Berkeley Yeast Tropics

What the manufacturer says

TROPICS strains are engineered to pack a tropical punch reminiscent of the finest southern-hemisphere hops, delivering a burst of thiols that unlock vibrant notes of guava, grapefruit, and passion fruit.

Product page

What the evidence says

• Berkeley Yeast discloses that Tropics uses an engineered lyase chosen for selectivity toward the tropical thiols, on a London ale parent. Berkeley Yeast

Rating context: manufacturers usually quote free-thiol concentration relative to the sensory threshold, not conversion yield. Peer-reviewed work finds that only a small fraction of bound precursors is converted in beer fermentation, so the ordering between strains is more reliable than any absolute number Chenot et al. 2021 Michel et al. 2019.

In practice

Sold in professional pitch sizes; homebrewers rarely see it. Behaves like a soft London ale strain otherwise.

Engineered (protein-engineered lyase).

Hops that reward this strain

Citra, Cryo Citra, Cryo Mosaic, Cryo Simcoe, Ekuanot, Galaxy, Hallertau Blanc, Kohatu, Mosaic, Nelson Sauvin, Riwaka, Sabro, Simcoe, Strata, Superdelic, Talus, Vista, Waimea. Each carries a high rating for bound 3MH-family or 4MMP precursors. Mash and whirlpool additions supply precursors during fermentation; a cold dry hop mostly adds the free fraction.