Mike's Fancy Cheese

Mikes Fancy Cheese, a great name and a captivating story about a very modern cheesemaker, a 26-year-old Belfast lad drops out of being a social worker, gets a job in a deli, comes to England, learns to make great cheese, heads home, crowdfunds a dairy and makes the first raw milk cheese in Northern Ireland. All casual like. 

We love working with Mike, not only does he purvey us with many a delicious cheese from across the Irish Sea, he also makes his very own raw milk stilton-type blue.

Though the life of a cheesemaker is not always glamorous, the produce they create often is. If you could quantify fanciness with how much love, hard work, and passion goes into the production process then artisan cheese would certainly be right up there.

Young Buck is inspired by ancient blue cheese recipes which use raw milk and encourage a slower make, allowing the curds to develop longer more complex flavours during the acidification process.

It is aged for 12-15 weeks and presents a more densely packed, but brittle paste than what we are used to with this type of cheese. Though creamy, piquant, and bright when young it acquires a more lingering malty aftertaste later in its development which we think pairs really well with sweet biscuits of a similar temperament.

Currenty on the belt at Pick & Cheese and paired with Grasmere Gingerbread®.