We have a new cheese, friends, and you’re going to love it! This is the first time we’ve brought in a totally new cheese in months (see: COVID), so this is especially exciting. I know you’re going to enjoy it because it is a gouda from one of our most trusted affineurs, Betty Koster. She is behind the popular L’Amuse Signature Gouda, a two year old cow’s milk gouda, Wilde Weide, the younger, sharper one year gouda, and Brabander, the sweet and tangy goat’s milk gouda. She wanted to complete the group with a sheep’s milk gouda, and here it is!

Rispens is a sheep’s milk gouda named for the Rispens family, who are farmers and cheesemakers in the northern region of Friesland in the Netherlands. They took the leap to sheep a couple of years ago. Keeping sheep for milk is rare in the Netherlands, and especially rare in Friesland where farming is focused on cattle and meat. In fact, cheesemaking itself was a radical choice for the region because Friesland and cheesemaking have a complicated relationship. A massive gouda production facility was built in the area, which Frieslanders saw as a contributor to global warming and in turn, sea level rise. Sea level rise is bad news for low-lying countries like the Netherlands. Thus, even though the Rispens are nowhere near the scale of the large gouda producer, Frieslanders are still wary of all cheese producers, no matter the size.

Even with these obstacles, the Rispens children, Ype and Janita, charged ahead. The 20-somethings presented a plan to change their family’s farm over to sheep and cheesemaking, and their parents agreed. Impressive parents! It’s like if I asked my dad if we could convert the cheese shop to a chocolate shop. He’d be like hm interesting…no…but interesting. But Ria and Jacob, the parents, were down, and they bought a herd of 500 sheep. They hired a cheesemaker and started selling sheep’s milk gouda.

Then, *angels chorus* Betty Koster came into the picture. She tasted the Rispens’ gouda and asked if they would tweak their recipe just a bit to using a traditional starter culture instead of the culture used by commodity gouda makers that creates a weird texture and crazy big tyrosine crystals (also known as “crunchies”. They said yes, and bippity boppity boop a couple years later, we have a sheep’s milk gouda we love! By bippity boppity boop I mean it took lots of hard work and collaboration to get this new, cool cheese to our shop, and we are quite thankful for that. Is what I meant to say.

And btw it is tasssssty! Cheese friends, it’s like eating a shortbread Christmas cookie! Yes! It tastes like toasted brioche, nutty brown butter, warm spices like nutmeg and cinnamon, and salted pistachios. Next to the rind, Rispens becomes an almond croissant, all rich marzipan and butter. If you want to lean into the dessert-y side of Rispens, try it with a fruited sour beer like Springdale’s Razz Hibby which is a bit tart with raspberry and hibiscus. Or go with a stout. High Water Campfire Stout has smoky, graham cracker flavors that paired with the Rispens make us think of camping, eating sweets next to a crackling fire. There are so many more pairings to find - new cheeses are so exciting!

For the love of cheese and both generations of Rispens,

Kiri

P.S. Last week, I added a link to an interesting article sent in by one of our customers that mostly talked about a specific farm, but also mentioned the Food Project. I was looking at the Food Project website, and there’s lots of helpful information about food security and where it is lacking in our area, how the Food Project hopes to address it, and where you can get involved. Check it out!