Idaho 7
Tangerine marmalade over resinous pine, with pineapple and guava behind it and a black-tea dryness on the finish. High oil, so it rewards whirlpool and dry hop far more than it rewards the kettle.
- Smells like
- Tangerine, Orange, Grapefruit, Tropical fruit, Guava
- Bitterness
- High (9.5–15% alpha)
- In the glass
- 82 beers here · 5 fresh hop
- Swap it for
- Mosaic · compare them →
Brewing values
Alpha acid
9.5–15% typical 12.5
2 sources, spread of 5.5%
- Yakima Chief Ranches9.5–14
- Crosby Hop Farm12–15
Beta acid
3.5–5.5% typical 4.3
2 sources, spread of 2%
- Yakima Chief Ranches3.5–5
- Crosby Hop Farm3.5–5.5
Cohumulone
30% of alpha
1 source
- Yakima Chief Ranches30–30
Total oil
1–3 mL/100g typical 1.7
2 sources, spread of 2 mL/100g
- Yakima Chief Ranches1–2
- Crosby Hop Farm1–3
Alpha to beta runs about 2.9:1, which is what governs how fast the bitterness fades in storage.
Product formats
| Format | Alpha | Oil mL/100g | vs whole hop |
|---|---|---|---|
| T-90 pellets | 10–14% | — | 0.96× |
| The baseline. Alpha tracks the whole cone closely; pelletising concentrates very little. | |||
| Cryo Hops / LupuLN2 | 20–26% | 4–6 | 1.84× |
| Lupulin separated from the vegetal fraction, so alpha and oil roughly double while the leaf-derived polyphenols drop away. Dose by alpha, not by weight. | |||
Swap a concentrate into a recipe written for pellets at the same weight and the bitterness moves by the factor in the last column. Dose these by alpha, not by grams.
Oil composition
- Myrcene68.3%
- Humulene19.8%
- Caryophyllene10.5%
- Farnesene0.9%
- Linalool0.6%
Normalised to 100% so this hop can be compared like for like. The published components sum to 71.7% of total oil in the source data.
Where it's grown
In 2025: 150 acres in Washington, 260 acres in Idaho. That's 410 acres. No. 5 by acreage in Idaho.
Acres by year
| Year | Washington | Idaho |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | — | — |
| 2016 | — | — |
| 2017 | withheld | withheld |
| 2018 | withheld | withheld |
| 2019 | 85 | 388 |
| 2020 | 341 | 564 |
| 2021 | 388 | 592 |
| 2022 | 158 | 382 |
| 2023 | 148 | 290 |
| 2024 | 150 | 243 |
| 2025 | 150 | 260 |
Acres harvested, from the USDA NASS National Hop Report. Where America's hops grow →
Aroma
How it gets used
Added at whirlpool, dry hop, bittering.
Concentrated lupulin formats: Cryo.
In the glass · 82 beers from 10 breweries
- Idaho 7 Fresh Hop Fiend (2023 - Loftus Ranches) Stoup Brewing · fresh hop
- Idaho 7 Fresh Hop Fiend - Collaboration w/Bale Breaker Stoup Brewing · fresh hop
- Idaho 7 Fresh Hop Fiend IPA - Loftus Ranches Stoup Brewing · fresh hop
- Idaho 7 Fresh Hop Fiend IPA 2022 - Loftus Farms Stoup Brewing · fresh hop
- Idaho7 Fresh Hop Stoup Brewing · fresh hop
- Batch 15 Aslan Brewing
- Batch 2000 Aslan Brewing
- Chai Milk Stout Aslan Brewing
- Fish Have Feelings Aslan Brewing
- Jetski Referee Aslan Brewing
- Love the Land Aslan Brewing
- Moon Calendar Aslan Brewing
Brewed alongside · in 73 beers that use Idaho 7 with other hops
Counted from the hop lists of every beer in What's in the can: what Pacific Northwest brewers actually put next to Idaho 7.
What to swap it for
-
Pairs with it more often than it replaces it, but the citrus overlaps.
-
Closer on the pine axis, further on the tangerine.
-
Centennial 68
-
El Dorado 66
-
Luminosa 64
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. Pedigree not published. Selected on the farm rather than out of a formal breeding programme.
Notes on this record
Origin, release year and breeder are sourced, and the brewing values come from Yakima Chief's multi-crop-year lab ranges. Still single-source: none of Hopsteiner, BarthHaas or HBC publishes Idaho 7, so a second source is the next thing to find. The Cryo figures under forms are still placeholders. A useful test case for coverage: Jackson Farms is a family farm in Wilder, Idaho, not a breeding institute, and the hop is distributed by three separate companies. No single scraper will ever find hops like this.
For brewers and data folks: this hop as JSON · the source file · where America's hops grow