From Vol. 4, No. 1, May 2020
At the 2008 Craft Brewers Conference, Tom Nielsen of Sierra Nevada Brewing talked about the role myrcene played in creating a strong, piney, resinous, highly hopped American beer, with hops introduced post-fermentation to retain the myrcene character that would be lost in boiling. Chinook had the highest myrcene OAV (“odor activity value”) of the popular hops he measured. Piney may have fallen out of style, in some quarters at least, but it turns out Chinook contains esters, terpenes and thiols that contribute to currently popular exotic aroma and flavor.
Heritage: The U.S. Department of Agriculture released Chinook in 1985, a seedling selected from a cross 11 years before. Chuck Zimmerman crossed a female English hop and a male, labeled USDA 63012M, a stud (also father of Centennial and Nugget, among others) that was part of the breeding program at Prosser Station, Washington. The USDA acquired the female, Petham Golding, in 1968 from Wye College. 63012M had been selected from a cross between Brewer’s Gold and a wild hop collected in Utah.
DNA tests in Slovenia confirmed that Golding is the mother of Chinook. However, when Ray Neve of Wye College visited Corvallis in 1977 for the International Hop Growers Convention Scientific Commission meetings, he was shown the plant reputed to be the Petham Golding mother plant. He didn’t think it had the right cone shape and arranged for cuttings to be sent to Wye. Virus tests on the regrowth showed it was infected with hop mosaic disease. Had it been a true Golding, that would have killed it quickly. Later, oil analyses of the cones confirmed that the plant in the Corvallis collection thought to be the mother of Chinook was not a Golding. What has happened to the actual Golding plant that was used to create Chinook is a mystery.
The Basics: Alpha acid range is 11-14%, beta acid range 3-4%, and total oils 1.7-2.7 mL/100 grams. YCH found only Sabro and Centennial had more geraniol, on average, than Chinook among the 34 varieties sampled from the 2019 harvest. Chinook also has a significant amount of 4MMP.
Aroma qualities: The Barth & Sohn Hop Aroma Compendium describes “fennel, basil, elderberry, lychee and red berry” character. BSG Hops offers this description: “Strong notes of grapefruit define this hop. Pungent suggestions of mountain pine and resin (especially in the dry hop) with citrus and fragrant dried herb in the background.”