If you can get to Seattle by tomorrow, you can catch day two of the 2006 [Seattle Cheese Festival](http://www.seattlecheesefestival.com/). If you’re already in Seattle, lucky you.
Last night I went to a seminar on matching British cheeses with Seattle beers. (Can’t you already hear the comic book guy from the Simpsons saying, “Best. Seminar. Ever.”?) The beers were from two local breweries, Elysian and Pike. My favorite matches were Westcombe Cheddar with Pike Pale Ale and Crozier Blue with Elysian Dragonstooth Stout. (Apparently I was the only person there who liked the latter match. Whatever.)
After the tasting, Craig Hartinger of Pike Brewery offered everyone a taste of Lindemans Cuvee Renee, a Belgian lambic, ostensibly as an alternative match to one of the cheeses, but probably just to see people contort their faces when they tried it. Lambic is one of the world’s weirdest styles of beer, an intensely sour and funky brew made with wild yeast.
Full disclosure (meaning that I am bragging about it): I attended the seminar for free on a press pass, and I am fulfilling my end of the bargain by writing about it here.
Today Laurie and I went to the cheesefest proper. We paid $5 to walk down Artisanal Alley, an innovation at this year’s festival that meant we could taste the Neals Yard and other premium cheeses without having to rub shoulders with the kind of common folk who eat cheese in a can.
In Artisanal Alley were two cheeses that I’d never tried before but look forward to having again. The Mount Townsend Creamery (on the Olympic Peninsula) is brand new–they opened last month–and they were making an excellent soft chaource-style cheese called Seastack, along with a couple of others that I didn’t find terribly interesting.
Next door, I tasted Winnemere, from Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont. It’s made in the style of Forsterkäse, a Swiss washed-rind cheese wrapped in pine bark. Winnemere is washed with a local (to Vermont) lambic-style beer and wrapped in spruce bark. Like lambic, it’s weird and delicious. If you find it, grab it.
In conclusion, eat more cheese.
Cool! We are heading there today… glad to hear it’s worth the trip.
Yay, lambic! Cheese in pine bark? That reminds me somewhat of Vacherin Monte d’Or, is that correct? Most impotantly can I get a press pass by having a blog?
Christos, if you follow the link to Winnemere, there’s a picture that sort of shows how the bark is attached to the cheese. It’s not a box like Vacherin, it’s a strip girdled around the circumference of the cheese. It’s pretty cool looking.
I’m sure you can get a press pass to Switzerland as long as you maintain your neutrality.
Rarr, vacherin is wrapped in a bark rind. (According to wikipedia, this rind is ‘blanched’, whatever that means). Then it’s placed in a wooden box. The bark rind is quite soft.
Oh, okay, I must have missed the bark rind because of all the scooping going on. In that case, it is the same kind of thing.
I loved the Seastack from Mt. Townsend Creamery, but decided, on the balance, that the Cirrus (which I also really liked) was probably going to be more of a crowd-pleaser for the event I was buying cheese for that day.
I need to find out where they’re currently distributing their cheeses, though. Mmmmm.
I’ll ask what everyone wants to know — did Iris go to the festival, and if so, what did she think?!
Iris didn’t go to the festival. She still doesn’t like cheese, although she’s come a long way. She likes melted cheese, of course (and we don’t have to pretend that it isn’t cheese), and she likes grating hard cheese over things. We were at Beecher’s the other day and Amir asked Iris, “What’s your favorite cheese?” Iris said, without hesitation, “Parmigiano.”
At the same time, though, I offered her a bite of Berkswell yesterday and she made a face like I had offered her a venomous snake. Actually, she would have thought the snake was cool.
Here’s one to put on your calendar: The Spring Beer & Wine Fest, April 6-7, 2007 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland. If you enjoy pairing beer, wine or spirits with cheese you’ll be in heaven. Check the festivals’web site (www.springbeerfest.com)for details & the Culinary Stage line up of Chefs sharing their skills. Anyone showing a press pass gets in free. Actually the first two hours of each day the admission is free and you done’t even have to write about the festival, just enjoy it.