BIERSCHNAPS

Essential Spirits, based just a stones train ride from San Francisco in Mountain View, is producing a little something they call Bierschnaps. They brew their own California style Pale Ale, and then distil it into a spirit they claim is similar to Vodka. I really hope this is just marketing speak as it seems a shame to go to all the trouble to brew your own beer only to distill it into flavorless dreck. What really interests me most about Bierschnaps is that beer and whiskey begin their lives the same, so the idea of a whiskey, turned into a beer, then into a different spirit grips my heart like some sort of grippy thing.