milk type
Goat
weekly production
100 cheeses
coagulant
Animal Rennet
milk treatment
Pasteurised
location
Dorstone, Herefordshire
milk source
Bought-in
season
All year
average age
2-3 Weeks
cheesemakers
Charlie Westhead
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With windmills and solar panels generating most of their energy and drain water being purified through a wetland system of willows and reeds, Neal's Yard Creamery, where Hay-on-Wye is made, is a model of sustainability.
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our work with this cheese
Accompaniments
Recipes
Cheese and Herb Borek
Anne Gumushchian of Le Marché du Quartier shares her favourite recipe for stuffed boreks, recreated by Victoria Brown.FAQs
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Hay-on-Wye
Hay-on-Wye is the newest cheese from Neal’s Yard Creamery


With windmills and solar panels generating most of their energy and drain water being purified through a wetland system of willows and reeds, Neal's Yard Creamery, where Hay-on-Wye is made, is a model of sustainability.
milk type
Goat
weekly production
100 cheeses
coagulant
Animal Rennet
milk treatment
Pasteurised
location
Dorstone, Herefordshire
milk source
Bought-in
season
All year
average age
2-3 Weeks
cheesemakers
Charlie Westhead
background
Only a hundred Hay-on-Wye cheese are made each week at Neal's Yard Creamery, the Herefordshire home of seasoned cheesemaker Charlie Westhead, whose cheeses have consistently been among some of our most popular goat's cheeses for decades. This tiny production volume – relative to its bestselling siblings Ragstone and Dorstone – makes the Hay-on-Wye ripe for experimentation, and the lessons learned can then be applied to the other cheeses Charlie makes. Like Dorstone and Ragstone, Hay-on-Wye is made using goat's milk bought in from neighbouring Wychmoor Farm at Titley. However, instead of being pre-drained, the curds are hand-ladled directly into moulds and left to settle slowly. It is this that results in the cheese's fine, smooth texture, while a coating of ash and a sprinkling of geotrichum which develops as the cheese ages give it its characteristically fuzzy, dark-grey, speckled appearance.
our work with this cheese
The Hay-on-Wye is made at Neal's Yard Creamery by Charlie Westhead – one of Neal's Yard Dairy's earliest employees. Neal's Yard Dairy started life as an actual dairy in Covent Garden, making yoghurts and crème fraiche and a few young cheeses. As we expanded into selling cheeses made elsewhere and it became apparent that the cheesemaking and cheese selling activities made more sense as separate businesses, the Creamery was established and moved to Kent. While the business has been independent from us since 1996, we continue to work closely together and Charlie remains a valued friend and supplier, and we have made a concerted effort to offer support and feedback for his experimentation. The Hay-on-Wye comes to us ready to sell.