Name: Colston Bassett Stilton
Brand: Neal's Yard Dairy
SKU: 710-3704
Price: 10.4 GBP
Availability: InStock

A blue for those who ‘don’t like blues’, the Stilton we buy from Colston Bassett is made exclusively for Neal’s Yard Dairy. Gentler, sweeter and more balanced than a ‘typical’ blue cheese, it boasts a creamy, buttery paste pierced with the delicate blue veining characteristic of a Stilton.

Portion — Smallest Piece

Smallest Piece Minimum 305 g

Sixteenth Minimum 485 g

Eighth Minimum 975 g

Quarter Minimum 1835 g

Half Minimum 3910 g

Whole Minimum 7820 g

Quantity

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Spend over £39.50 to receive free delivery (England, Wales & Central Scotland)

Standard delivery is free to most postcodes in the UK for orders over £39.50. Click here for a list of postcodes where additional delivery charges apply.

For orders under £39.50, standard delivery is £8.00.

Collection from our London shops is free - choose Shop Collection at checkout.

Choose your preferred delivery date at checkout. As we use third party couriers (typically DPD) we cannot guarantee the arrival day of your order but we will do our best to ensure that it arrives as close as possible to your chosen date. To be sure it arrives in time, we recommend choosing a date a couple of days ahead of when you would like to eat your cheese.

FIND OUT MORE

Towers of smaller and larger cuts, and a whole Colston Bassett Stilton cheese with blue veining and a creamy, buttery paste

Close up of Colston Bassett Stilton cheese showing creamy paste and delicate blue veining

Close up of half a Colston Bassett Stilton cheese showing creamy paste and delicate blue veining

milk type
Cow

ingredients
MILK, salt, rennet

coagulant
Animal Rennet

milk treatment
Pasteurised

location
Colston Bassett, Nottinghamshire

milk source
Farmers cooperative

milk type
Cow

ingredients
MILK, salt, rennet

coagulant
Animal Rennet

milk treatment
Pasteurised

location
Colston Bassett, Nottinghamshire

milk source
Farmers cooperative

season
All year

average age
4-6 Months

cheesemakers
Billy Kevan

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Set up as a cooperative in 1913, Colston Bassett Dairy is still owned by the farmers who supply the milk, and a handful of local residents.

Background

Colston Bassett Dairy, which was set up as a cooperative in 1913 and is still owned by a handful of local residents and the farmers who supply the milk, is one of only five dairies in the world still producing Stilton – and the only one that continues the traditional process of ladling the curds from the vat to the cooling trays entirely by hand: an important step in achieving a smooth, rich-textured cheese. The milk is sourced from farms within 1½ miles of the dairy, and the head cheesemaker, Billy Kevan, is only the fourth person to have held the post in more than a century.

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Our Work

Billy is a long-standing friend of Neal's Yard Dairy, having worked with us for many years to perfect the recipe for the Stilton we buy: a buttery, silky cheese with an elegant sweetness. As well as hand-ladling the curds, Billy uses a traditional rennet in our Stilton, which imparts a longer, more complex taste – and the piercing (the process by which the cheese is quite literally pierced to allow air in to activate the mould) takes place later in the maturation process, when the curds have developed more, in order to strike the right balance between creamy, flavoursome paste and blue mould.

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Colston Bassett Stilton in the maturing arches at Colston Bassett Dairy

Accompaniments

Biscuit Selection
£7.95

Brown Bread Crackers
£3.15

Quince Paste - 200g Slice
£13.40

Serving Suggestions

Top a thick Ortney oatcake with Colston Bassett and drizzle with honey.

Recipes

Steak & Blue Cheese Pie

Bake a comforting steak pie with tender meat, a deeply savoury gravy and molten blue cheese for an extra hit of flavour. The ideal winter warmer.

Warm New Potato and Colston Bassett Stilton Salad

This warm salad makes a real meal of new potatoes, mixed with sweet caramelised onions, a punchy mustardy dressing, soft blue cheese and a handful or two of colourful seasonal salad leaves.

Colston Bassett Stilton & Bacon Gratin

This crispy, cheesy, creamy stilton and bacon gratin is just what you need on those cold winter nights.

FAQs

Yes, the prices shown above are inclusive of a significant bulk discount for quarters, halves and whole cheeses.

As a general rule of thumb, we would recommend roughly between 100 and 150 grams per person for after dinner, and a bit more if cheese is the focus of the meal. If you are buying cheese to serve over a couple of days or as part of a buffet, it is advisable to buy a few larger pieces. This will both look better and keep better than many small bits. To help visualise weights, a good tip is to consider that a regular supermarket pat of butter weighs between 200 and 250 grams. If you are at all unsure please give us a call for some advice.

The best option is to keep your cheese wrapped in its paper within a box in the fridge. This will prevent the cheese from drying out and absorbing other flavours. Your cheese will arrive wrapped in waxed cheese paper, which achieves the best possible balance between maintaining humidity around the cheese and allowing it to breathe. We are happy to provide some free extra cheese paper, just search for "cheese paper" and add it to your basket. We don't recommend cling film or foil as it can cause the cheese to sweat which will negatively affect the flavour.