Schultz & Dooley (Solution No. 3,263)

The other Utica Club ads I remember featured a pair of talking beer steins named Schultz and Dooley.  The brewery has collected some of their appearances here, and you can meet them and their friends like Officer Sudds and Bubbles LaBrew at schultzanddooleyonline.com.  Read on over there and you'll learn that Schultz and Dooley were first voiced by the great Jonathan Winters.

I haven't had a Utica Club since I lived in Syracuse, but the great beers from Saranac (particularly the Pale Ale and Black Forest beer) made by the same people often find their way into my cellar.  The "krausening" technique of natural carbonation gives the beers a nice creamy head.

"It's tough to argue over an Utica Club, 'cause they put too much love into it!"

Here's the solution to this week's puzzle.  Note that a few bits of crosswordese or slightly obscure words were necessary to make the grid work, but Hot and Trazom tried to make the wordplay for those easy, so you'd have at least one entry into each entry.  20a is a good example.

Legend: "*" anagram; "~" sounds like; "<" letters reversed; "( )" letters inserted; "_" or lower case: letters deleted; "†" explicit in the clue, “^” selected letter or letters, “{“ relocated letter or letters

Across

1a	SIGN | OR	SIGN (“character”, think of a character in Chinese language) + OR (†)
5a	THE | _FT_	THE (†) + li^FT^er (middle letters indicated by “core”)
9a	*THREAD	*HATRED (anagram indicated by “irrational”)
10a	P | LOY	^P^aulette (first letter indicated by “originally”) + LOY (“Myrna”) Myrna Loy, memorialized in crosswords to this day, was a movie actress
11a	WEATHER	unclued
12a	W(H)ET	WET (“soak”) containing (“outside”) bat^H^ (last letter indicated by “ultimately”)
13a	*VACATE	*CAVEAT (anagram indicated by “misleading”)
15a	AT<TILA<	AT (“by”) + <ALIT< (“made a landing”, reversal indicated by “returning”)
17a	STA(Y O)N	STAN (“Laurel”) containing (“interrupt with”) YO (†)
20a	<TENACE<	trib<ECA NET<work (hidden word indicated by “holding”, reversal indicated by “back”) A bit of crosswordese here
23a	REST	double definition
24a	COMPASS	unclued
25a	*MESH	*HEMS (anagram indicated by “tailored”)
26a	C | AS PER	C (“cold”) + AS PER (“according to”) Casper the Friendly Ghost was a cartoon character of the 1970s and 80s
27a	S A Y S O	^S^ome ^A^ncient ^Y^oruban ^S^ocieties ^O^bey (acrostic indicated by “leaders of”)
28a	*U THAN | T	*HAUNT (anagram indicated by “dilapidated”) + qa^T^ar (middle letter indicated by “center”)

Down

1d	STOW | E	STOW (“put away”) + E (“English”)
2d	GR}E}ET	}E}GRET (relocation of first letter indicated by “head tucked into its breast”)
3d	<NE(ATL)Y<	<YEN< (“desire”, reversal indicated by “mounting”) containing (“to include”) ATL (“Atlanta”, abbreviation indicated by “on a scoreboard”)
4d	_OATS	g_OATS (“farm animals”, omission of first letter indicated by “decapitated”) Goat’s Head Soup, anyone?
5d	TR(EAT)Y	TRY (“essay”) containing (“about”) EAT (“feast”)
6d	<ELBA<	<ABLE< (“fit”, reversal indicated by “up”)
7d	*FOOTLESS	*TOE FLOSS (anagram indicated by “ridiculous”) Question mark indicates a twisted definition
8d	~TYPE A	~TAIPEI (“Asian capital”, homonym indicated by “said”)
11d	*WHITE SEA	*WITH EASE (anagram indicated by “flowing”)
13d	VANE	unclued
14d	ROC | O(C)O	ROC (“mythical bird”) + ^C^entaurs (first letter indicated by “chief”) contained in OO (“two eggs”)
16d	TH_ | RASH	TH_is_ (first two letter indicated by “half of”)
17d	<STEM< | S	<S (“second”) + “METS” (“team”)< (reversal indicated by “on the way up”)
18d	_VESPA_	lea_VES PA_dua (hidden word indicated by “runs through”)
19d	S TART	S (“small”) + TART (“pastry”)
21d	N(OS)Y	OS (“bagels”, visual pun on the letter O being shaped like a bagel) contained in (“in”) NY (“New York”)
22d	<SPAT<	<TAPS< (“bugle call”, reversal indicated by “rising”)

Meta: “NORTH” spanning 1a and 5a, “SOUTH” spanning 27a and 28a, “WEST” spanning 1d and 17d, and “EAST” spanning 8d and 19d.