by Austin Coe Butler
Next up in our continuing series on American Cheese Society Award Winners is another Minnesota native, Redhead Creamery! Redhead won in the following categories:
3rd Place – Cheese Curds – Ridiculously Good Cheddar Cheese Curds
Redhead Creamery is based in Brooten, MN, about 120 miles northwest of the the Twin Cities. The creation of the creamery was the fulfillment of Alise Sjostrum’s (resident redhead) childhood dream of becoming a cheesemaker. After completing a 4-H program in Wisconsin, Alise returned to the family farm and announced, at the age of sixteen, that she was going to stay on the family farm and open a creamery. After acquiring a decade of experience working, studying, and traveling from Wisconsin to Vermont, Switzerland to Brazil, Alise and her husband Lucas returned to the family farm and got down to work. They’ve been producing farmstead, artisan cheese since 2013, winning awards along the way. (In addition to cheese, Redhead was also recently given a grant to research and produce an alcoholic beverage from fermented whey!)
We carry quite a few cheeses from Redhead Creamery at the moment. Their Little Lucy Brie is a bright, creamy American Brie that is so adorable (and delicious) it demands to be on every cheeseboard. We also carry their North Fork Munster, a pungent, gooey, washed rind, and their Red Temper Cheddar, which is rubbed down in a chipotle pepper and honey paste and brought home a blue ribbon at last year’s State Fair!
And then there are those aptly named, award winning cheese curds. They’ve got that perfect cheddar sharpness and cheese curd squeak that just them as easy to polish off as a bag of chips. With the State Fair just a few days away, it’s the perfect time to pick up some cheese curds! You can fry them, serve them in poutine, or, if you’ve taken one of our mozzarella classes, you can make cheddared mozzarella!? All Redhead Creamery cheeses are 15% off this weekend, so stop by the cheese counter to try some and see how good ridiculously good cheese tastes!