In terms of local products, Central Pennsylvania is not want for good brews and interesting cheeses. In fact, the Pennsylvania Farmstand and Artisan Cheese Alliance has over a dozen independent cheese makers from this region in its membership. And according to a gentleman named Lew Bryson (who has three editions of a book tracking PA-based breweries), there are just as many independent breweries and brew pubs in and around the capital area.
But the Newburg-based Keswick Creamery at Carrock Farm and Harrisburg-based Troegs Brewing Company have teamed up to make two products that have both beer and cheese in the same bite. The partners this spring started selling two Keswick tommes (semi-soft cow’s milk cheeses that typically have a nutty taste) that have been washed with two of Troegs’s boldest brews.
For the Tommenator, Keswick takes wheels its basic Tomme and wash them weekly with Troegs’s Trogenator, the brewer’s classic double bock. The washing gives the rind a sweet, malty aroma and a hoppy finish. For its Mad Tomme, Keswick again washes its basic Tomme, this time in Mad Elf Ale, holiday cherry brew which gives the cheese both a spicy aroma and a fruity flavor.
Mark Dietrich Cochran, owner, cheesemaker, farmer and adventurer at Keswick Creamery, said he is making 45, 10-14 pound wheels of these washed cheese a month and slices of them are selling very well, especially in the weekly farmers’ markets in Washington, D.C.
“I’ve always loved the Troegs beer,“ said Cochran, as he manned his farm’s stand at the Farmers on the Square Market in Carlisle recently. He had sold out of the flavored tommes that day. But he still had plenty of the farm’s more traditional aged cheddars and fetas, and a selection of fresh products, including Keswick Creamery’s unique Quark, a cheese of Bavarian origin that has the consistency of cream cheese and the tanginess of cream fraiche, on hand.
“It was just a matter of finding the right ones – you really need a strong tasting beer – to match the tommes,” he said. Cochran explained that he’s not washing his cheese with finished bottles of Trogenator or Mad Elf, but rather using the filterings from the beer-making process, the yeast sediments, where there is the strongest concentration of flavor.
Keswick Creamery doesn’t stop at beer. It also washes some of its cheeses in hard cider, made from Adams county apples. The result is Happy Jack. In this cheese, the apples bring out sweet fruitiness of the cheese and provide an earthy finish. The rind has a nice light golden color with hints of pink and red, kind of like the rosy cheeks some folks get after having a pint of cider or two.
Cochran and his wife, fellow farmer and business partner, Melanie next Friday will be hosting a cider and cheese pairing at the farm beginning at 7:30. You can RSVP to attend the event on Facebook.
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