Sterling
The closest American hop to Saaz: herbal, spicy and lightly citric, with more alpha than the original.
Alpha acid
6-9%
6% - 9%
Against every variety on this site
Typical use
Dual
Enough alpha to bitter and enough character to finish the same beer.
At 60 minutes
26 IBU
For 30 g at the mid-range alpha in a 20 litre batch at 1.050, by Tinseth
Origin
USA
Publicly released in 1998
Where it belongs
- Czech Premium Pale Lager
- Saison
- Belgian Tripel
If you cannot get it
Ranked by how convincingly each one stands in. A substitution changes the beer; matching the alpha acid only matches the bitterness, not the aroma.
Buying it
Hops are perishable and alpha acid falls with warm storage. Buy vacuum-packed pellets, check the crop year and the alpha figure printed on the pack, and keep them in a freezer. A pack stored in a warm cupboard for a year can have lost a third of its bitterness, which is the usual reason a repeated recipe comes out tasting flat.
Find Sterling pelletsAn affiliate search link, scoped to this variety rather than to a guessed listing.
More from USA
Cascade
4.5-7%Grapefruit and floral. The hop that defined American pale ale, and still the reference point for citrus character.
Centennial
9.5-11.5%Cascade turned up: more citrus, more floral, and enough alpha to carry the bittering charge as well.
Citra
11-13%Passionfruit, mango and lime. The dominant hop of the hazy era, and unmistakable even at small late additions.
Mosaic
11.5-13.5%Blueberry, mango and a resinous edge. Complex enough to carry a single-hop beer.
Simcoe
12-14%Pine, passionfruit and a distinctive cat-like note some drinkers love and others cannot get past.
Chinook
12-14%Pine and grapefruit pith, with a hard, resinous bitterness. Assertive as a late addition.