FreshieChinook
The pine-forward bittering classic.
What it tastes like
If a beer hits you with that classic Pacific Northwest pine-forest aroma, that's Chinook. It's a heavy, resinous, almost spicy hop that built the bitterness of countless West Coast IPAs in the 1990s. Less popular as an aroma hop today, but still a workhorse for IPA bittering.
Best in these styles
Beers showcasing Chinook
- IPAStone
- Celebration AleSierra Nevada
Substitutes & relatives
If you can't source Chinook, these hops bring overlapping character.
Lineage & family
How Chinook connects to the rest of the hop family — its parents, and the varieties it spawned. Trace the full pedigree in the Hop Lineage explorer →
Blood relatives
Genetically closest in the pedigree (may taste different):
Pedigree data adapted from the Rohwer (2021) hop family tree (CC0 1.0). Compilation, analysis & visualisation © 2026 Veryation · Freshie™.
For brewers — technical profile
Oil composition
History
Bred by the USDA, released 1985. Originally intended as a high-alpha bittering hop, but Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale and others established it as a credible aroma contributor too.
Explore more hops
Flavor twins across Freshie
Drinks and foods across Freshie that share Chinook’s flavor fingerprint — matched on shared flavor axes via the Freshie Taste Graph.