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Head of beer appears on Swiss stream

A music festival near the creek was responsible for the beer spillage Keystone

A brook in north-eastern Switzerland has been babbling – and frothing – following the addition of 1,000 litres of beer from a nearby music festival.

Firefighters who came to investigate the creek in Dürnten, canton Zurich, were initially unsure of the cause of the pollution and called for back-up. However, one of them “caught a surprising whiff of beer”, according to information published in the Zürcher Oberländer newspaper on Thursday. 

By closing several side-streams the foam could be stopped and collected.

Zurich cantonal police said a music festival nearby was the source of the sauce. Around 1,000 litres of beer spilled into a drain when the festival infrastructure was being dismantled. It is still unclear whether the spillage was an accident or intentional.

Those responsible can expect to hear from the local authorities as the incident will be treated as water pollution. No fish or other aquatic creatures were harmed by the beer spillage.

Approximate location of the creek

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SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR