Any cheese fans here? (like really cheese, not a euphemism)

[culturejam]

I have to confess I am a shameless cheese whore. I like the cheap shitty cheese (but not the liquid stuff), and I also like the expensive $35/pound snooty cheese. I like it all.

No. Strike that; reverse it. I fucking LOVE cheese. Fucking LOVE it.

So tonight the wife and I trekked out to our nearest Whole Foods. My god, the cheese selection is mind boggling.

So yeah, now I have a new favorite of ALL TIME cheese. It's this badass gruyère we picked up for actually not too much. It fucking rules. We also got some manchego, a nice basque, and a raw goat's milk cheese.

I should say that Belgian beer (and Belgian-style beer) goes quite excellently with hard cheeses like gruyère. Tonight's selection is Cuvée de Fleurs, which despite being made in NY, tastes a hell of a lot like it's made in Belgium. It's brewed with flowers and rosewater. It is good.

Anybody else a total nutcase for cheese???

[SPACERITUAL]

I have been to several beer and cheese pairings and i have to say that duo is superior to wine and cheese.

[theactionindex]

I'm lactose intolerant, but I fucking love cheese. DILEMMA. But under most circumstances, I am willing to sacrifice bowel comfort for the deliciousness of cheese. I think that says something.

[tuffteef]

i like new english cheese
smells like burgers

[snipelfritz]

I just made a hamburger with onion, green pepper, and BBQ sauce. Then, I fucking smothered the thing in Pepper Jack. 'Twas incredible. The bun was a small, slider-sized thing so the cheese did an excellent job of holding the whole thing together.

Mmmmm, Belgian beer.

[nieh]

Im from Wisconsin so, yes I like cheese.

[Monkeyboard]

I have yet to get into most soft cheeses.

But Gruyere, Parmesan, Mozzarella, Dutch cheese, cumin cheese, spiced cheese, feta, hard goat cheese, certain blue vein cheeses etc. are all DELICIOUS!!!

[cheesecats]

Of course. My favorite:



If you are a cheese lover and ever in London, you must go here:

[unownunown]

I LOVE CHEESE! gorgonzola and feta are my faves. i read about this "cheese" made out of cashews. it looks like cheese kinda. i dunno about the taste, cuz you know when vegans say TASTES LIKE REAL CHEESE they really mean it just tastes okay.

[culturejam]

Awesome. I am amongst fellow cheese mongers.

I LOVE CHEESE! gorgonzola and feta are my faves. i read about this "cheese" made out of cashews. it looks like cheese kinda. i dunno about the taste, cuz you know when vegans say TASTES LIKE REAL CHEESE they really mean it just tastes okay.

Yeah, it's probably decent tasting, but also probably not tasting like cheese. Cashew butter is good. My wife makes it.

[CBA]

Dude I work at Whole Foods and my GF works in specialty cheese so like BOO YAH I constantly have cheese right up my ass. We make different girled cheeses all the time. My favourite was one that was featured a few months ago... a Dutch cheese called Robusto. GOOD LAWD. Look that up... it was sharp and creamy and tangy all at once. KILLER girled cheese. We also did some fondue with the traditional Emmentaler and Gruyere, but the Gruyere was cave-aged, whatever that means, and it was dope. Vintage Van Gogh, which I think is made in Wisconsin, is another hotty, somewhat like Robusto, just not quite as good. My all-time favourite is just straight up Swiss, which is Emmentaler with an easier name.

And yes, I'll always take beer and cheese together. Different IPAs and Belgians (La Fin Du Monde!) work the best with the kind of cheese I like, but those are also my favourite kinds of beers, anyway. Put either of those in your fondue and you'll cream your crotch.


C

[culturejam]

Different IPAs and Belgians (La Fin Du Monde!) work the best with the kind of cheese I like,

Not to be a hair-splitting douchebag, but La Fin Du Monde is French-Canadian beer. But it is Belgian-style. In the BJCP style guidelines, it would fall into Category 18D:
http://www.bjcp.org/styles04/Category18.php#style18D

Sorry, I brew beer and write for a homebrew magazine, so I'm very nit-picky about beer.

[CBA]

Yes yes, I know, from Quebec, etc.

It's specifically what... a bottle-conditioned Triple fermented? Whatever it is, it's insanely cheap for how incredible it is. That's my comfort beer! Plus my cat's favourite toy is a Unibroue cork.





There you go ya jerk.


C

[culturejam]

Haha! Yeah, I think it would be technically classified as either a Tripel or a "Belgian golden strong ale". Traditional Trappist Tripels (alliteration!) are generally dryer that LFDM. But the great thing about Belgian beer is that there really are no rules.

I'd say the two best beers in the world (to me) are La Fin du Monde and Delirium Tremens.

[hclapp219]

HEY! Back to the cheese here...

I am pretty non-discriminatory in my cheese love, but if I had to pick a type, it would probably be blue cheese. My favorite cheese is Shropshire Blue, but I love stilton, roquefort, any really creamy soft cheese, or goat cheese. I actually have some robusto in my fridge right now!

When I went to Whole Foods in Austin a few months ago, I got to meet the global cheese buyer for whole foods, Cathy Strange, along with the cheesemakers from Cowgirl Creamery and Cypress Grove. It was pretty cool to talk to them about cheese. I love ordering cheese plates at restaurants, and their advice was not to pick a variety of cheeses just for varieties sake, but to pick the cheeses that looked freshest and best maintained. Of course I never got around to asking how to do that, but I've been fine with my common sense approach so far.