“Cheeses” is the Answer

Kurt Beecher Dammeier, shown in the Pike Place Market creamery and retail store of Beecher’s Handmade Cheese, is counting on the appeal of artisan cheese making to carry Beecher’s into its next market: New York City.

We’ve been turning milk into a variety of products for years, but recently artisan cheese makers around Washington are churning it to a higher level. There are more than 40 such cheese producers in Washington, up from just seven in 2003. The industry is growing “fast and furious,” says Kurt Beecher Dammeier, owner of Beecher’s Handmade Cheese.

Dammeier’s production facility and retail shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market is already a leader in the field. It will take a giant step toward winning recognition for Washington cheeses when Beecher’s opens a shop in New York next February.

While Darigold, the state’s lone mass producer, is still the king of cheese here, with the roughly 465,000 pounds of bulk cheddar and Monterey Jack cheese that it pumps out daily at its Sunnyside plant, there is growing interest among Washingtonians in the variety and quality of the often higher-priced cheeses provided by smaller producers.

Beecher’s is the leader of the new generation of quality cheese makers. While Dammeier doesn’t disclose production stats, he leads the state artisans with his one-of-a-kind cheddars. Last year, the company took first place in the American Cheese Society’s annual competition in the mature cheddars category with its Flagship Four-Year Aged cheese. It also won second place in aged cheddars and third in smoked cheddars.

Other artisinal cheese makers include:

• Ferndale’s Appel Farms, which produces 500,000 pounds annually and includes quark, paneer and Gouda in its stable of varieties. 
• The Washington State University Creamery, a state program designed to promote the industry and which produces about 500,000 pounds of cheese per year, most notably of its popular sharp cheddar, Cougar Gold, that becomes sharper as it ages.
• Mt. Townsend Creamery of Port Townsend, which produces 78,000 pounds of cheese per year and focuses on softer, distinctively flavored cheeses such as its Trailhead tome-style cheese and Cirrus camembert.

All these companies are competing for market share with more traditional producers of fine cheeses in Europe as well as from California, Vermont and Wisconsin.

These new cheese makers are tapping in to a growing taste for fine cheeses to go with everything from fine wines to fine cooking. The difference between artisan and mass-produced varieties is like the difference between Mac & Jack’s and

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