The brewing world increasingly demands consistency, efficiency, and flavor fidelity. As craft beer evolves and consumer expectations rise, brewers rely on more than just great hops - they need reliable, repeatable performance across crop years, varieties, and global supply chains. This is exactly where Sensory Plus™ comes in. It’s the underlying quality engine that powers a new generation of hop products such as LupoCORE™, ensuring that brewers can trust every pellet, every batch, every time.
What is Sensory Plus™?
Sensory Plus™ is not merely a step in a workflow - it is a multi-layered selection process blending expert sensory evaluation with advanced technical analysis. It combines high precision sensory science, technical chemical analysis, and yearly brewing trials to guarantee that Lupo Series products stay true to type, crop after crop.
Sensory Plus™ is built on four pillars:
1. Intentional & Analytical Approach
Sensory Plus™ begins with a rigorous selection process that evaluates each hop lot based not only on chemistry but also on sensory attributes linked to flavor, aroma, and varietal integrity. Data, gathered over multiple years by our teams at Haas, and expert sensory evaluation, guide the entire process. Annual brewing trials complete the evaluation loop.
2. A Holistic, Layered Quality System
The process follows hops from harvest intake, through selection, blending, and cold process refining, creating hop products that maintain alignment with desired sensory profiles. This holistic approach ensures the final pellet reflects the intended flavor signature.
3. Global Integration & Adoption
The consistency resulting from the Sensory Plus™ process provides reliable impact, true to type flavor and global access for brewers of all sizes. Small craft producers can trust products engineered with Sensory Plus ™ technology to be consistent in core range products, without the need for hop selection. Larger scale producers who require multi-site recipe transfer or enhanced seasonal releases receive the same consistent high performance, batch after batch.
4. Annual Brewing Trials for Verification
Yearly brewing trials validate all sensory and analytical findings, ensuring that no hop product is released without proof that it performs as intended in real brewing conditions.
How the Sensory Plus™ Process Works?
1. Harvest & Intake
Hops are evaluated at intake for crop year character, varietal accuracy, and overall quality. Only lots that meet sensory and chemical standards enter the Sensory Plus™ pipeline.
2. Selection
A large pool of hop lots is narrowed down using combined sensory and analytical evaluation. The goal is to identify lots that match the target flavor and aroma fingerprint for each variety.
3. Build & Blend
The selected lots are blended to match the "true-to-type" profile. This blending ensures consistency - even when growing conditions vary across farms or years.
4. Cold Processing & Refinement
Once blended, the hops undergo a cold processing refinement stage. This crucial step removes coarse vegetal matter and concentrates the lupulin component, responsible for flavor and aroma. This refinement results in pellets that are cleaner, softer, richer in essential oils, and less likely to create hop burn or process loss.
5. Validation through brewing trials
Before products reach the market, they are tested in brewing trials to confirm aroma consistency, flavour stability, and efficiency gains. This final step ensures that consistency, batch after batch, is not left to chance.
Why Sensory Plus™ Matters for LupoCORE™?
The Sensory Plus™ process means that pellets from the Lupo Series deliver consistent brewing performance. LupoMAX has already set the standard for enhanced hop expression, reduced process loss, and improved brewhouse efficiency for brewers around the world. However, LupoCORE™ is the direct beneficiary of the Sensory Plus™ methodology. The process ensures that LupoCORE™ is:
True to Type
LupoCORE™ is engineered to deliver consistent varietal character for hops like Citra®, Mosaic®, and Krush® - even as crop conditions change from year to year.
A Reliable 1:1 Substitute for T90 Pellets
With its enhanced refinement and lupulin concentration, LupoCORE™ offers cleaner bitterness, more focused aroma, and improved flavor delivery without requiring recipe changes.
More Efficient in the Brewhouse
Thanks to refined pellet structure and better dispersion, brewers see improved yields (1.5–2% more beer), reduced losses, and fewer problems like clogging.
Globally Consistent
Because Sensory Plus™ is standardized across regions, brewers in Europe, the US, or Australia can expect identical performance. This is especially crucial for brands with multiple production locations.
Real World Impact: Brewer Feedback
Industry leading brewers have achieved their quality and production goals through the use of Lupo Series products:
"The attention to selection for LupoCORE, along with utilizing comprehensive data makes, makes it a great alternative to hop selection. LupoCORE combines a team that has a ton of hop selection experience, along with years of selection data from HAAS, the two aspects combined make for a high-quality product."
JEREMY MOYNIER, STONE BREWING
"Outstanding pellets; soft and easy to break apart, dispersing more effectively than T90s, with an intense, true-to-type aroma that rivals the best lots available. Although we typically use a higher dose for dry hopping, these delivered more impact at a lower rate. If consistency holds, this could be a game changer."
DAVIDE SALVALAIO, BUSA DEI BRIGANTI FARM BREWERY
"The consistency with LupoCORE in its true-to-type profile, coupled with the increased dispersibility we observed and higher perceived aroma, all contributed to a better-quality final product."
GARY FARLOW, OSSETT BREWERY
These insights reinforce that Sensory Plus™ doesn’t just improve hop quality - it transforms brewhouse results.
Conclusion: Sensory Plus™ Is the Foundation for Modern Hop Excellence
The Sensory Plus™ process is far more than a quality control step. It’s a methodology, a system, and a guarantee. Through rigorous sensory evaluation, analytical testing, strategic blending, and cold process refinement, Sensory Plus™ delivers hop products that brewers can trust - year after year, crop after crop.
And LupoCORE™ is its most compelling example: A next generation hop pellet that blends T90 familiarity with elevated performance, enabled entirely by the Sensory Plus™ standard.