A pile of whole and cut Brefu Bach, showing the smooth mousse-like paste and mould spots forming on the outside of the cheese.

Brefu Bach

The texture of this soft sheep’s milk cheese is moussy, light and fluffy, often with a silky breakdown at the rind. Flavours are delicate and bright with a warm finish reminiscent of fresh cream.

**This cheese intentionally has a very thin mould rind. Because of this, wild moulds- spots of blue, green and grey moulds, often develop on the surface during maturation.These are especially noticeable at present. They are perfectly safe to eat and do not negatively affect the flavour of the cheese. **

Minimum: 130g.

Spend over £29.50 to receive free delivery (England, Wales & Central Scotland)

Delivery Information

Standard delivery is free to most postcodes in the UK for orders over £29.50. Click here for a list of postcodes where additional delivery charges apply.

For orders under £29.50, standard delivery is £6.00.

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.

Download Crib Sheet

milk type
Sheep

ingredients
MILK, salt, rennet

coagulant
Vegetarian Coagulant

milk treatment
Raw

location
Near Bethesda, North Wales

milk source
Bought-in

breed
Lleyn

season
Summer-Autumn

average age
3-4 Weeks

cheesemakers
Carrie Rimes

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This rare example of a Welsh raw sheep's milk cheese takes its name from the Welsh for 'little bleat'.

background

Wales is a country famed for its sheep farming, but one that never developed a strong tradition of sheep's milk cheesemaking. One woman who is working hard to change that is Carrie Rimes, originally from Devon but deeply embedded in her north Wales community for more than three decades. A few years ago, after a long career as a grassland scientist, Carrie embarked on a new adventure: turning her lifelong interest in cheesemaking, ignited as a child on her family's farm, into a profession. After gaining experience in several French dairies, she applied her new skills to the challenge of developing a distinctive Welsh sheep's cheese made from raw milk. The result was Brefu Bach – Welsh for 'little bleat'. Produced at Ffarm Moelyci in Dyffryn Ogwen, in the foothills of Snowdonia, it is made with the milk of traditional breeds fed on species-rich pastures with the highest welfare conditions, including a small flock of local, organic, grass-fed Friesland-Lleyn ewes.

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our work with this cheese

Brefu Bach is driven across the border to Chorlton Cheesemongers, our sister company in Manchester, where we collect it weekly in our van. When it arrives back with us in London, it is typically dried, turned daily and placed in the environment best suited to the batch until ripe enough to sell.

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Accompaniments

Brown Bread Crackers
£3.15

Tracklements Fig Relish
£4.30

FAQs

How much cheese to buy?

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.

How should I store my cheese?

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.