Aare Amber and spring impressions
The spring definitely reached Zurich yesterday. Not that we had much of a winter this year anyway - it snowed once in November and maybe two flurries in between, temperatures slightly below zero at night and... that was all of it. Last week the sun gathered more and more courage and yesterday it was obvious: winter's gone for good so half of the city population went sunbathing around the Bellevue side of the lake. The other half of the city probably drove down south for Ticino and the Italian border, a unnecessary trip as Zurich had over 15°C the whole Sunday afternoon. The tide of Fasnacht (whatever, Mardi Gras, carnival...) was receding, partygoers with the hair full of confetti and an occasional brass band or themed group were sitting around, having a quiet beer and a sausage while watching the sun setting. The only hue of stress came from the huge queue for Mövenpick ice cream and the few hasty street sweeper machines.
The blue cabin you can see behind is actually a floating theater, a place I plan to visit once... but no, yesterday was beer time. Nobody ever sells interesting beer on the streets, quite obviously, so I decided to BYOB and picked this Aare Amber for the trip. No bad choice for a spring afternoon, everything was there what an amber means but still not quite what I have expected. A nice smell, a taste a bit atypical with more yeastiness and more bitterness than I'm used to, not too carbonated... overall I was more confused than impressed. Could be only because I couldn't properly place it? In any case, it was fine drinking it at the lakeside, could have been cooler though - I didn't have a full cooling chain between cellar and lake...