Shep Ysselstein, the owner and operator of Gunn's Hill Artisan Cheese has partnered with Beau's to make a beer washed-rind cheese that will change with the seasons .
I guess the monks in the Middle Ages knew something that many of us are just starting to figure out: beer and cheese taste great together.
Back in the day, artisan monks brewed beer and made cheese in monasteries for their communities. Typically washed rind cheeses are bathed in saltwater brine; the washing helps break down the curd from the outside. It’s fun to imagine the day the monks discovered that they could use beer to wash the rinds of cheese during the aging process to influence the texture, aroma, and flavour of the cheese.
Flash-forward to today, to a small cheese plant near Woodstock Ontario, where the next chapter in the history of beer washed-rind cheese is being written.
There, 30-year-old Shep Ysselstein, of Gunn’s Hill Artisan Cheese (located on his family’s third-generation dairy farm nestled in the rolling hills of Gunn’s Hill Rd. in Oxford County, Ontario — the Dairy Capital of Canada), has been working over the past few months to create a cheese using Vankleek Hill’s beloved brew, Beau’s.
