Tasting Notes: Windsor and Eton: Thorpe Park Hyperia Lager

Windsor and Eton: Thorpe Park Hyperia Lager (England: Pale Lager: 3.4% ABV)

Visual: Slightly darkened yellow gold coloured body with lots of small bubbled carbonation. Very large mounded white head.

Nose: Vanilla. Popcorn. Quite clean. Light citrus. Lime. Light milk and crusty white bread. Brown bread as it warms.

Body: Slight brown sugar. Crunchy nut cornflakes. Light sourness – like very watered down very mild pickles. Flout dusting. Brown bread.

Finish: Slight black liquorice touch. Flour. Slight charring. Very slight mild sour freshness. Slightly chalky bitterness. Flour dusting. Slightly rough edged bitterness.

Conclusion: You know, Hyperia, the ride that is not this beer, while not perfect and from what I hear had some cost cutting in the making of it, is a big exciting ride. Lots of adrenaline.

This beer of its namesake plays things a lot safer. Also I am amused for the UK’s tallest roller-coaster, of the two Thorpe beers I have, this has the smaller abv.

Early on it feels quite clean, and even slight sweet, it adds an odd very light sourness that makes it very easy to drink early on, but as the hop bitterness rises that vanishes, as does the sweeter notes.

The bitterness is low level for the main part, but kind of rough in the finish. That slight rough hops that ends up hiding the sweetness does give the beer a degree of progression as you drink it, but the roughness makes it not the best one. At this lower abv I would expect something a bit more sessionable as it feels a bit rough for that.

It’s … fine, however I am spoiled on the cheaper and far better German Lagers I can easily get locally. This was over five pounds even with my friend kindly letting me use his discount, and over seven quid normally. Admittedly, park prices, so for that kind of what you expect – but for that kind of money I expect a more polished quality.

Park prices are silly.

Anyway, its got a good gentle sweet start, but it doesn’t handle the hop balance well. I appreciate the bitterness, but not the slight roughness they use with it. The aroma hinted at there being a bit more to the beer, a soft citrus to play with, but that never really developed.

So, only one to get if you really want the can with the ride logo on it, otherwise get yourself some great German or Czech pils.

Background: So, turns out Thorpe Park has beers made tied to some of their big name roller-coasters, something I found out when friend and huge theme park fan Mark did a video on a can of Swarm Lager he had picked up. So, turns out a few weeks later we were hitting Thorpe Park so I grabbed a can of their Swarm lager and this their Hyperia lager. With them both being lagers I wasn’t sure if they were going to be the same beer, just in different themed cans, but looking at them they have different abvs so I am confident they are different beers. Looks like there used to be a Nemesis Inferno beer as well but I missed that one. Not much else to add, Hyperia was running very well on the day so I had fun with it, even if the queuing was painful. Also the ride has a tag line of “Find Your Fearless” which feels grammatically weird to me. Went with Arcturus: The Sham Mirror as backing music, for some reason it felt like it matched the weird story they made up to back the rollercoaster.