen’ is a little odd since one of its two examples is a Belgian style.⁸ And ‘Stein’s contents’ as yet another clue for ale feels a bit off, mixing a different German term with an Anglophone word that’s sometimes a synonym for “beer” in general, but more often used for one of its two main sub-types — and you’re more likely to see the other one (lager) in a stein.

About a quarter of all the beer-related clues (or their solutions) namedrop a specific brand and they range from local to international — if only Mexican, Japanese and European. Thanks to the ambiguity of the British brewery’s name, ‘Bass output’ made for one of the more refreshing ways to get to ales. And among mostly mass-market names, a few larger “craft” breweries also featured: Sierra Nevada, Brooklyn, and Dogfish Head — though the youngest of those was founded in 1995, so even if the puzzle-solving public is expected to keep up with new kinds of beer occasionally, it seems it’s been a while since a producer has graduated to that level.

pabst is easily the 2025 winner in the trademark stakes. Its five-letter name and three-consonant abbreviation (pbr) must be very useful when trying to fill out an American-style crossword. And you can’t deny its fame, even if (according to the clues) the fact that it’s cheap is as memorable as its distinctive blue ribbon. One clue has pbr as an ‘Alternative to Stella or Sam Adams,’ which feels like either an accidental(?) compliment or simply confused. Those are three very different propositions, not least because the latter is a brewery that makes a lot of varieties.

And that got me thinking about the odd sense of “alternative” that popped up a few times:⁹ is an ale really a ‘Lager alternative’? Or ipa a ‘Porter or pilsner alternative…’? Are lager and porter ‘Beer alternative[s]’ to each other? (They intersected in the Sep 13 puzzle.) Only kind of, right? I mean, is a tomato an “alternative to” a banana? That very much depends on context. They’re gettable enough clues, I suppose, but it was a jarring new format that didn’t sit well with how I usually think about beer.

Meanwhile, my 2026 spreadsheet is underway and has collected several oddities already. So let’s meet back here in a year or so for a debrief. We’ll see if IPA can stage a comeback or if the crossword really is an omen for some kind of category collapse.

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1. My current ‘streak’ is 489 days — but that’s only because the NYT Tech Guild’s strike ended 489 days ago. I know the Times is sometimes a hideously flawed institution, and I still (see note 1 on last year’s post) don’t feel great about giving them money. For what its worth, I spend a lot more money on other independent media than I do on my NYT Games subscription.
2. I haven’t yet squashed the bug in my blog software that is stopping the table from being sortable. If you’re really curious, here’s a copy as a Google Sheet. I still hold TablePress blameless, here, and thank them for their excellent plugin.
3. In March, just when I was writing up my previous report; maybe I jinxed it, maybe the monotony finally drove me to typing up my thoughts.
4. Which the puzzle itself noted, on Oct 20: ‘The “A” in IPA’ = ale.
5. Thanks to Natan Last, whose recent book about crosswords — Across The Universe — I really need to track down. Among other things, that puzzle included RSS, a promising sign that someone is a Good Nerd.
6. Another puzzle even references this, for porter’s historical sibling / parent / twin, cluing ale as ‘Stout, for one.’
7. And a vegetable! Isn’t taxonomy fun?
8. Sure, German is one of the three official languages of Belgium. But it’s very much in third place, and any number of other styles — like weizenbock! — would’ve fit the bill and removed the slight weirdness.
9. And didn’t feature at all, the previous year.