Ernest
Clear "New World" character from a 1920s Wye College seedling: complex and fruity, especially apricot, citrus and spice, per Charles Faram and Hop Alliance.
- Smells like
- Apricot, Citrus, Spice
- Bitterness
- Moderate (5–7% alpha)
- Swap it for
- Mistral · compare them →
Brewing values
Alpha acid
5–7% typical 6.0
2 sources, spread of 2%
- Charles Faram5–7
- Hop Alliance6.1–6.1
Beta acid
4–5.5% typical 4.8
2 sources, spread of 1.5%
- Charles Faram4–5.5
- Hop Alliance4.5–5
Cohumulone
47–55% of alpha typical 50.5
2 sources, and they disagree, spread of 8% of alpha
- Charles Faram50–55
- Hop Alliance47–50
Total oil
0.7–1.1 mL/100g typical 0.9
1 source, spread of 0.4 mL/100g
- Hop Alliance0.7–1.1
Alpha to beta runs about 1.3:1, which is what governs how fast the bitterness fades in storage.
Oil composition
- Myrcene83.3%
- Humulene16.7%
Normalised to 100% so this hop can be compared like for like. The published components sum to 60% of total oil in the source data.
Aroma
What to swap it for
Scored on aroma overlap, oil composition and acid chemistry, then nudged up where a brewer has vouched for the swap by hand. An axis we haven't measured earns nothing, so a hop known only by its acid numbers caps out around 30 — the score is how much evidence there is for the swap, not just how close the numbers happen to be. Anything under 50 is a different beer, not a substitution.
Pedigree
Parentage unrecorded. Selected at Wye College in 1923 by Prof. Ernest Salmon as seedling OZ97a.
Notes on this record
Added 2026-09-29 from charles-faram's page.
For brewers and data folks: this hop as JSON · the source file