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These days, award-winning artisan and specialty cheeses take most of the credit for putting Wisconsin on the map as America’s Dairyland. But it’s another growing category—the rise of farmstead creameries—that’s becoming increasingly responsible for developing a new generation of dairy entrepreneurs.

While some dairy farmers choose to build new barns and add more animals to increase the size of their operation, a growing number of dairy farmers are instead building small creameries right on the farm, producing ice cream, butter, bottled milk, or yogurt directly from the milk of their cows, sheep, or goats. Not only does crafting an on-farm dairy product provide another source of revenue, in many cases it provides a different avenue to bring the kids—many of whom don’t want to milk animals 365 days a year—back into the family business.

Since 2000, nearly a dozen Wisconsin farms have built on-farm creameries to produce fresh dairy products, and another one is about to join the ranks.

Al and Sarah Bekkum, owners of Nordic Creamery near Westby, Wisconsin, are putting the finishing touches on their new farmstead butter plant, where they plan to craft European-style traditional and seasonal butters made in small batches from the milk of their own cows. Al is confident the product will sell. He’s been making seasonal butters off-site at Sassy Cow Creamery near Columbus, Wis.,  for the past year, and selling it at farmer’s markets in Chicago.

“From the get-go, people went crazy for it,” Al says. “They want a fresh butter that’s hand-packed, and they buy it like there’s no tomorrow.”

On Tuesday, I road-tripped through long windy roads to the Bekkum homestead to visit Al and see how his new farmstead creamery was coming along. He had just stopped at the post office and picked up a box of 50 newborn fluffy chicks (farm fresh eggs appear to be in his future) and the chicks sat on the picnic table, cheeping and pecking at us through their cardboard box while Al laid out the farm’s grand vision. Turns out that Nordic Creamery is actually ahead of schedule.

Al says an official grand opening is set for Friday & Saturday, August 19-20 from Noon to 4, but the farmstead retail store will be open to the public in early July. Inside will be a vast array of Wisconsin products, including butter, ice cream and cheese made by Nordic Creamery. Butter varieties will include a farm-fresh sweet cream Summer Butter from April to October, a Harvest Butter made from November to March, a complete line of flavored cow’s milk butters, and eventually, goat’s milk butters, and possibly even mixed milk butters. Also offered will be Spesiell Kremen, a cultured butter churned at specific times of the year. Madison chefs are already lining up for the cultured butter, as its 85 percent butterfat content melts better for enhancing sauces and delicate desserts.

A 20-year veteran cheesemaker, Bekkum will continue to make his well-known goat’s milk and cow’s milk cheeses at the larger, more commercial K&K Cheese factory in Cashton, but one day, hopes to make a unique cheese at the farmstead plant using only the milk of his currently non-existent Norwegian Red Cattle.

Yes, Al Bekkum plans ahead. Bringing the rare breed of Norwegian Red Cattle to the United States is just one part in the Bekkums’ master plan. In the fall, Al will start milking about 25 dairy cows – a mixture of Holstein, Jersey and Ayrshire – and using that milk for his farmstead products. Within four years, he hopes to have every cow bred to a Norwegian Red Bull, and have a herd of Norwegian Reds Cows. This will pave the way for the first-ever Wisconsin Farmstead Norwegian Red insert cheese name here.

Not only are the Bekkums planning future products, they’re also planning ahead for their family. Bekkum says building an on-farm creamery is a dream come true. “It allows us to work at home and have more time with the kids. We’re growing a family and a business that one day the kids can run if they want to stay on the farm. That’s what it’s all about,” he says.

Somebody needs to make Wisconsin Cheesemaker Bob Wills a spandex superhero suit. Because, despite what you see in the movies, modern superheroes don’t wear tights and a cape. Nowadays, they wear hairnets.


On Thursday, one hairnet-wearing Superhero Master Cheesemaker (well, technically, he wasn’t actually wearing a hairnet at the time) helped launched Wisconsin’s first inner-city cheese factory. Yes, that’s right. Clock Shadow Creamery – named for the nearby Allen-Bradley Clock Tower – is scheduled to be up and running in the historic Walker’s Point area of Milwaukee next March.

