So it has happened. We say goodbye to one of our favourite cheesemakers, Innes. I can't help but feel emotional about this. It's not only our British cheese heritage that's gone, but it's also a little of mine. I've been trying their cheeses every couple of weeks for the last, well, for so long I can't remember. Innes's cheese taught me invaluable things as a cheesemonger. It's hard to explain how, but I shall try, and I am sure many fellow cheesemongers will be able to relate too. As mongers, when we taste cheese, we want to know everything about the flavour, work through a series of questions as we go; how that note got there, why it's there, whether it should be there and if it's there, what would it go with and who would like it.
Now, Innes has consistently delivered fantastic cheese, and when a cheese is that good, you tend to sit back, relax and enjoy. I always used to forget that I was meant to be doing the aforementioned flavour work-through. I had to work hard to put the deliciousness out of my brain in order to ascertain, flavour-wise, what was going on. Damn, the flavours were so subtle and yet sophisticated. They challenged me, and I am better cheesemonger because of it.
It's always been my go-to 'goats cheese converter'. I cannot even begin to count the amount of 'goats cheese haters' I have spoken to about this cheese. Having nudged them to give it a go and watched as they tentatively placed the cheese on their tongue, I've seen countless expressions is move from trepidation and suspected disgust to happiness and delight. Innes is probably the reason why hundreds of people today love goats cheese.
Our cheese world is a little darker today with this news. So, if you have the time, swing over to their social media pages and wish Joe and Aimee good luck in their next chapter. I, for one, will really miss my tastings of their gorgeous cheese, and I know hundreds will also.
As always, keep eating British artisan cheese.
-Perry
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I currently have about 50 Chilcote brick and 20 Bosworth Ash left then it's over for the foreseeable future, So, if you want to try some cheese heritage, and something that I don't think we will be able to replicate again. Swing over to our website and buy some before they're all gone. I swear. You will not be disappointed.