What type of cheese it?
An award winning artisan, raw milk, naturally rinded, cloth-bound Caerphilly cheese made with animal rennet. It is made to a traditional recipe and aged for longer than modern Caerphilly which contributes to its more complex flavours.
What flavours does it have?
The extra ageing that this cheese receives means that as the cheese breaks down near the edible rind you get a creamy savoury cheese with hints of mushroom. The centre of the cheese has a dense crumbly centre with lemony flavours and lactic acid freshness.
What would you drink with it?
There are frankly loads of wonderful options. If you prefer wine then a lovely chablis or white Burgundy are perfect or a soave or Gavi if you enjoy an Italian wine more. It works well with a medium single apple cider or even a sharper fruit juice like rhubarb and apple. Beer is trickier but I love this with a Somerset Wild from the Wild Beer Brewing Company also in Somerset. This has a bright acidity that compliments the lemony acidity o the cheese. The wild cider yeasts in this beer add some appley aromas and fruity notes which are great with the cheese.
How would you serve it?
This is wonderful on a cheeseboard (again with the happy cheese noises) but it makes a great Welsh rarebit with leeks or crumbled into a salad with nuts and broad beans.
Where does the name come from?
Caerphilly is named after the town in South Wales where it was originally made. It was often eaten by miners who ate it like cake in the mines. Production of it nearly died out in Wales but moved to Somerset when cheddar farmers found it to be the perfect short maturing cheese to fill in the gaps whilst their cheddar matured.
Who makes it?
Todd & Maugan Trethowan make this in their dairy in Somerset. Todd learned the art of traditional Caerphilly making from Chris Duckett a man renowned in the cheese world for being the last in a long line of traditional Somerset Caerphilly makers. The brothers first made this in Wales but when looking to improve the cheese they moved Somerset to work with milk from a herd of cows that showed great potential. They even moved with the latent bacteria unique to their old dairy in South Wales, which results in the distinctive grey velvet rind to their cheese
Featured Image -Gorwydd Caerphilly – Mike Geno