How maturation can create a new cheese

This blog comes to us courtesy of writer Lucas Zurdo, who visited our maturation arches in 2024. 

The cheese rooms and headquarters of Neal’s Yard Dairy, situated under railway tracks in Bermondsey, South London, do not immediately bring to mind their cheeses' origins in Devon farmland and Suffolk barns. But it is the connection between their own specialized, urban facilities and their rural farmyard producers that has inspired some of the Dairy’s signature cheeses. 

St Jude: Made in Suffolk, matured in London 

For the smaller producers that Neal's Yard Dairy works with, the sheer physical space that the London retailer has is paramount to the production of their cheese. Julie Cheyney, creator of St Jude, is one of them. Over a Zoom meeting from her home in Suffolk, she tells me that almost half of her cheeses complete the entire maturation process in South London. They arrive at only a few days old and move through up to five rooms of varying moisture and temperature. 

St Jude in the sunshine

At first, I am surprised when Cheyney tells me this. Her cheese only spends two days of its life in the hands of the dairy on its label?  

But this is undoubtedly Julie Cheyney’s cheese. She began making St. Jude, a small, lactic cheese, in 2005, after a conversation with Ivan Larcher, a French cheese consultant. He advised her on the potential for a soft, raw cow’s milk cheese. I ask Cheyney why she chose to make her cheeses so small. “So I could lift them,” she replies with a slight smile.  

In 2012, Cheyney began to sell St Jude directly to Neal’s Yard Dairy. Ever since, Neal’s Yard has been maturing St Jude in their arches. The maturation team is in constant communication with Cheyney. Emi Kinoshita, head of soft-cheese maturation in Bermondsey, notes the importance of Cheyney’s meticulous note-taking. Her notes help  maintain consistency: batches of St Jude matured in London are not radically different from those matured by Cheyney herself in Suffolk. 

Brunswick Blue: A mature Beenleigh Blue 

The team in Neal’s Yard Dairy arches must know the maturation progression of each individual cheese intimately.  “Cheesemaking is a bit like curling,” says Gareth Hewer, head of maturation. “Once a cheese is made it sets off on a path, and we're a bit like the brushers who try and ensure it hits its target.”  

Sometimes, the Neal’s Yard Dairy maturation team has gone beyond getting a cheese along a path. They have used maturation techniques to transform a cheese into something else entirely.  

Brunswick Blue is one such hybrid. Its beginnings must be traced some 35 years prior to its first appearance in Neal’s Yard Dairy’s London shops. 

Brunswick Blue matures on shelves

In 1979, Robin Congdon of Ticklemore Dairy in Devon began making a Roquefort-style cheese called Beenleigh Blue. Congdon began wrapping the wheels before putting them in the fridge, meaning that they would not develop a rind. The result was a mild, sweet blue with a distinctly moist texture. Congdon has retired, but Ben and Laura Harris have since taken over: Beenleigh Blue has been made for Neal’s Yard Dairy for over forty years.  

In 2014, Neal’s Yard Dairy approached Congdon about trying different ways to mature his Beenleigh. “Brunswick Blue may well be the most experimented-on cheese in the history of Neal’s Yard Dairy,” Emi Kinoshita remarks. The company began attempting to mature Beenleigh in a warmer environment, unwrapped so as to develop a natural rind.  

The first few attempts were not successful, the results variable in quality. “You can’t force a cheese down a path it’s not designed to follow,” says Gareth Hewer. Over the course of the last decade, however, Neal’s Yard Dairy have honed their method of maturation, and the wheels are becoming increasingly consistent, Hewer tells me. They have found a new path.  

St Cera: When St Jude gets a washed rind 

While Brunswick Blue is the product of Neal’s Yard Dairy’s own improvisation, the arches have also helped their producers experiment with ways of adapting their own cheese. One needs only to look again at Julie Cheyney and St Cera, a washed rind version of St Jude.  

I return to Cheyney’s formative conversation with Ivan Larcher, back in 2005, which gave her the idea for St Jude. The possibility of a different, washed rind version of her cheese had been discussed from its very inception, and she had kept it quietly in mind ever since. But with limited space and access to only one cool room, Cheyney was unable to bring this variant form of the cheese to fruition. Then, Neal’s Yard Dairy began to pick the largest of the St Judes, move them to a warmer, milder room, and wash them in brine. This creates a saltier, more pungent cheese. 

A cheesemonger scoops St Cera out of its wooden packaging

Cheyney now has additional cooling rooms of her own, with variable temperatures. She too is able produce her own St Cera. The result is different to those produced in Bermondsey, however; hers are slightly moister, and Neal’s Yard has begun colouring theirs with annatto, the same natural colouring that gives Red Leicester and Mimolette their distinct tinge. 

I ask Cheyney if she considers the St Cera produced by Neal’s Yard her cheese, or Neal’s Yard’s. “Mine," she replies instantly. She was the first to be consulted when the Dairy began using annatto.  

The roles of Julie Cheyney, Ben and Laura Harris, and Neal’s Yard Dairy itself are all inextricable in cheeses such as St Cera and Brunswick Blue. The development of the cheeses has come about specifically through the close, familial dialogue between Neal’s Yard Dairy and its producers.  

As I leave the Neal’s Yard arches, I reflect that this relationship is perhaps best tasted, rather than seen. When you taste St Cera and Brunswick Blue, you are tasting the result of the intensely close relationship between Neal’s Yard Dairy and its artisan producers. 

Curious about the difference between the younger cheese and its matured version? You can try them side by side in our Affinage Selection.