Melba was released by Hop Products Australia, named after Dame Nellie Melba, the celebrated Australian opera singer whose name has also been attached to several other Australian culinary and cultural exports over the decades — a naming choice that ties the hop specifically to Australian cultural identity rather than to a growing region or breeding institution the way most hop names work.
At 6-8% alpha acid, Melba is a genuine aroma-focused hop, with peach, apricot and mild floral notes forming a stone-fruit profile that stands apart from the passion-fruit-and-citrus vocabulary most Australian hops are known for internationally. That stone-fruit lean gives Melba a gentler, sweeter character than Galaxy or Vic Secret, closer in spirit to some of the melon-and-stone-fruit American hops like Palisade than to its own more famous Australian relatives.
Don't expect Melba's moderate, aroma-first alpha to deliver Topaz- or Enigma-level bittering strength — the IBU calculator will show the real gap on a bittering or late addition. Palisade, despite growing on an entirely different continent, offers the closer aromatic comparison for the stone-fruit character specifically. Ella and Galaxy, both Australian hops, serve as alternatives if stone fruit specifically isn't essential to the recipe. Australian pale ale and hazy IPA both use Melba where a gentler, peach-forward note is specifically wanted over a louder passion-fruit or berry hop. Galaxy and Ella both run an alpha ceiling roughly double Melba's own, so neither is a realistic bittering match despite both being reasonable aromatic alternatives.