Tipperary Cheeses

The lush pastures of Tipp make for great milk, and the county has some of the most successful and distinguished cheesemakers in Ireland.

The Maher family now have two generations involved in making the sublime Cooleeney Camembert, on the family farm at Moyne, near to Thurles. This oh-so-delicate cheese has a fist of flavours in a velvet glove texture. Dreamy, runny and lush, the cheese reveals tangy mushroom and woodland flavours. This is one of the greatest Irish cheeses, but you need to get it from a good cheesemaker to see the cheese perform at its brilliant best. The family also make the popular Dunbarra cheeses, good everyday semi-soft cheese in various flavours which can be found in every supermarket.

Another family with a pair of cheeses are Jane and Louis Grubb, who make the brilliant Cashel Blue cheese, and who have been winning new plaudits for their startlingly fine Crozier Blue, a sheep’s milk blue cheese which is only fabulous.

The secret of Cashel Blue, aside from remarkable consistency in the cheesemaking over the last 15 years, is the fact that it needs ageing: 10 weeks old will do, but 12 weeks is even better, for then the flavours have sufficient time to balance and blend. The Crozier Blue, likewise, needs time for all the flavour elements to come together, but when they do, boy! this is a stunner.

Baylough is a beautifully made cheese which uses the finest milk. Dick and Anne Keating profit from this superb milk, for it bestows Baylough with a fudgy-sweet flavour. Some of the cheeses are flavoured, and there is also a smoked cheese, but we reckon the mature plain Baylough is the cream of the crop.