Cheesemaker Bob Wills, who in his spare time, serves on the American Cheese Society Board of Directors, works on the USDA’s Dairy Industry Advisory Committee, and oh, by the way, produces award-winning cheese at a little factory called Cedar Grove Cheese that he owns in Plain, Wis., spoke to a cheering crowd of 200 people on Thursday, along with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and a host of local leaders. All were there to celebrate the groundbreaking of a new, $7 million, four-story new development led by local do-good legend Juli Kaufmann.

Wills plans to lease the first floor of Kaufmann’s new development (the top three floors will host medical clinics and community organizations) and build a working cheese factory that will feature public viewing areas and produce primarily fresh cheeses, including fresh mozzarella, quark and cheese curds – the types of cheeses not readily available to urban dwellers.

More importantly, the creamery will serve as an incubator for future cheesemakers. Wills plans to offer a cheesemaking apprenticeship program, where ideally, the next generation of cheesemakers will be launched, perhaps many from the inner city.

Incubators and apprenticeship is a little something Wills know a lot about. Ten years ago, he took a risk and opened his cheese plant in Plain, Wis., to up-and-coming cheesemakers looking to rent a cheese vat to launch new cheeses. Because of stiff competition, strict environmental standards and confidentially issues, very few cheese plants across the nation open their facilities to other cheesemakers. In fact, Wills is still one of only a handful of cheese plant owners who rents out space to other cheesemakers.

And now, he’s taking that mentality to the big city.

Farmstead. Artisan. Specialty. Organic. Grass-fed. These are all labels we’ve become accustomed to seeing on cheese labels. But could the next big thing be Unglaciated Cheese?

A new report published recently by the Dairy Business Innovation Center in Wisconsin thinks so. It says raw milk cheesemakers could carve out a marketing niche by identifying a new designation for cheeses made in the unglaciated, rolling hills of Wisconsin’s Driftless region.

A 135-page report titled: “Application of the Concept of Terroir in the American Context: Taste of Place and Wisconsin Unpasteurized Milk Cheeses,” by Gersende Cazaux, explores the possibility of adapting the French concept of “terroir” to raw milk cheeses made in the Driftless region of western Wisconsin. The full report is available here on the DBIC website.

Terroir has traditionally been used to explain a product`s specificity as a result of where and how it is made – think French wines and cheeses – but Cazaux believes the concept of “terroir” or what she refers to as “taste of place” could be a marketing tool for raw milk cheesemakers in the Driftless Region of Wisconsin. As part of her research, Cazaux surveyed all Wisconsin raw milk cheesemakers in July, 2010. Cheesemakers were asked to provide specific information about cheese production, dairy farming systems and cheesemaking practices.

Cazaux found that Wisconsin is home to 22 raw milk cheesemaking operations: 10 farmsteads, nine creameries, two dairy farms and one cheese-aging operation. Of these 22 raw milk cheesemaking operations, 16 are located in the Driftless Region, and 15 of those 16 cheesemakers use grass-based, rBGH-free milk.

To characterize a cheese production using a specific terroir or taste of place label, Cazaux says the major influencing factor is how producers approach their raw material: the milk. Her analysis shows that 14 of the cheesemakers use milk with a high aromatic potential to express the taste of place in their cheese, either by operating as a farmstead operation, using a limited number of dairy farm suppliers, not heat-treating the milk, and/or by transforming it into cheese within 48 hours after milking.

The DBIC report concludes that raw milk cheeses using the concept of terroir or taste of place in the geographical Driftless region would be possible, as the cheesemakers share the same specific natural characteristics and common practices.

The DBIC now plans to work with the existing Driftless Region Food and Farm Project and explore creating a taste of place designation for Wisconsin unpasteurized cheeses crafted in the Driftless Region. Perhaps Unglaciated Cheese could soon be coming to store near you.

A couple of months ago, I reported on the photo shoot and the process that led up to an art print and event celebrating what I think are the 25 Best Cheeses of Wisconsin. Since then, about 200 of you helped me taste those cheeses at an April 16 Gala in Madison, and 455 of you have requested your own copy of the limited edition art print (only 500 were printed). So if there’s anyone out there who’d like their very own copy of the above poster (measures 2 feet x 3 feet and is printed on heavy poster paper with gold ink insets), let me know – you can order a copy here. Only 45 left, so let me know soon if you want one!

