Accounts of saint heading north drinking beer (5)
I believe the answer is:
tales
'accounts' is the definition.
(tale is a kind of account)
'saint heading north drinking beer' is the wordplay.
'saint' becomes 'st' (abbreviation).
'heading north' shows that the letters should be reversed in order (in a down clue, letters travel north).
'drinking' means one lot of letters goes inside another (inserted letters are consumed or drunk).
'beer' becomes 'ale' (type of beer).
'st' reversed gives 'ts'.
'ts' enclosing 'ale' is 'TALES'.
'of' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for tales that I've seen before include "Stories, fables" , "They might be tall" , "reports" , "provided for defective juries" , "Stale kind of stories" .)