Lincolnshire Poacher

Although the loamy or clay soils of Lincolnshire are usually ill-suited to dairy farming, the lush pastures of Simon Jones's Ulceby Grange farm sit on chalky land – and it is this, combined with the mild climate, that has made Lincolnshire Poacher one of very few cheeses to be produced on the east coast of the country. Though the farm has been in the family since 1917, the Jones family didn't start making cheese until the 1990s, when a young Simon returned from agricultural college. Eager to turn his hand toward cheesemaking, he enlisted the help of renowned Welsh cheesemaker Dougal Campbell to develop a recipe, and the result – which incorporates the hallmarks of a hard mountain cheese into a traditional West Country Cheddar – proved so popular that customers at the local cheese shop initially had to be rationed to quarter of a pound each. Simon's brother Tim has since joined him on the farm, and in 1995 Simon employed a full-time cheesemaker, Richard Tagg. Today, it is Jon Collins whose job it is to transform milk from their 230-strong herd of Holstein Friesians into cheese on an almost daily basis. Once the curds have been moulded, salted and pressed for 36 hours, the resulting cheese truckles are matured on wooden boards and turned regularly to ensure even maturation. The brothers recently invested in a robot for turning the truckles, improving consistency still further. Though some Lincolnshire Poacher will be aged for up to 36 months, we believe the finest tasting truckles are between a year and 24 months old.

Tim and Simon do an excellent job managing the different profiles of cheese to sell at different ages, so by the time we come to visit them on our thrice-yearly tasting trips they will have picked out those cheeses they think are most suited to Neal's Yard Dairy. There are two styles we prefer: the first, big and forward, with lots of tropical fruits; the second boasting warm mountain cheese flavours, similar to Comté. Our long and close relationship with the brothers means we will also often be asked to comment on the experiments they are conducting. For example, our most recent visit saw us tasting cheeses that had been scalded to a much higher temperature, in order to help them better understand the parameters of temperature in their cheesemaking.