Sabro

Sabro is the brand name of the variety HBC 438. It comes from the Hop Breeding Company (HBC) in the Yakima Valley in Washington: a partnership between John I. Haas and Select Botanicals Group. Citra and Mosaic come from the same breeder. HBC announced Sabro on 23 April 2018.

The variety is protected by an American plant patent (PP29577, granted in 2018). It states that HBC 438 is a seedling from an open pollination of the mother plant 'YCR 123'. The father is therefore unknown. According to John I. Haas, one of the two companies behind HBC, YCR 123 is a female neomexicanus hop. Neomexicanus is a wild form of hop from the southwest of the United States.

The breeder Jason Perrault calls Sabro the result of twenty years of work to combine those wild genes with good growing and brewing properties.

Coconut is the note that recurs in all the descriptions we consulted. In the patent, the breeder describes the aroma as peach, stone fruit, tropical, cedar and coconut. At the launch, HBC mentioned mandarin, coconut, tropical fruit and stone fruit, with hints of cedar, mint and cream. Haas adds vanilla and dill to that. Which compound exactly gives the coconut aroma, we have not found in any study.

How much picking time matters has been studied, though. An international study from 2021 compared five American hop varieties, from two companies and at three picking times. The variety determined the largest differences in composition, ripeness at harvest the second largest. According to the researchers, ripeness had clearly more influence for some varieties, such as Sabro, Mosaic, Simcoe and Citra. The company where the hops grew made the least difference.

According to the measurements in the patent, the hop oil of Sabro consists of about 61% myrcene, with about 10% each of caryophyllene and humulene. In addition there are small amounts of citronellol, geraniol and linalool. Haas gives other proportions on its specification sheet (40–55% myrcene, 15–20% caryophyllene); such values differ by harvest.

Sabro is mainly a hop for aroma and flavour: the patent names the special aroma as the reason to use it, and HBC released it as a 'flavor hop'. The alpha acid content is high, though. The measurements in the patent come to an average of 14.5%; Haas gives 12–16% and BarthHaas 11.6–17%, depending on the harvest.

According to the brewmaster at Haas, Sabro works in many styles, especially in hoppy beers. BarthHaas mentions SMaSH beers (beer with a single malt and a single hop), IPA and NEIPA.

The sources we consulted do not name a fixed substitute. In the patent, Chinook serves as a comparison variety, but the aroma clearly differs: according to that same patent, Chinook smells of grapefruit, herbs and pine, not of coconut.

According to the patent, HBC 438 was tested for years around Toppenish in Washington, from 2012 also on a trial field of one acre (0.4 hectares). The variety turned out to be resistant to powdery mildew. The first patent application dates from November 2015. The launch followed on 23 April 2018, with trial beers at the Craft Brewers Conference in Nashville a week later. The patent was granted in August 2018.

Sabro has remained a small variety. In 2025 it stood at 181 acres in Washington, about 73 hectares. Citra stood at well over 7,500 acres in the US that year.

A good starting point: a hazy IPA or pale ale with only Sabro. Smell first. Coconut, mandarin and stone fruit are the notes the breeder mentions, sometimes with something creamy, cedar or mint.

Because the aroma shifts with picking time, Sabro can turn out differently from beer to beer. Hop aroma is also fragile: drink such beers fresh.