Double Gloucester – Appleby’s

Lance and Lucy Appleby first started making cheese at Shropshire-based Hawkstone Abbey Farm in 1952, going on to earn MBEs for services to cheesemaking.

The business was taken forward by their son Edward and his wife Christine, before passing to the third generation of the family, Paul and Sarah Appleby, who run the operation today, ably assisted by head cheesemaker Garry Gray.

Best known for making Cheshire, the company also makes a Double Gloucester using unpasteurised evening and morning milk from its own herd, which graze the salty pastures of the Cheshire Plain. The Applebys started making Double Gloucester in 1986 because there was so few farmhouse versions of the cheese being made at the time. Initially the family trialled batches of the cheese using an old recipe from Reaseheath College, where Lucy Appleby learned to make cheese. Eventually the family found its preferred recipe from the archives of the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food. Most of Appleby’s Double Gloucester is sold to the US.

The curd is scalded at around 38oC, before the whey is drained and the curd cut into blocks, which are turned, stacked and broken up by hand. It is then milled, salted, moulded and pressed much harder than the company’s signature Cheshire. The cheeses are cloth-bound and aged for three months upwards. The orange colour comes from the addition of annatto.

The cheese has a dense, close texture with a buttery and nutty flavour.

Pair with a medium dry perry or cider. The fruity notes and tannins frame the mellow cheese.