8% US saaz?

Wasn't even thinking at the LHBS to check the alpha on the pack of hops before leaving, but I decided to check when I got home. The pack of US saaz has the alpha listed at 8.1% which seems high.

I'm guessing I should go by what's on the package but could this be a misprint?

I did a quick check and found out that the US Saaz has much higher AA% than the Czeck Saaz hops. The European version is usually 3% to 5% AA, but the US version seems to come in around 7% to 8%. I have also heard that the US Saaz has a harsher flavor to go with the higher AA percentage. I cannot verify this, since I have only used the Euro version, though.

DrummerBoySeth said:

I did a quick check and found out that the US Saaz has much higher AA% than the Czeck Saaz hops. The European version is usually 3% to 5% AA, but the US version seems to come in around 7% to 8%. I have also heard that the US Saaz has a harsher flavor to go with the higher AA percentage. I cannot verify this, since I have only used the Euro version, though.

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Strange - HopUnion list US Saaz as 3.5-4.5. I'd imagine the company selling them would be somewhat up to date. I'll cut them down from 1/2 oz to 1/4 oz, and take it from there.

It depends on the location of the individual farm that grows the hops, weather, harvest time, year harvested, and so on. The information I saw mentioned that a late harvest in 2011 caused some US Saaz to have much higher AA% than expected. Since AA changes with all these variables, I would expect that the 8.1% listed on the package is likely to be accurate. It would probably be a good idea to update the AA of the hops in your brewing software to accomodate for this difference.