Every advancement in the hop industry — T90 pellets, T45 pellets, cryogenically processed pellets, and other enhanced pellets — was driven by a real need from brewers to improve beer yields by using hops with less vegetative material, brewing more efficiently while optimizing flavor. Then the enhanced and concentrated pellet market exploded, with growers and suppliers each producing their line of pellets that answer efficiency demands in a saturated IPA industry.
Brewers build recipes and beer lineups around specific hop varieties, some even fly to and from Yakima for selection to ensure their beers express the same hop character year after year. But as with any agricultural product, there will always be some variation from lot to lot and from crop year to crop year. This means you can have your recipe dialed in one season, then something could be different next year, forcing you to tweak and adjust again in order to get the flavor back where you want it.
This is why John I. Haas developed LupoMAX® and LupoCORE™, two different pellet formats united by the same product foundation: consistent sensory outcomes. Together they make the Lupo Series™, where consistency isn’t an afterthought, it’s the foundation for better, more efficient beer.
The Lupo Series™ hop pellets are a next-generation product designed to deliver consistency, efficiency, and optimized hop expression in every brew.
LupoMAX is a concentrated pellet designed for high-impact flavor with less vegetative material and greater efficiency. LupoCORE is an enhanced pellet built to improve consistency and quality of traditional T90 pellets with reliable sensory outcomes and repeatable brewhouse performance. Both pellets are produced using Sensory Plus™.
What is Sensory Plus™?
Sensory Plus is a production methodology built on a multi-layered selection process that pairs sensory evaluation with advanced technical analysis. It ensures consistent, year-over-year hop flavor and expression for brewers that need reliable, repeatable hop performance. Starting with selection through to the final pellet, brewing values and sensory data are analyzed every step of the way by a team of trained brewers, scientists, and sensory experts.
Here’s a step-by-step of the Sensory Plus process from John I. Haas:
- Raw-material screening: Only the most promising lots of each variety move forward, based on sensory character and key analytical markers.
- Profiling: We use advanced technical analysis and aroma evaluation to define each crop’s unique sensory fingerprint.
- Product-specific lot selection: We select and blend hops to hit tight spec targets that match the profile of the previous year’s product (acids, total oil, etc.).
- Brewing validation: Final Sensory Plus blends are test-brewed and verified for real-world consistency before ever reaching your brewhouse.
What does this mean for brewers?
With Sensory Plus, the hops you bought last year will behave like the ones you buy this year. Where the broader market delivers intensity, the Lupo Series delivers identity: a defined hop character brewers can build a brand around. The practical benefits go further:
- Empowers brewers with greater creative control without the need for traditional, in-person selection.
- Eliminates variables in recipe development, so you can build new beers with fewer adjustments.
- No more lot searching. When a beer takes off, the hops you need are there, ready to scale.
- Designed for breweries of any size. Selection is streamlined when the flavor profile is already validated, making it easy to spot-buy or contract.
"A consistent true to type product like LupoCORE... that doesn't require the huge logistical and financial burden of hop selection [is] a huge plus to the brewing industry as a whole." - Barry Chan, Lucky Envelope Brewing
Efficiency is just the beginning
The first wave of concentrated and enhanced pellets asked, how do we get more flavor from fewer hops? The Lupo Series asks, how do we make sure those hops taste the same every time? Sensory Plus is no marketing claim, but a production process that ensures varieties will be true-to-type each year. For brewers that build beers and reputations around consistent hop flavor, the Lupo Series gets you from pilot trial to full-scale production faster — a game changer for recipe development and hop sourcing.
Explore LupoMAX® and LupoCORE™ varieties, available now on our website. For questions or help dialing in a recipe, reach out to brewing.solutions@johnihaas.com.
