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<\/a>I’m not sure if the Festival of Cheese at the ACS conference was my own personal heaven or hell.<\/p>\n
Heaven, because there was a room filled with 1800 of the most delicious cheeses around… and they let me in (thanks Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board<\/a>!).<\/p>\n Hell, because try as I might, I had no chance of sampling them all.\u00a0 Hell also, because I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from trying<\/em> to\u00a0sample them all.\u00a0 (I got to about 125 different cheese by the end of the night for the record.)<\/p>\n All of the cheeses at the festival were competitors in the ACS annual awards.\u00a0 The best of show this year went to Jasper Hill<\/a>‘s Winnimere (pictured above, bottom right) which is a Mont d’Or (the same style of cheese as locally made Rush Creek<\/a>).\u00a0 The samples of the Winnimere were<\/em> excellent, with all the wonderful goopy<\/a>, bubbly “aliveness” of the type, although I thought the flavor was less meaty and less barnyard-y than I’m used to.\u00a0\u00a0Perhaps the fact that this year’s Winnimere was so mild actually helped it win, as\u00a0Mont d’Or\u00a0isn’t exactly a mainstream\u00a0cheese in\u00a0America yet.<\/p>\n An extra special shout out to Willi Lehner<\/a>\u00a0of Blue Mont Dairy for managing to tie himself for third place overall – for his Bandaged\u00a0Cheddar and Big Sky Grana.\u00a0 For what it’s worth, my favorite on the night was Willi’s Alpine Renegade.\u00a0 And congratulations to all the other winners, particularly our many neighbors (Brunkow, Roelli, Hooks, Carr Valley, etc).<\/p>\n As I said, my favorite on the night was the Alpine Renegade, but I’ve had that many times before.\u00a0\u00a0My favorite new-to-me cheese\u00a0was Holland’s Family Farm<\/a> Marieke Gouda.\u00a0 Oddly, a few weeks after the festival I found some Holland’s Gouda for sale at the farmer’s market in Woodland Park, Colorado.\u00a0 Actually, that cheesemonger had a great selection of Wisconsin cheeses, so if you happen to be in Woodland Park, check it out.\u00a0 I also really enjoyed Crybaby swiss, from Arethusa Farm & Dairy<\/a>\u00a0which I know virtually nothing about.<\/p>\n![\"americancheesesocietyfestival\"](\"http:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/americancheesesocietyfestival.jpg\")
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