Vintage Appleby’s

This is the last great Cheshire being made with unpasteurised milk, and traditionally cloth-bound.  It is made on the salt plains of the Cheshire marshes; the provenance and flora is said to influence a true Cheshire cheese.  The story of this cheese dates back thousands of years and it was once so highly regarded as the finest cheese in England, it coined a phrase – ‘as good as Cheshire’.  Cheshire cheese once was made by every farm in Cheshire and was more popular than Cheddar.  Yet sadly it has lost its prime position and now Appleby’s (at Hawkstone Abbey Farm in Shropshire) is one of the sole remaining farm producers.

Cheese-making at Hawkstone Abbey Farm began in 1952 when Lucy Appleby (who studied cheese-making at the local Reaseheath College) returned to the family farm to re-start Cheshire cheese making there using milk from their own cows. Her know-how has been passed down to her son, Edward, and then her grandson, Paul, who now offers this crumbly, tangy, lemony-fresh cheese.

Appleby’s Cheshire is still made using the unpasteurised milk from Paul Appleby’s herd of prime Friesian cattle.  In recent years Paul and Sarah have shifted the focus of their farming and undergone a conversion towards a more regenerative and sustainable way of farming, with cows out at pasture capturing the different seasons.  Every morning, in their cheese-making room attached to the farmhouse kitchen, Paul adds traditional native bacteria to the milk to slowly acidify and form the cheese curds, much less aggressively than other modern day Cheshire recipes.  Annatto, a traditional colouring, is added to give the pale orange ‘sunrise’ colour.  Once the curds are formed, Paul meticulously carries out the process of cutting, stacking, blocking, tearing and milling the curds, before the resulting cheeses are pressed, traditionally cloth-bound to let them breathe, and then left to age for a minimum of six weeks.

Ingredients: Milk, salt, annatto colourant, cheese cultures and rennet.

This product will have two weeks’ shelf life from the date of delivery. Conveniently, at checkout you can choose a delivery date even well in the future if you would like your cheese delivering for a specific event.