"End Products" February 28, 2025

[avian]

After getting help from the zoom group I thought the answer was "salt" since it's the end product of combining sodium and chlorine. Although the letters were not in grid order sometimes solutions are anagrammed and "salt" made sense to me. However, I was advised this was incorrect and then came up with "last". Didn't submit because of the help I needed.
Had to Google the ale and the gum to find the brands.

[FuminCuban]

Sorry if someone mentioned this, but how about: four UP in grid so follow in the up direction and you spell LAPS. That is the answer!

[woozy]

Hmm, surprised so many folks aren't familiar with BASS Ale. That was the first I saw. (DIAL was the dope slap but I didn't see it until after the BASS Ale and Pilot pen). Bass is definitely one of my go-tos.

[Franklin.Bluth]

I got lucky because my initial answer to 58D was GUM, so when the last letters of KUNG FU FILM spelled that word I felt the immediate click.

[whimsy]

Another possibility --

Two acrosses: DIAL and LUXE
Two downs: EXTRA and BASS

Use their clues in across then down grid order:
Clock feature - - C
Like five-star hotels -- L
Additional - - A
Popular game fish - - P

Not sure about the rest of you, but I certainly like to hear a nice (laurel and) hearty round of applause produced once I've reached the end of a meta solve.
(Thank you -- Thank you very much.)

[pjc]

I took each last word of the theme entries and tried to find things that "produced" them (IRONAGE -> GUN; SPLAT -> PULP). Never got past that idea. Ah, well.

[ZooAnimalsOnWheels]

I got the four words quickly enough, but then went through the standard next steps for metas. Ok, GUM could be an alternate for 58D and GOO, but none of the other words worked. Then I looked for the words hidden in the grid: ALEX is right there with ALE and an extra X, but again none of the other words worked. I tried the "do the step again", but the last letters of the four words spelled NPEM. Then I pondered whether there was another single word that all four words could be placed at the end of. (The idea that bubble gum and soap bubble worked got me thinking too much about bubbles in ale and what a "bubble pen" might be )I looked at the last letters of clue words, such as 9D's "Allow to use" giving you WOE. I even underlined NAIL in the clue for 23A because it seemed like an arbitrary clue and NAIL rhymed with ALE.

It took putting the puzzle down and picking it up later to make the connection to the brand names.

[DaveG]

Sorry if someone mentioned this, but how about: four UP in grid so follow in the up direction and you spell LAPS. That is the answer!

I like this idea for a Meta! Though, I am struggling to find the "UP" that would lead us to A in LAPS. Obvious are Legups, Pupal, and Slowup. Granted my printed grid is scribbled, and highlighted and my handwriting is already abysmal, so very possible that I'm looking right past the fourth

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is LAST. The end letters of the words of each theme answer spell a type of product (JUMP THE GUN/PEN, BEATS TO A PULP/SOAP, SEA LEVEL RISE/ALE, KUNG FU FILM/GUM). Find a word in the grid that’s a brand of each of the product types (PILOT pen, DIAL soap, BASS ale, EXTRA gum). The end letters of those answers, in grid order, spell the contest answer.

Incredibly clever contest, right? It was trickier than usual, with just 978 entries--though the correct-answer rate was a bit higher than usual at 82%. Incorrect answers included SALT (35, so close), GASP (18), ELSE (11), AMEN (5) and BEEP (2).

Congrats to this week's winner: Mark Weiss of Olympia, Wash.!

[HunterX]

Whilst Cynthia and I were trying to figure out step 2 in this week's metanism, I was having a Smithwick's using a Bass Ale beer mat! It was the trigger I needed!

Bass Ale, a favorite in Britain since 1777, was purchased by Anheuser-Busch InBev in 2000. They eventually stopped producing it.

When I got ALE and linked it to BASS, I immediately thought of you guys, and figured that was one you couldn't miss getting.

[The XWord Rabbit]

Sometimes a puzzle hits the sweet spot, leaving enough bread crumbs to give you Muggles a sense of direction, but opening up plenty of step-two blind alleys to get you into serious trouble. Mr. Shenk’s “End Products” creation was just such a meta.

Per usual, a literal interpretation of the title gave Muggles a false sense of security. The last letters of the words used in the four anchor across entries spelled generic products: P-E-N, S-O-A-P, A-L-E and G-U-M. That’s when things got wobbly. Once it became clear that brand names for those products were buried in the grid, the scavenger hunt began – and some of those were buried deeper than others. A few were tripped up on Pilot pens and Extra gum, but the biggest seemed to be Bass Ale (not everyone has a coaster like Don’s.)

One stellar nomination this week, and that’s from Mister Squawk (Post #217):

The grid has four Xs. If you take each of these Xs as multiplication signs (PRODUCTs) and multiply the lengths of the two words that intersect at each X, you get the integers 20, 16, 12, and 16. The letters at those squares are S, L, E, and L, which can be reordered to spell SELL, which is what you do with PRODUCTS.

Your Rabbit also couldn’t resist JoeFlanders story (Post #230). Regretfully, the ending was a bit of a disappointment, but the method was lovely.

Time to end with a bit of presumptuous advice to Mr. Shenk: When fleshing out a meta beware of using a wild, open-ended branding category like ALE. Do you know how many microbreweries are out there? Almost every word in your puzzle has likely been used on a beer label in one way or another -- not the ones he has pictured here, perhaps -- but they were the most fun of what Your Rabbit found. Until next week, then.

[Colin]

“Milk of Amnesia” … brilliant!

[erikfeng8]

NVM, guess I was on a sandbar and NOT ashore...

Never heard of Bass ale ... I did a lot of googling and found an Edge ale and Coors Edge beer. In the same order, the first letters spelled DEEP (which I thought went with "End"). In fact I was still in the deep end.

[Joe Ross]

NVM, guess I was on a sandbar and NOT ashore... :(

Never heard of Bass ale ... I did a lot of googling and found an Edge ale and Coors Edge beer. In the same order, the first letters spelled DEEP (which I thought went with "End"). In fact I was still in the deep end.

@The XWord Rabbit

[FuminCuban]

Sorry if someone mentioned this, but how about: four UP in grid so follow in the up direction and you spell LAPS. That is the answer!

I like this idea for a Meta! Though, I am struggling to find the "UP" that would lead us to A in LAPS. Obvious are Legups, Pupal, and Slowup. Granted my printed grid is scribbled, and highlighted and my handwriting is already abysmal, so very possible that I'm looking right past the fourth

Sorry my image didn't load. IDK if you will see this, but there is a U-P on a diagonal in top left corrner of grid that ends in A. A stretch, I know, but that's what metas are. )