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When driving through the rolling hills of the Northern Welsh countryside, it would be easy to miss Cosyn Cymru, a minuscule dairy headquartered within a former Catholic church that was built following waves of Irish migration in the 1960s. And yet, since early 2023, it\u2019s here that cheesemaker Carrie Rimes has produced\u00a0Brefu Bach, ironically one of the country\u2019s only sheep\u2019s milk cheeses<\/a>. \u201cWelsh people really object when people from outside equate Wales with sheep,\u201d says Rimes. \u201cBut then I was thinking, well, hang on a minute, why not turn that around and make something of it? Why aren\u2019t we milking sheep here?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This \u201cwhy not\u201d mentality has long motivated the warm, effervescent Rimes, punctuating her propensity for thinking aloud. Her speech, even in English, boasts a Celtic musicality. But despite living in Wales for over three decades and raising her son (a traditional Welsh folk musician) here, Rimes is not Welsh, which perhaps motivates her passion for the country and its local terroir. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing like the zeal of the converted,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Rimes grew up on a small family farm in Devon, England. When the pressure of intensification forced her father to sell, her mother arranged to keep a couple of Friesian cows and transformed their rich milk into clotted cream, milk puddings, and soon, cheese. \u201cLooking back on it, they were awful,\u201d Rimeslaughs. Nevertheless, the young Rimes was hooked. \u201cMaybe it was because it wasn\u2019t working, and I had my pride dinged or something. It was like, why?! Why wasn\u2019t it working? <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201dIt would take several decades for Rimes to go looking for an answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, she devoted herself to environmental science, studying microbial populations in stream water, only to eschew academia in favor of a teacher training course, which brought her to Wales. Soon, she pivoted from education in favor of a job at the Countryside Council for Wales (then the Nature Conservancy Council), focusing on yet another \u201cwhy not\u201d\u2014one that would reunite her with her earliest passion: \u201cWhy on earth,\u201d she says, \u201cweren\u2019t we really celebrating the products that come from the species-rich grassland?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Consumed by this question, she took early severance from her job to train (again) as a cheesemaker<\/a> and began looking for the perfect work experience. \u201cI was never going to prove that making cheese from flower-rich pastures was going to be any good unless I had the technique quite right,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n With few options in Wales, she hopped the pond to France. Thanks to the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) program, Rimes lived and worked at four different dairies in one summer, from the foothills of the Pyrenees to the peaks of the Montagne Noire. Among them was Rapha\u00ebl Lefroc\u2019s, whose 18-cow herd grazed on the rich grass of the dormant volcano range of the Auvergne region. At summer\u2019s end, Rimes learned that Lefroc was \u201cdesperately short of help,\u201d and though she was still green, she found herself in charge of the dairy, specifically producing his little lactic P\u2019tits Bibis, which Lefroc himself continually threatened to abandon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c\u2018They take a lot of time; they never seem to work for me. Ugh, I\u2019m gonna give them up,\u2019\u201d she recalls him lamenting. But Rimes wasn\u2019t deterred. Motivated by the question that nagged her constantly, she asked permission to take a stab at mastering them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe sort of grudgingly agreed, and over time, we experimented, and I think they perhaps got a little bit more consistent? I don\u2019t know.\u201d Rimes remained in the Auvergne for nearly three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Upon her return to Wales in 2014, Rimes had a new passion project: making her own sheep\u2019s milk cheese in the Welsh countryside. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Of the three types of milk Rimes worked with in France, she found sheep\u2019s milk to be the most satisfying.\u201c It just asks to be made into cheese, really,\u201d she says, because it has higher fat content than cow, goat, and even buffalo. Because Wales is home to around 10 million sheep, it seemed like the perfect place for her project\u2014provided she could find a dairy. Because the \u201cvast majority\u201d of sheep in Wales are bred for meat and would yield little milk, she explains, it took sometime before she stumbled upon Sheep Milk Company, a Lancashire dairy co-founded by Simon Stott, Farmers Weekly\u2019s 2011 Sheep Farmer of the Year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At first, she started with a few 20-liter (5 gallon) buckets of milk, making cheese at the local food technology center. Soon after, she moved to Caws Rhyd Y Delyn dairy on the isle of Anglesey, which was shared with Menai Wyn Jones, the producer of M\u00f4n Las blue cheese<\/a>. But it wasn\u2019t long before she purchased the church building in 2018. After several years of renovations, which were further delayed by the pandemic, she finally moved into the space in March 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, Rimes sources her milk locally from two farmers who graze their Lleyn sheep on the grassy Ll\u0177n, a large peninsula that extends into the Irish Sea. Her lactic Brefu Bach, inspired in part by the P\u2019tits Bibis she learned to make alongside Lefroc, is the star of her offerings, beloved across Wales and the UK thanks in large part to a collaboration with Neal\u2019s Yard Dairy born from a \u201ccheeky\u201d impromptu visit to their Covent Garden branch years ago.