Visit to H&B Worcester

The H&B building and courtyard

A big thank you to Tim (who drove) and Luke, Les and all the guys at H&B Worcester for their kind hospitality.  It was a long drive there from the grey and cold climes of North Yorkshire, but really worth it.

Our cheese tastingOur cheese in H&B's cold room!

I went to do a cheese tasting, to show H&B the 11 of the 15 cheeses that we make ourselves, all with local milk together with some of our little leaflets.

We tried:

Goat – all made with local Yorkshire milk

Original Goat – crumbly, fresh with an almond taste, made in a Wensleydale style

Smoked Original Goat – subtle smoked flavour without losing any of the underlying flavours too

Naturally Rinded Matured Goat – we bind this with cotton cloth in the traditional fashion and mature it for 4 months or so that it develops a thin crust; a firm and full flavoured cheese

Luke at H&B, a regular at Ribblesdale

Yorkshire Goat Gouda– really unusual, we don’t know of another British goat gouda, let alone a Yorkshire goat gouda; creamy texture with a slight tang

Goat Cheddar – this has some age on it now with calcium lactate crystals forming – this gives cheese that slight ‘crunch’ as it ages – great cheddar texture with lots of flavour

Unpasteurised goat cheese – stinks to high heaven but has oodles of flavour

Sheep – made with milk from Chipping, in Lancashire

Original Sheep – already a firm favourite; we are really pleased with this one – almost fudge like in texture, nutty and creamy

Smoked Original Sheep – subtly smoked over oak chippings, by us, also popular

Les at H&B looking very studious

Cow – made with local cow’s milk

Old Tyme Wensleydale – ‘why don’t we take more of this’, they asked!  Fresh, crumbly, rich and creamy

Naturally Rinded Matured Cow – we bind this with cotton cloth in the traditional fashion and mature it for 4 months or so that it develops a thin crust; beautifully yellow, lots of creamy and rich flavours

Blue Wensleydale – this also went down very well – rich and creamy base with blueing

Part of H&B's well ordered cold room

It was really interesting to look around H&B’s premises and I enjoyed loitering in their cold room, especially the non cheese part – it was full of chocolate!

I love looking in other people’s cold rooms!  What was very obvious was the high quality of the cheese stocked, it was all top notch stuff – very impressed.

A cupboard full of chocolate!

 At the end of my trip, I was allowed a quick peek through a window in to Anstey’s dairy which is a part of the H&B building.  I would have loved to have gone in, but what I saw was interesting; H&B have acquired Ansteys of Worcester and are already making their own cheese – excellent!

Thanks again, guys, it was a really interesting and informative trip and I’m so pleased that you are going to be listing three more of our cheeses.

#HampBWorcester #Ansteys #HampB #CheeseCellarWorcester #CheeseCellar #RibblesdaleCheese