Listener Crossword 4025 The Brewer's Ingredients by Gnomon

[starwalker]

This is Gnomon's second appearance, the first being back in 2004. I presume that many are already hard at work on it.

[Patch49]

Nice to find the clues are a bit easier to solve this week!

[emcee]

Quite a nice puzzle and refreshing not to have to cold solve for a change. I'm not sure the word to be entered below the grid can be described as an 'ingredient' though!

[bobbycollins]

I was finding this hard work and until I twigged what was happening with the "finings".

It should be downhill from here, and I'm sure that I won't need to invoke my self-imposed "four hour rule" (I don't intend spending much longer than that on any puzzle in future).

I'm suddenly enjoying this one - and no cold solving!!

Best wishes, all

[midazolam]

not much to this one, with no highlighting and little thematic material in the grid. When the first letter is got the rest follow and so a light relief this week compared to recent challenges

istill felt as if i needed more this week, so i bought the independent today, which is definitely more of a challenge. Set by salamander (? a new setter - ? Mazy's Salamanca)

Ingredient is used as it continues the theme from the title

[cruciverbali]

I did have a request last week for a scanned copy of the puzzle from an overseas correspondent still having problems with their Times Online registration - if anyone else is in the same predicament please let me know ([email protected]) and I shall forward a copy of The Brewer's Ingredients.

[AHearer]

Yes, quite an easy ride this week. I quite liked the way the title did double duty, but then found myself asking why the obvious interpretation had been used at all. I was left wondering whether there was an element of closure that I'd missed. I still have a blind spot on 28 -- but no hints, please.

[robinruth]

Greetings to all those lovely familiar names.
My grid is just about full, but I am not sure about wordplay as there are a lot of lucky guesses and I haven't yet understood just how to do the 'fining'. Not asking for help, though (yet) as I am sure the light will dawn - it is clear that some sort of 'fining' has to take place with those extra letters in the wordplay of the down clues.
What a pleasure not to have to do all that cold solving!

[midazolam]

that is it robinruth - nothing has to happen to the letters (and they also occur in the across clues), you just have to write the 22nd letter in the box.

My other disappointment was that once the letters are removed, real words are not always left in the clues. It is fine with anagrams but e.g. 23 across, it just does not make any sense

[robinruth]

Ah, thank you, as usual Midazolam. All is clear - well, not quite, yet as I now have to troll through all those clues and find my 21 letters.
23 ac. and one or two other clues also have me troubled - I have the correct solution, I am sure, with only one unch, and it fits the definition.
Even though I haven't completed it yet, I am enjoying this one.

[AHearer]

Re 28: doh (no pun intended) -- I'd temporarily lost the ability to count!

[Walterloo]

Yes, this was a bit of relief after recent weeks. I gave an audible sigh of pleasure when I saw that it was a normal grid with no cold solving. I quite liked it too, once I saw how the 'letters' worked. Clever, really. The wordplay to 41 has me stumped, though.

[AHearer]

Walterloo, I took it as depends=hangs with reference to US elections.

[Walterloo]

Thank you, Ahearer.

[Cruncher]

Struggled to finish this one - but only because I lost interest once I sussed the theme. Some pretty hazy cluing I thought.

[robinruth]

Finished - and I still like it. It all fitted together rather nicely. I, too, liked the double use of the title and I quite enjoyed the routine work of going through the clues to find that word that has to go in as the missing ingredient.

[starwalker]

A fairly straightforward affair. Some of the clues were, I thought, a bit iffy, but nothing too taxing. Am left feeling rather flat.

[perseverer]

A little bit tedious once you figured out what the letters were, although from the first letter I succeeded in removing, I though I was looking for biblical letters.

A lot of unches in this week's?

Is the definition in 18ac correct?

[cruciverbali]

Oui !

[perseverer]

Should have been more specific - is the spelling of the plural OK?