As a recap, here are the Top 25 Cheeses of Wisconsin (well, there’s actually 26 – I lost count during the photo shoot. These things tend to happen with my projects – I just get way too excited about cheese):

• BelGioioso Cheese: Aged Provolone
• Bleu Mont DairyL Bandaged Cheddar
• Capri Cheesery : St. Pauline
• Carr Valley: Cocoa Cardona
• Cesar’s Cheese: Queso Oaxaca
• Cedar Grove: Butterkase
• Chalet Cheese Cooperative: Baby Swiss
• Crave Brothers Farmstead Cheese: Petit Frere
• Edelweiss Creamery: Grass Based Emmentaler
• Emmi Roth USA: Grand Cru Gruyere Surchoix
• Fantome Farm: Fleuri Noir
• Hennings Cheese: Peppercorn Cheddar
• Hidden Springs Creamery: Driftless
• Hollands Family Cheese: Foenegreek Gouda
• Hook’s Cheese: 10-Year Cheddar
• Klondike Cheese: Feta
• LaClare Farm: Evalon
• Maple Leaf Cheese Cooperative: English Hollow
• Meister Cheese : Eagle Cave Reserve 
• Nordic Creamery: Capriko
• Roelli Cheese: Dunbarton  Blue
• Sartori: SarVecchio
• Saxon Homestead Creamery: Big Ed’s
• Seymour Dairy: Ader Kase Reserve
• Uplands Cheese: Pleasant Ridge Reserve
• Widmer’s Cheese Cellars: Brick

One of the perks of helping organize cheese events is learning about them before anyone else. And that means I get to share that information with my friends! Here’s a look at three stellar cheese-themed events being planned for this summer – each is open to only a limited number of attendees, so if tickets are on sale, act now.

June 25: Wisconsin Blue Ribbon Cheesemakers’ Train, Mukwonago, Wis

The Elegant Farmer is combining cheese, trains and apple pie in a brand new event on Saturday, June 25 from 1 to 3 p.m. You’re invited to ride along with three 2011 U.S. Champion Cheesemakers on the beautifully restored, vintage East Troy Electric Railroad’s Dinner Car. The two-hour round trip departs and returns to The Elegant Farmer Depot in Mukwonago, traveling through the woods and charming town settings of Mukwonago and East Troy, Wis. On board sharing their stories and cheeses will be: Katie Hedrich, LaClare Farms, showcasing her U.S. Champion goat’s milk Evalon; Paula Homan, Red Barn Family Farms, sampling Heritage Weis Cheddar; and Brenda Jensen, Hidden Springs Creamery, sampling her soft and hard sheep’s milk cheeses. Tickets are $35 and include on-board samplings of cheeses, cheesemakers’ talk, accompanying beverages, a dessert tasting featuring Red Barn’s signature milk paired with a slice of The Elegant Farmer’s famed Apple Pie Baked in a Paper Bag, and a take home goody bag including cheeses and an individual apple pie. Learn more and buy tickets here.

June 24-25: Audacious Beer and Cheese Celebration, Delafield & Hartland, Wis.

Organizer Mike Brown is taking one of the Midwest’s most renowned artisan beer and cheese festivals to a whole new level by introducing a new event called Friday Flights, an exclusive meet-the-maker beer and cheese pairing. Each Friday Flight event will feature an award winning artisan cheesemaker and world class brewery expert who will present beer and cheese pairings. Cheesemakers include Bob Koenig, Carr Valley Cheese; Jerry Heimerl, Saxon Homestead Creamery; Chris Roelli, Roelli Cheese; Bruce Workman, Edelweiss Creamery; and Ron Roethlisberger, Seymour Cheese. Tickets are $25 a person, and with limited attendance of only 20 attendees at each Flight, these are sure to sell out. If you can’t make it on Friday night, the festival continues with the Premier Tasting on Saturday with nearly 100 world class beers and more than 30 different artisan cheeses. Hundreds of attendees discover their next favorite beer and cheese at this annual charitable event, and you could be one of them. Purchase tickets here.

