Academic goes without beer and lots of fibre (5)
I believe the answer is:
bales
'lots of fibre' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both man-made objects as well as being plural nouns.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'academic goes without beer' is the wordplay.
'academic goes' becomes 'bs' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'without' indicates putting letters inside ('without' can be similar in meaning to 'outside').
'beer' becomes 'ale' (type of beer).
'bs' enclosing 'ale' is 'BALES'.
'and' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for bales that I've seen is " 'Large bundles, of hay perhaps (5)'".)