The trend line for American raw-milk cheese is not what I wish it were. Over the past few years, we’ve seen a decline in the number of creameries producing cheese from unpasteurized milk, according to member surveys commissioned by the American Cheese Society. Cascadia Creamery’s Glacier Blue (above) remains among those cheeses made the traditional way, with milk at the temperature it comes from the animal. But the niche is shrinking.
Source: American Cheese Society
The ACS surveys show a decline in raw-milk cheese production in every region of the country. The survey did not delve into the “why,” but the hurdles are real. Producers of raw-milk cheese have to exercise more caution and anticipate more government oversight. Maybe the more enlightening question is not why cheesemakers abandon raw-milk cheese production but why some remain committed to it, at least for some of their cheeses.
“Because there’s a direct correlation between complexity of flavor and microbial diversity in the milk that cheese is made from,” one cheesemaker, Mateo Kehler of Vermont’s Jasper Hill Farm, told me when I asked him, a few years ago, why he still used raw milk.
“The benefit to flavor is beyond doubt,” agreed Andy Hatch of Uplands Cheese in Wisconsin. Other cheesemakers cite those reasons and more.
As a shoutout to the domestic producers who persist with raw-milk cheese, I took a stab at a list. It’s not remotely comprehensive—just the creameries that came to mind because I know them and their cheeses—but I hope it will motivate you to seek out them out. If you’d like to celebrate International Raw Milk Cheese Appreciation Day (October 21) with an appropriate cheese course, use this list as a cheat sheet. And please use the Comments field at the end of this post to add more creameries or cheeses to the list.
Some of these producers adhere to the strict definition of “raw”—i.e., that the milk has not been heated before cheesemaking begins. Others use thermized (heat-treated) milk, which the USDA still considers raw as the procedure stops short of pasteurization.
I’ve marked with an asterisk those creameries that, to my knowledge, produce exclusively cheese from unpasteurized milk.
5 Spoke Creamery Tumbleweed (NY)*
Alpinage Mount Raclette (WI)*
Cascadia Creamery Sawtooth, Sleeping Beauty, Cloud Cap and Glacier Blue (WA)*
Fiscalini Bandaged Cheddar and Lionza (CA)
Grafton Village Clothbound Cheddar, Shepsog and Bear Hill (VT)*
Great Hill Dairy Great Hill Blue (MA)*
Hidden Springs Ocooch Mountain (WI)
Jacobs & Brichford Ameribella, Everton and Adair (IN)*
Jason Wiebe Dairy Raw Milk Cheddar and Cottonwood River Reserve (KS)
Jasper Hill Winnimere, Bayley Hazen, Alpha Tolman and Whitney (VT)
Marieke Gouda (WI)*
Meadow Creek Dairy Grayson, Appalachian, Mountaineer, Galax (VA)*
Oakdale Gouda (CA)
Parish Hill Creamery (VT)*
Pennyroyal Farm Boont Corners (CA)
Point Reyes Farmstead Original Blue (CA)
Rogue Creamery Oregonzola (OR)
Sequatchie Cove Cumberland and Coppinger (TN)
Shelburne Farms Cheddar (VT)*
Spring Brook Farm Tarentaise, Reading and Ashbrook (VT)*
Sweet Grass Dairy Thomasville Tomme, Asher Blue, Griffin and Georgia Gouda (GA)
Uplands Cheese Pleasant Ridge Reserve and Rush Creek Reserve (WI)*
I welcome additions to this list in the Comments field below.