July 16: All Star Blue Ribbon Tasting, State Fair Park Expo Center, West Allis, Wis.

The Wisconsin State Fair Park Foundation is hosting its first-ever All Star Blue Ribbon Tasting, celebrating dozens of Wisconsin specialty meats, artisan cheeses and award-winning spirits from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Expo Center at State Fair Park. Only 400 tickets will be sold. Attendees will taste more than 30 Wisconsin State Fair blue-ribbon specialty meats and cheeses, paired with complimentary award-winning Wisconsin beers and wines, plus a special State Fair dessert table featuring the fair’s world-famous Cream Puffs. The All Star Blue Ribbon Tasting is a fundraiser for the Wisconsin State Fair Park Foundation. Proceeds help support youth programming and scholarships. Tickets are $35 in advance, $40 at the door. Purchase tickets here.

All three of these events will be sure to sell out, so if you want to attend, make sure to purchase tickets early. See you all there!

If you’ve purchased and enjoyed a package of hand-rolled butter lately, there’s a very good chance – as in 100 percent – that it was a) actually rolled and packaged in paper by hand, and b) those hands belong to a butter-rolling woman named Nina.

Nina is just one of 35 employees who works at Alcam Creamery in Richland Center, Wis., a family owned and managed butter plant that dates back to 1946. It’s the kind of place where the original owner, Cam, age 88, comes into work most mornings at 4:30 a.m. and types up the bank deposits on a typewriter, and where the vice president didn’t have a desk for the first three years he worked there.

“Not having a desk makes you keep moving – wandering around, talking with employees, staying on the move and trying to keep up,” says Alcam Creamery VP Lenny Schaub, a good-natured and well-respected veteran of the dairy industry who spent 35 years in the cheese business before coming to a tiny butter plant in southwest Wisconsin that most people (well at least people like me) didn’t know existed until last week.

Lenny, along with General Manager Jason Schultz, the son-in-law of current owner Gary Peckham (interesting tidbit: before he married into the butter family, Jason owned and operated a chain of Panchero’s Mexican Grills) together keep things rolling along at Alcam Creamery. The pair oversee a butter plant that makes 200,000 pounds of butter a day and picks up cream from 85 cheese plants around the country.

When it started in 1946, the plant served local cheese plants and dairies, providing an outlet for their whey cream. Once just a local buttermaker, today it produces butter for a growing national market under more than 30 different private label names. Today, it serves plants throughout the nation and provides butter for domestic and international consumption.

General Manager Jason Schultz says the company’s continuous growth is a testament to the quality of the company’s butter and the loyalty of its customers. “Over the years, our mix of products has grown from bulk boxes of salted  butter to a wide assortment of sizes and shapes for retail, food service and ingredient customers.  Butter is what we do and we do it well,” Jason says. “We like to say, it’s the butter with taste.”

The richer, fuller taste of the whey cream butter made by Alcam is a direct result of the cheesemaking process. Some say the flavor of Alcam Butter reminds them of what hand churned butter used to taste like, vs. the blander, finer taste of a sweet cream, USDA Grade AA butter. Alcam Creamery’s whey cream butter is a Wisconsin Grade A butter, meaning instead of a “fine and highly pleasing taste,” it has a “pleasing and desirable butter flavor.” (Here’s a link to the fascinating Wisconsin butter grading statutes, if you’re interested).

Whey cream is more salty, tangy, and “cheesy” than “sweet” cream skimmed from milk. Whey cream is made from the fat that remains in liquid whey after the cheesemaking process is completed. The butterfat is separated from the whey, pasteurized, then churned. Salt is added to enhance flavor and preserve quality. The result is a butter that I can only describe as pretty freakin’ awesome.

A woman developing a farmstead goat cheese plant who plans to nurture the next generation of future cheesemakers is the recipient of the 2011 Wisconsin Licensed Cheesemaker Scholarship.

Rose Boero, a nurse and dairy goat breeder in Custer, Wis., was selected from a field of applicants for the $2,500 annual award from Wisconsin Cheese Originals. In pursuing her cheesemaker’s license, Boero has already purchased a small pasteurizer and cheese vat and is apprenticing at Willow Creek Cheese, owned by Union Star Cheese in Fremont. She is developing plans to build her own cheese plant at her dairy goat farm, where she and her husband have raised Toggenburg dairy goats for 23 years.

