Rakau a.k.a. Alpharoma
A New Zealand dual-purpose hop — apricot and stone fruit.
What it tastes like
Rakau (once Alpharoma) is a New Zealand dual-purpose hop with a clean, resinous bitterness and a fragrant aroma of apricot, stone fruit and citrus. Versatile across the boil, it's a flavorful single-hop option for pale ales and IPAs.
Best in these styles
Beers showcasing Rakau
Specific beer examples coming soon.
Substitutes & relatives
If you can't source Rakau, these hops bring overlapping character.
Lineage & family
How Rakau 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
Rakau is a New Zealand triploid dual-purpose variety (breeding line 70-4-9, formerly Alpharoma) from Plant & Food Research, re-released for trials around 2007.
Sources
So you can see nothing here is made up — the published specifications on this page are traceable to grower / breeder data: