These award-winning local cheeses are un-'brie'-lievably good: Jasmine Mangalaseril

Canadian cheeses have been coming into their own over the past few years and they've got the medals to prove it.

At last month's American Cheese Society's annual cheese competition, Canadians won 20 awards, including Best in Show (Raclette Compton au Poivre by Fromagerie la Station) and an overall second place (Le Cousin by Fromagerie Médard).

Gunn's Hill Artisan Cheese in Woodstock returned with two awards. Their Dark Side of the Moo won first place for flavour-added cheeses and their 5 Brothers cheese won second place in washed rind cheeses.

They first stepped onto the winner's podium at the 2013 Canadian Grand Prix cheese competition, two years after opening their business. They've been adding to their ribbon count ever since.

Co-owner Shep Ysslestein said that first win coincided with renewed interest in artisanal foods.

"If you think about lots of the things that we enjoy now like specialty breads [and] craft beers, specialty cheese was really growing quickly at that point in time. So, people were just looking for it everywhere," he said.

Ysslestein was raised on a dairy farm, but a visit to Thunder Oak, a gouda maker in Thunder Bay, lit his cheese-making interest.

With cheese maker's papers from the University of Vermont, and later at the University of Guelph, he honed his skills in North America and Europe. His alpine-style cheeses were inspired by his four months tending cows in the Swiss Alps.

"Someone has to take care of the cows. Milk them and then make cheese from that milk," said Ysslestein. "Along with the main cheese maker, Jann, we would milk them morning and night, and make cheese in a very traditional way, every single day."

Five days a week, 4,000 to 5,000 litres of milk are trucked in from Friesvale Farms, the family dairy a few hundred metres away. Ysslestein and his team transform it into 400 to 500 kilograms of cheese. The wheels are then cured in climate-controlled aging rooms for months or years.

It's more than 'gouda,' it's great

Adam van Bergeijk started making cheese on his dairy farm in Holland in 1981.

His family moved to New Hamburg in 1996 after Dutch agricultural policy changes. They established their dairy farm here and 12 years ago he started making cheese again.

"We had to tweak a little bit about our recipe, but not much," recalled van Bergeijk. "It turned out very well. It's the food the cows are getting, and also the environment that can be an issue as well."

A year later, they won Best Gouda at the Canadian Cheese Awards. They've since won 20 more Canadian and international awards, including at the International Cheese Awards and the World Cheese Awards.

Mountainoak's 240-head dairy farm and cheese factory sits on 77 hectares (they also rent another 69). Each cow produces about 40 litres of milk daily, about 40 per cent is used for their cheese making. Each week, they make 160 wheels, or 1,600 kilograms of cheese.

"I love making the cheese. It's a natural product here, what we make it's an old recipe. But I think it's a nice honest product that I like to present to the people. There are no gimmicks." said van Bergeijk.

Controlling the cheese

Guelph's Heather Thelwell is a certified cheese maker, educator, and owns SweetCheeses! at the Guelph Market. She's also a technical cheese judge — a judge who examines entries for flaws and defects. She judges at the Royal Winter Fair and was a Canadian judge at the 2022 World Cheese Awards in Wales.

She said several factors, including milk quality and the maturation of the farmstead cheese making, contributed to Canada's success at the American Cheese Society. Gunn's Hill and New Hamburg's Mountainoak Cheese were examples of what's possible when the cheese maker controls the whole process.

"Mountainoak has been growing the grain, doing a breeding program for their cows … the quality of the milk is amazing," said Thelwell. "Shep has absolutely remarkable cheese. His brother does the milk. He does the cheese making. Between them, they're keeping control."