Artisan Cheese & Ice Cream Farms in the UK

Made by Simon and Tim Jones at Ulceby Grange Farm in the Lincolnshire Wolds, Lincolnshire Poacher is a raw-milk, thermophilic cheese that matures for fourteen to twenty-two months. The milk comes exclusively from the farm's own herd of Holstein-Friesians, and the cheese is made using a recipe that draws on West Country cheddar and Alpine Comte traditions without being a direct copy of either. The result is a cheese of remarkable complexity: nutty, fruity, with a long savoury finish that develops in the mouth.

Lincolnshire Poacher has won Supreme Champion at the British Cheese Awards and is widely regarded by cheesemongers as one of the finest British territorial cheeses currently in production. The use of raw (unpasteurised) milk is critical: it carries the native bacterial cultures of the farm, giving the cheese a microbial signature that pasteurised alternatives cannot replicate.

If there is a single cheese that embodies the idea of "real" cheddar, it is Jamie Montgomery's production at Manor Farm, North Cadbury, Somerset. Montgomery's is one of only three remaining producers of traditional cloth-bound, unpasteurised cheddar made with the farm's own milk using animal rennet and pint starters. The cheese is matured for twelve to eighteen months in the farm's own stores, developing a deep, earthy, almost meaty intensity that bears no resemblance to the industrially produced block cheddar that accounts for the vast majority of UK consumption.

The rind of a Montgomery's wheel is a living ecosystem, the microbiome of moulds and bacteria that develops over the maturation period is unique to the farm's environment and contributes substantially to the final flavour. It is a cheese that rewards patience, both in its making and its eating.