Australian Hops account for slightly less than 1% of world hop acreage and world hop production; and Australia accounts for about 1% of world beer production. At face value, this suggests that Australian domestic hop supply and demand are in balance. However, most beers made and consumed in Australia are international-style lagers of fairly low bitterness and only moderate aroma profiles, and they are often lightened with the addition of cane sugar and flavored with hop extracts and oils. See international pilsner. Add to this the fact that roughly three-quarters of Australia’s hop production is in high-alpha varieties and less than 1% in aroma varieties and it becomes clear that Australian hop growers regularly produce surplus bittering hops for export. Not surprisingly, the key market for Australian hop exports is the burgeoning beer market in Asia, especially in China—markets dominated by some of the world’s lowest-hopped beers, with bitterness often barely above the taste threshold. To put this in perspective, China now produces almost one-quarter of the world’s beer volume of about 1.8 billion hl (approx. 1.5 billion US bbl) annually, but only about 10% of the world’s hops. In addition to serving their domestic market, it is toward this export market that Australian hop growers orient their production. The main Australian hop regions are the states of Tasmania and Victoria; the main varieties grown there are the high-alpha varieties Millennium and Super Pride. Together these two varieties amount to almost one-third of Australian hop production, followed by Pride of Ringwood and Topaz, which together account for roughly one-quarter. The other varieties of note are Cluster and Victoria. See cluster (hop) and pride of ringwood (hop). Pride of Ringwood is an Australian-bred high-alpha hop from the Carlton and United Breweries Ringwood Research Station in Melbourne, Victoria. It was released in 1953 and has been Australia’s dominant hop variety since the 1960s. It has a pleasant aroma and an average alpha acid rating of about 9% to 10.5%. It is considered the archetype source of “Australian” beer flavor. This hop is also one of the progenitors of the Australian-bred Super Pride, bred by Hop Products Australia’s Rostrevor Breeding Garden in Victoria and released in 1987. It is a seedless high-alpha variety with a mild aroma, but an alpha acid rating of approximately 13.5% to 15%, several percentage points higher than that of its mother, Pride of Ringwood. Victoria, also bred by Rostrevor, is a seedless high-alpha variety with about 11.5% to 14.8% alpha acids. Released in 1976, Victoria is widely used as a source of varietal CO₂ extract. Topaz, another Rostrevor product, was released in 1985. It is an agronomically robust variety that was selected almost exclusively for its high average alpha acid content of 15.5% to 18%. Millennium is a high-alpha triploid cultivar that was bred in the United States by the Barth-Haas group and released for commercial production in 2000. It has a profile similar to that of Nugget and CTZ. See ctz (hop) and nugget (hop). In Australia it achieves alpha acid values of 13.5% to 15%. Finally, Australian-grown Cluster, which is an old American variety, tends to have a slightly lower alpha acid rating there than in its homeland, achieving 3.8% to 5% versus 4.5% to 5.5% in the American-grown Cluster.