Citra is one of the defining hop varieties of the American craft-brewing era — a proprietary variety released by the Hop Breeding Company (a joint venture between Yakima Chief Ranches, John I. Haas, and Select Botanicals Group) in 2007, bred specifically for the intense, distinctive citrus-and-tropical-fruit aroma that has since become closely associated with modern American pale ales and IPAs.
Alpha acid and use
Citra typically runs 10-15% alpha acid, which puts it comfortably in dual-purpose territory — strong enough to use as a meaningful bittering charge, but far more commonly used for its aroma and flavour contribution in late-boil, whirlpool and dry-hop additions, where its alpha acid content matters far less than its oil profile. Brewers chasing maximum aroma with minimum harsh bitterness will often reserve Citra almost entirely for late additions and lean on a cleaner, more neutral bittering hop earlier in the boil.
Citrus, tropical fruit, and that gooseberry note
Citra's aroma is famously intense and immediately recognisable: bright citrus (grapefruit and lime lean stronger than orange), ripe tropical fruit (mango, passionfruit), and a distinctive gooseberry note that shows up more strongly in Citra than in most other American varieties. This combination is a large part of why Citra became a flagship hop for the New England/hazy IPA style, where late and dry hopping is pushed hard specifically to maximise this aroma profile.
Mosaic and Galaxy, not quite the same
When Citra isn't available — it's a proprietary variety and can be harder to source or more expensive than public varieties — Mosaic and Galaxy are the two most commonly reached-for substitutes. Mosaic shares Citra's tropical-fruit-forward profile with its own additional blueberry and pine notes; Galaxy leans further into passionfruit and stone fruit with a slightly different citrus balance. Neither is a perfect match — hop aroma character comes from a complex mix of essential oils that varies meaningfully even between varieties bred for similar target profiles — but both land in the same general "bold, fruity, modern American hop" territory a recipe built around Citra is usually chasing.
Typical use in recipes
Because Citra's aroma is so distinctive and can dominate a beer's overall hop character even in relatively small quantities, many recipes that feature it as the primary hop keep the total hop bill relatively simple — Citra alone, or Citra paired with one complementary variety (commonly Mosaic or a cleaner supporting hop like Simcoe) — rather than blending it into a large multi-variety hop bill where its character risks getting muddied. Run your planned addition through the IBU calculator with Citra's alpha acid range to see exactly how much bitterness a given weight and boil time actually contributes, by both the Tinseth and Rager formulas.
Growing region
Citra is grown almost entirely in the Yakima Valley of Washington State, the heart of American hop production, under trademark and proprietary-variety protections that mean it can't legally be grown or sold under the Citra name outside licensed growers. This is part of why supply can tighten and prices can rise in high-demand years — unlike a public-domain variety like Cascade, which any grower can propagate freely, Citra's supply is more directly controlled by its breeding consortium.
In the glass
Beyond the headline citrus and tropical fruit notes, brewers who work with Citra regularly often describe a secondary quality that's harder to pin down precisely — sometimes noted as a faint cattiness or pungency underneath the fruit when used heavily, particularly in dry-hop-forward beers. This is one reason Citra is frequently blended with a second variety rather than used as the sole hop in very heavily dry-hopped styles: the blend rounds out that sharper edge while keeping the fruit-forward character the variety is prized for.