Pilot

Clean bittering or a late hop with aromas of spice, lemon and marmalade; unusual essential oils for a British hop, per Charles Faram.

Dual purpose

Origin United Kingdom

Bred by Wye College

One source

Smells like: Spice, Lemon, Orange
Bitterness: Moderate (7–10% alpha)
Swap it for: East Kent Golding · compare them →

Brewing values

range on filetypicalbreeder or labmerchant

Alpha acid

7–10% typical 8.5

7 10

1 source, spread of 3%

Charles Faram7–10

Beta acid

3–3.5% typical 3.3

3 3.5

1 source, spread of 0.5%

Charles Faram3–3.5

Cohumulone

28–33% of alpha typical 30.5

28 33

1 source, spread of 5% of alpha

Charles Faram28–33

Alpha to beta runs about 2.6:1, which is what governs how fast the bitterness fades in storage.

Oil composition

Myrcene55.1%
Humulene44.9%

Normalised to 100% so this hop can be compared like for like. The published components sum to 68% of total oil in the source data.

Aroma

Spice
Lemon
Orange

What to swap it for

East Kent Golding 74

aroma 53 · oils 93 · chemistry 83
Junga 64

aroma 47 · oils 83 · chemistry 66
Mackinac 63

aroma 45 · oils 68 · chemistry 82
Mount Hood 62

aroma 61 · oils 62 · chemistry 64
Pulawski 62

aroma 27 · oils 79 · chemistry 93 · shifts dual to aroma
Adeena 57

aroma 48 · oils 48 · chemistry 79 · shifts dual to aroma

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. Bred at Wye College, a daughter of Pioneer; released 2001.

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