Here is the selection for February's Cheese of the Month:
Innes Brick
Made by Joe Bennett & Amiee Lawn near Tamworth, Staffordshire. Raw goat’s milk, animal rennet.
Innes Brick is one of our most delicate soft goat’s cheeses, both in flavour and texture. Its sweet and lactic flavours bring notes of hazelnut. Joe and Amiee drive their cheeses to London each Friday. We then have a weekly tasting and troubleshooting session with them over breakfast, which has helped the cheese evolve into the wonderful cheese you have today. Innes Brick is matured exclusively at Neal’s Yard Dairy from a young age, in our climate-controlled rooms. While with us, the rind becomes more established and the flavour of the cheese deepens.
Montgomery's Cheddar
Made by Jamie Montgomery and team near North Cadbury, Somerset. Raw cow's milk, animal rennet.
Montgomery’s has long been a staple on our counters and indeed in our homes. This unique cheddar has been made at Manor Farm in North Cadbury since 1911. When Jamie took over from his mother in the mid-nineties, the market was dominated by cheese with a bright, acid, sharp flavour set in a soft creamy paste, which was matured in rindless blocks, well suited to supermarket cutting lines. Determined to do things differently, he continued to make clothbound cheese with raw milk, achieving a drier texture and more complex savoury, brothy flavours.
Mature Kirkham's Lancashire
Made by Graham Kirkham and team near Goosnargh, Lancashire. Raw cow's milk, animal rennet.
This cheese has been aged for almost a year by our Borough Market Shop maturing team. The cheeses are selected by our buying team at the farm when they are 6 weeks old, and then sent down to our shop a few weeks later. At the shop they are turned and gently rubbed down with a damp cloth once a week. The team regularly taste through the cheeses on the shelves with our buyer to choose which batches to sell next and allocate particular profiles to specific customers. For you, Phil chose a batch which he described as “moist, nicely structured, fluffy with big, long-lasting sweet flavours.”
Riseley
Made by Anne Wigmore near Riseley in Berkshire. Thermised sheep’s milk, vegetarian coagulant.
Riseley is the washed-rind cousin of Wigmore cheese. It is a collaboration between cheesemaker Anne Wigmore and our maturation team in Bermondsey. In recent times they have been working together to improve flavours by moving to a smaller format cheese. The washing process takes up to four weeks and involves dabbing and gently scrubbing the rind with water or brine every few days. The cheese you have before you is a testament to the power of maturation and its influence on the flavour and personality of a cheese.