Cowtipper cheese from Calkins Creamery
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Recently, the Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal Market started carrying cheese from Calkins Creamery. Calkins Creamery is in Honesdale, which is a bit outside the 100 mile radius that many of us use to count as ‘local’. That said, I’m not considering this a cheat - it’s a farm worth supporting. The Bryant family has been farming in Wayne County for 125 years. The current Bryant farming family spent some time in California learning about artisan cheese before returning, and now produce cheese using hormone-free raw milk from their pampered herd of Holstein cows.
You know what they say: happy cows make happy cheese. Or something like that. It’s no joke. I picked up a piece of the Cowtipper cheese the other day and can’t say enough good things about it.
Cowtipper is Calkins’ version of a Gouda-style cheese. It’s soaked in Nevada Pale Ale for 48 hours, encased in wax, and then aged for sixty days or more. I’m pretty sure I must have looked really silly eating the cheese - before eating each slice I felt compelled to take a good long whiff. Because of the beer the cheese smells amazing. And it tastes good, too. It definitely has a Gouda-esque way about it.
I’m not as crazy about Calkins’ 4 Dog Dill, a Havarti-style cheese flavored with dill. The cheese is tasty and all, but I really never got any of the dill flavor.
There are many more Calkins Creamery cheeses to be tried, and they all look really interesting. But the Cowtipper is my early favorite!
Ooooh, that sounds *good*!
I don’t see any reason to be strict about the 100-mile radius. It’s a good guideline, but I’ve also seen people use a 250-mile radius, which still seems pretty local to me.