Denali was trademarked and released by Yakima Chief Ranches in the late 2010s, developed as a high-yield alternative to some of the more established tropical-and-pine American hops, aimed at giving growers a variety that could match the aromatic intensity brewers wanted without the acreage constraints that keep hops like Simcoe or Amarillo in comparatively tight supply.
Denali's alpha acid tops out at 14-16%, plenty for a legitimate bittering addition, and it backs that up with a potent tangerine, pine and tropical fruit combination that reads bold and immediate rather than subtle — closer in intensity to Citra or Mosaic than to a more restrained variety like Amarillo, and strong enough that a relatively modest dry-hop weight delivers a pronounced aroma. Its yield advantage over some of its more established competitors has helped keep it more consistently available and reasonably priced even as demand for hazy IPA hops has grown.
Whatever the actual lot's alpha acid reads, running a Denali-based addition through the IBU calculator beats assuming the published midpoint holds. Citra is the closer substitute for the tangerine-and-tropical side of Denali's profile, while Simcoe offers a substitute for the pine character specifically, without Denali's brighter fruit sweetness. Hazy IPA and West Coast-style IPA both use Denali, often as a primary hop given its combination of intensity and availability. Denali's alpha floor sits above the ceiling of both Citra and Simcoe, so a Denali-based bittering charge needs less weight than either substitute would at the same target IBU.