From the Bar – Ta Henket, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery

Having a thing for cats pretty much guarantees at some point you’ll become fascinated with Ancient Egypt.  And thus started my interest in history and religious myths. 

When I read in the Smithsonian Magazine that some brewers were making ancient alcoholic beverages, I set out to find some of them.  Our local Wegmans suprised me by having two of them, Dogfish Head’s Ta Henket and their Midas Touch.   Haven’t got the Midas Touch yet, so that’ll be another post. 

Ta Henket is one very odd beer.  As far as I can tell, no hops, it’s only brewed with herbs, dates (I think this is what “dom fruit” is) some ancient form of wheat (emmer?)  and water.  They went to Egypt to capture wild yeasties to make it as authentic as possible. Make me wonder what customs thought about the petri dishes…..

The flavor starts out with a sweetness that I attribute to the barley.  Then you get the herbal hit, from the za’atar, and finally I can taste the grassy chamomile.  It is a very savory beer with an acidic background that almost reads as “salty”.    The scent is a bit funky and happily, for me at least, it doesn’t much carry over into the beer itself.    

I’d buy it again, definitely in the warm months.