“When I turned 56, I thought it was time to make a ‘bucket’ list,” Boero said. “I’ve been making and giving away cheese to family and friends for years, and thought I can either turn 60 with a cheesemaker’s license, or without a cheesemaker’s license. I decided to make it with a cheesemaker’s license.”

After using the scholarship money to earn her cheesemaker license, Boero is especially interested in nurturing the upcoming generation of cheese enthusiasts. She plans to invite youth to visit her farm and learn cheesemaking. “I already know some of these young people who are just waiting for an opportunity. If I can teach enough youth how it is done, then I will actually be much larger than my own venture,” Boero said.

Boero is a native of Kimberly, Wis., and received a bachelor’s degree in Education from UW-Stevens Point. Soon after, she earned her Licensed Practical Nurse degree and has worked in the health field for years, while maintaining the family dairy goat farm. She plans to craft aged goat’s milk cheeses to sell in Wisconsin and will offer custom cheese production for local dairy farmers looking to add value to their milk.

A five-person scholarship committee made up of industry leaders and cheesemakers selected  Boero out of a field of eight highly-qualified applicants for the Wisconsin Cheese Originals scholarship.

The $2,500 award is funded through membership fees and Wisconsin Cheese Originals event proceeds. Last year’s cheesemaker scholarship winner, Katie Hedrich, was named the 2011 U.S. Champion Cheesemaker in March for her farm-based cheese, Evalon. Thanks to all Wisconsin Cheese Originals members for helping these cheesemakers launch their businesses!

Today is the last day of the California Artisan Cheese Festival in Petaluma and I’m leaving with a wealth of new friends, a notebook of new ideas, and a suitcase full of brie and bacon. Life is good.

While Northern California is home to two of my favorite foods – Marin French Brie and Black Pig Bacon – I always find it surprisingly similar to Wisconsin, in that the people are friendly, the cows are – well, cows – and the cheesemakers are genuinely innovative and open. And, while the past decade has brought an artisan cheesemaking Renaissance to Wisconsin, the same is true for Sonoma and Marin Counties. With more than 20 artisan and farmstead cheesemakers all located in a relatively small area north of San Francisco, the area is developing a well-deserved reputation as the Normandy of Northern California.

That’s true in a large part due to the hard-working spirit of people like Joel and Carleen Weirauch, who just obtained a dairy processing permit and intend to make farmstead cheese in the coming weeks. The Weirauchs have built a small sheep flock and renovated a mobile classroom into a state-of-the-art creamery (inside pictured above). With no land of their own, everything they’re building has a hitch on the front and can be moved if need be. Even the sheep milk parlor is mobile, and can be moved to a larger land base if the Weirauchs outgrow the 60 acres they’re leasing north of Petaluma.

On a farm tour last Friday, the Weirauchs divided and conquered – Joel told us about building the creamery – “Putting up plaster really tests a marriage,” he said with a smile, and Carleen gave us the farm tour. My favorite part? Standing in the middle of 50 newborn pastured lambs and their mothers, all huddled under a blue tarp to shelter them from the rain. While I stood there taking notes on how the Weirauchs plan to build their flock from 25 to 75 milking ewes, dozens of lambs patiently chewed on my trench coat and butted my leg for attention, while their mothers nosed them into compliance.

With nearly all of their needed permits in place, the Weirauchs should be making an Alpine-style cheese within weeks. They’ll start with cow’s milk cheeses, using milk from a neighboring farm, and then transition to sheep’s milk cheeses once they have enough milk. Joel’s end goal is to also make a semi-soft cheese such as Reblochon. He spent a year in France studying traditional cheeses and feels he has the knowledge to make an authentic artisan, farmstead cheese in Northern California. I’m sure looking forward to seeing the end result!

Yesterday started out just like any other day. The cat jumped on my head at 5:20 am. I begrudgingly navigated the school parking lot from hell at 7:45 am. Stopped for coffee, the morning paper and checked in with the locals at 8 a.m. Sat at my desk for too long trying to meet writing deadlines so clients don’t fire me. Picked up the kids from school at 3:30. Got another coffee.