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n I sort of just turned up on spec at Neal\u2019s Yard, dug into my rucksack, pulled out a bit of the sort of Welsh cheese I\u2019d been making over there in France,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI plonked it on the counter, and said, \u2018What do you think of that, then?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey found her efforts at the time a bit \u201cfarm-yardy,\u201d she recalls, but once she\u2019d perfected the little lactic cheese\u2019s recipe, they began selling it to Londoners for \u00a311.25 (about $12.15) a pop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brefu Bach has broad appeal, not only because of its light, fluffy texture and fresh, creamy flavor, but also because it\u2019s vegetarian. It requires just a touch of thistle rennet to achieve a lovely, soft curd. But the rennet, which Rimes sources from French company Coquard, has become far more difficult to acquire since Brexit\u2014a change that has motivated her to plant a patch of cardoon thistles behind the church in hopes to produce her own. And this isn\u2019t her only plan for the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For some time, Rimes has had her heart set on perfecting the sort of cheese she imagines would have traditionally been made in Northern Wales: a long-aged hard cheese like Caerphilly. But despite years of trying, it\u2019s proven difficult to master. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve come to the conclusion that with just straight sheep\u2019s milk, it\u2019s a right faff,\u201d she says. And given the history of the region it makes sense. With the nineteenth century advent of railways, she explains, \u201cit looks as if people went over entirely to milking cows<\/a>, because you could get your milk down to London, and you could make butter.\u201d She posits that people would have continued milking sheep small-scale, \u201cbulking out\u201d the skim milk with sheep\u2019s milk to make what she imagines would have been \u201ca decent cheese.\u201d And she\u2019s eager to make it herself\u2014if she can source the milk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Welsh Black cattle are some of the oldest in Britain, descended from pre-Roman breeds and known for their sturdiness, perfect for the rough mountain and hilly terrain. But these days, Rimes is faced with a similar quandary to the one she encountered with her Brefu Bach. Most Welsh Blacks are bred for meat; however, Rimes has her sights set on persuading someone to milk them. \u201cIt may not work, of course! It maybe an absolute total disaster,\u201d she says merrily. If it is, there\u2019s no doubt she\u2019ll \u201cwhy not\u201d her way into a solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the only Welsh cheese you\u2019ve heard of is Caerphilly, you\u2019re missing out. Here are just a handful of the phenomenal cheeses Wales is known for:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Black Sheep may look like many of Caws Cenarth\u2019s wax-coated truckles, but this one stands out in more ways than one. Made with sheep\u2019s milk, it boasts a rich, creamy texture and subtly nutty character with slight lanolin funk. It\u2019s no surprise that, despite being a relative newcomer to the cheese-scape, it\u2019s already earned accolades, including a Gold at the 2019 Royal Welsh Show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perl Las means \u201cblue pearl\u201d in Welsh, and it\u2019s the perfect moniker for this bloomy-rind blue made by Caws Cenarth on the island of Anglesey. Smooth and mild with delicate, yet lingering, bitter blue character, it\u2019s available in multiple sizes and shapes, including 200g (7-ounce) mini truckles that make a perfect cheese board centerpiece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n John Savage-Onstwedder is a household name among Welsh turophiles. The country\u2019s longest-established artisan cheesemaker, Savage-Onstwedder is also Britain\u2019s most highly awarded. While his Caws Teifi is perhaps best-known for its organic gouda-style cheeses, don\u2019t sleep on Saval, a Caerphilly-based washed-rind cheese with a soft, buttery center and a rich, brothy funk<\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019d be forgiven for thinking Hafod<\/a> is a cheddar, but despite its similarities, it\u2019s a traditional Welsh hard cheese made on Bwlchwemen Fawr, the country\u2019s longest certified-organic dairy farm. It\u2019s delightfully intense with sweet, buttery, nutty notes, traits indicative of the Swiss training of the late Dougal Campbell, the recipe\u2019s inventor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Abaty Brie is an organic Brie-style cheese from Aberystwyth in West Wales and one of the only raw-milk Bries made in the UK. A relative newcomer, the cheese is rich and velvety with a slight citrus flair. It\u2019s sure to please any fans of French Brie de Meaux.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Related:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Welsh cheesemaker Carrie Rimes of Cosyn Cymruturns \u201cwhy not?\u201d into \u201cwhat\u2019s next?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":47343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[2214,34517],"coauthors":[2066],"class_list":["post-47342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-cheesemaker","tag-welsh"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFinding Fromage in France<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Resurfacing Welsh Terroir\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Final Frontier<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\nWelsh Cheeses You Should Know<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Black Sheep<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Perl Las<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Saval<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Hafod<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Abaty Brie<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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