Looking for today's Connections answer for Puzzle No. 416 on July 31, the difficulty level for this puzzle in the Connections Companion was 3.6 out of 5, a dramatic increase in difficulty from yesterday's answer.

We update our Connections clues and hints daily. And if the hints aren't enough, you can see all four solutions along with the category title and related words. In addition, for those of you reading this in a different time zone, I have included a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #415.

There are spoilers for connection 416. Only read this if you want to know the answer to today's connection.

Alternatively, see our NYT Connections How to Play Guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help.

While today's wordle solution guide recommends the best wordle starting words as a strategy, the Connections solution depends on identifying the categories that are connected from the 16 words. The difficulty of each category is represented by a color, with yellow being the easiest grouping and purple the most difficult. Hints are helpful as the answer is displayed after four wrong guesses.

If you need a hint to solve the groupings, here are each theme in order of difficulty:

If you read these hints, you should at least find the answer to today's connection. If not, please continue reading for larger hints. Also, if you only want to know the answer, scroll down further.

Here's a bigger clue: How do you describe a smoky voice as you sip a cold beer and enjoy something more French, thinking about the appendages on your hands?

Now for the answer to today's connection in game 416.

Drum roll please.

In this game, the obvious traps are set for the breeds: husky, bulldog, and pointer. And I spent more time than I care to admit, racking my brain for breeds I couldn't remember.

Then I mastered the blue category perfectly, with ambers, porters, sours, and stouts. I am an ale aficionado and a very amateur brewer, so knocking out these categories was fun.

I knocked out the yellow and green categories almost simultaneously. After I finally passed up the dog category, I heard gruff, coarse, husky, rough and raspy. My fingers seemed to pop out as I was putting in the word yellow, and Little, Middle, Pointer, and Ring were immediate hits. I was somewhat surprised that it was green and seemed harder than yellow. Would it have been easier to replace one of these with an index?

Purple was a fun little category, though I filled it in by rote today. If I hadn't spent so much time on the Fake Dogs category, I might have come across it sooner.

That said, I don't know why this category is more difficult than it was yesterday. Perhaps if you don't know what kind of beer you are drinking, you will probably get a little tripped up.

I'm reading this late in the day. According to Connections Companion, the difficulty level was 2 out of 5.

It is rare to see clues lined up in a Connections puzzle, and I think that is partly why today's grid is so easy in terms of difficulty.

The yellow categories are arranged diagonally from the first corner word to the last bottom corner. So finding neat, nifty, super, and swell was quick.

I fell into the facility trap when putting together the purple categories of block, complex, compound, and development. I skipped the blocks and chose facilities, which I believe can also be called a group of buildings.

Detailing, expanding, describing, and identifying, as I am doing here, is something that can be done as soon as the grid settles.

Finally, we arrived at a memorized filling of the words for talent with facility, flair, gift, and knack. We did a similar category last week, which is kind of a repeat, given that we switched facilities and faculty. If I remember correctly, Gift and Flare were among them.