And then at 4:30 p.m., the UPS truck backed up the driveway and delivered 14 boxes of cheese to my garage.

Holy crap.

That wasn’t all. Those 14 boxes of cheese joined 11 other boxes, bags and totes that today all came together for the first ever “25 Best Cheeses of Wisconsin” photo shoot. Five hundred pounds of cheese and five hours later, we have the shot I want. It will debut on April 16 at a Wisconsin Cheese Originals Gala Tasting at Olbrich Gardens.

What possesses someone to take on such a project, you ask? Blame Dan Carter, a legend in the specialty cheese business. A year ago when Dan handed me a marketing poster in Italian featuring a glamour shot of 30 different Italian cheeses, he said he thought I’d know what to do with it. After months of studying the poster, I a) still can’t speak Italian and b) decided to do a similar shot of 25 Wisconsin cheeses. So I hired a designer, a photographer and a printer. That was the easy part. What was more difficult was selecting 25 favorites out of 600 Wisconsin cheeses.

Gulp.

The task proved so tough, in fact, – and please don’t tell anyone – that there are actually 26 different cheeses from 26 different companies featured in the 2-by 3-foot art poster. I realized this gaffe halfway through the shoot today. After slapping myself upside the forehead, I chalked it up to “oh well – who doesn’t love a bonus cheese?” So while the “25 Best Cheeses of Wisconsin” project will actually be 26 awesome cheeses, I figure they’re all winners.

If you’re interested in finding out which Wisconsin cheeses I picked, meet me on April 16 at Olbrich Gardens, where we’ll taste each and every one, and I’ll send you home with a super cool cheese poster.* Because really, who doesn’t want a giant picture of Wisconsin cheese on their wall? I know I do.

*Fine Print: all tickets sold in advance. Evening includes tasting 25 cheeses, appetizers from Bunky’s and a signed & numbered Wisconsin Cheese art print. See you there!

A national panel of expert judges today named a Wisconsin goat’s milk cheese as the 2011 U.S. Championship Cheese.

Katie Hedrich, of LaClare Farms in Chilton, Wis., took top honors out of 1,604 entries from 30 states for her small-batch Evalon, a hard goat’s milk cheese made from the milk of her family farm’s herd. Out of a possible 100 points, Evalon scored 99.06 in the final round of judging, during which judges re-evaluated all gold-winning cheeses to determine the champion.

Katie was pulling into the parking lot just as her name was announced. Her father, Larry Hedrich, called her at the same time. She said he told her to get inside, because there were going to be a lot of people interested in talking with her. “I told him I moving as fast as I can! I’m trying to find a place to park!”

Katie, pictured here giving an interview at the contest, is only 25 years old. She is one of the youngest cheesemakers to ever earn the U.S. Championship Cheese title, and is only the second woman in the history of the contest to claim the trophy. The first was Christine Farrell, of Old Chatham Sheepherding Company in New York, who won in 2001.

Meanwhile, back at the contest, Wisconsin cheesemakers were heartily celebrating, as the top three cheeses were all from America’s Dairyland.

First runner-up in the contest, with a score of 98.97, was Parmesan, made by John Griffiths at Sartori in Plymouth. Second runner-up was Aged Gouda, made by Marieke Penterman at Holland’s Family Cheese, of Thorp, which scored 98.95. Marieke had three of her Goudas competing for the top spot in the final round.

Capturing the most gold medals was Wisconsin, with 42 of the total 76 categories judged. California came in second among the states, with nine golds. Vermont had five gold medals, Idaho had four golds, while New Jersey, New York and Ohio all took three. Oregon and Pennsylvania won two gold medals, and Kentucky, Michigan and Utah each captured one apiece.

The United States Championship Cheese Contest is the largest cheese and butter competition in the country and is rooted in more than 120 years of history, beginning when the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association held its first cheese contest in 1891. In recent years, the event has flourished, more than doubling in size since 2001. This year, more than 30,000 pounds of cheese were entered into the contest.

Read complete results for all 76 entry classes and view contest photos, online here.