A Guide to Regional British Cheeses

Why Regional Cheese Tastes of the Landscape

Every British cheese is a small biography of the place it comes from — the grass, the rainfall, the breed of cattle, the hands that turned it. Walk a few miles between villages and the cheese changes, sometimes quite dramatically. That is the quiet pleasure of building a day out around a dairy counter rather than a summit trig point.

Regional cheeses were shaped by practicalities long before anyone thought of them as delicacies. A cheese had to survive a slow journey to market, use up surplus milk in spring, and feed mining or farming families through the winter. Those constraints gave us the crumbly, salty, cloth-bound, blue-veined family of cheeses we now travel to find. The good news is that most of them sit in landscapes that are a joy to walk through, so the cheese and the countryside come as a package.

The West Country: Cheddar, Gloucester and the Levels

Somerset and the surrounding counties are the heartland. Traditional farmhouse Cheddar is still made in cloth, matured for anything from six months to three years, and at its best it is sweet, grassy and nutty with a texture that crumbles rather than bends. The caves and cellars around Cheddar Gorge were used for maturing simply because they held a steady, cool, damp temperature — a natural larder that did the ageing for free.

Gloucestershire adds its own pair. Single Gloucester, made from the milk of the old Gloucester breed, is lighter and more delicate; Double Gloucester is richer, buttery and russet-coloured, and famously rolled down Cooper's Hill each spring. Look, too, for the washed-rind cheeses of the Severn Vale, which are brushed with brine or cider as they mature and end up sticky, pungent and deeply savoury.

The North of England: Wensleydale, Lancashire and Cheshire

Yorkshire's Wensleydale began life as a blue cheese made by Cistercian monks, but the white version most of us know is crumbly, moist and honeyed, with a faint tartness that makes it superb with fruit cake. It is a cheese of the Dales, and a walk along the valley floor will take you past field barns and drystone walls that were built precisely to manage the cattle that produced it.

Lancashire comes in two moods. Young and creamy, it is mild and milky; matured as "tasty" Lancashire, it turns sharp, crumbly and wonderfully assertive. Cheshire is one of the oldest named cheeses in the country, prized for its saltiness — a legacy of the county's inland brine springs — and its short, friable bite.

The Midlands, the East and Wales: Stilton, Red Leicester and Caerphilly

Blue Stilton may only legally be made in Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire, and the best of it is creamy rather than crumbly, with a mellow tang rather than a slap of salt. Red Leicester is the friendly counterpoint: nutty, firm and coloured with annatto, it grates beautifully and melts without turning oily.

Across the border, Caerphilly was originally a miners' cheese — salted a little more heavily and made with a firm rind so it could be taken underground without falling apart. Modern versions are milder, but the salty, lemony edge remains. Further north, Scotland offers Dunlop, a mellow, cheddar-like cheese, and crowdie, a soft, fresh curd often rolled in toasted oatmeal and eaten within days.

Pairing Regional Cheese with Ales and Ciders

The rule of thumb is simple: match intensity with intensity, and let the drink cut through the fat. Regional pairings work because they grew up together in the same soil and climate.

• Mature cloth-bound Cheddar with a dry West Country cider or a strong pale ale — the tannin and the acidity slice through the richness.
• Blue Stilton with a dark porter or a vintage ale; the roasted malt softens the blue bite. A glass of perry is a surprising, excellent alternative.
• Wensleydale with a light golden ale or a session bitter, and a slice of fruit cake on the side.
• Lancashire with a mild or a brown ale — soft, malty and unfussy, exactly what the cheese wants.
• Cheshire with a hoppy pale ale; the bitterness lifts the salt.
• Caerphilly with a dry, sparkling cider, or a light ale if you are eating outdoors in the wind.
• Red Leicester with a nutty brown ale, or a mulled cider if the walk was a cold one.

Planning a Cheese Walk: Practical Notes

Choose a route that passes at least one farm shop, deli or village store, and check opening hours before you set out — many close on Mondays and shut by mid-afternoon. A circular walk of six to eight miles with a shop halfway is ideal: you buy at the end rather than carrying weight all day.

Take a small cool bag, a folding knife and a board in your rucksack. Cheese dislikes cling film, so ask for it wrapped in greaseproof paper and keep it in the coolest part of your bag. Let it come to room temperature for an hour before eating; a fridge-cold cheese tastes of almost nothing. Add oatcakes, a sharp apple, pickled onions or a spoonful of chutney, and you have a lunch that beats any pub sandwich.

Finally, buy from the counter and ask questions. The person cutting the cheese usually knows which farm it came from, how long it was matured and what to drink with it. That conversation is half the pleasure — and it is the surest way to end a walk with something worth carrying home.