Baird Shizuoka Summer Mikan Ale

A summer mikan (natsumikan) is a grapefruit-like citrus fruit that is tart and sweetly sour in flavor and wonderfully aromatic. The only fruit to make it through the doors of the Baird Brewery, of course, is fresh whole fruit recently plucked from the land. Our summer mikans are Shizuoka-grown, right in the Heda orchard of our carpenter-partner-friend, Mitsuo Nagakura. The bounty of fruit is painstakingly hand-processed by the Baird Brewery team before its introduction into the brewhouse. The 2010 natsumikan harvest was particularly good and you can taste all of its glory in each sip of this extraordinarily zesty brew.

The refreshing citrus character of Shizuoka Summer Mikan Ale is not supplied by fruit alone. The natsumikans are complemented beautifully by deft additions of three citrusy American hop varieties: Simcoe, Centennial and Amarillo. The quenchingly brisk and tart result is summer paradise in a glass!