Janet Fletcher

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Hello Gorgeous!

Could cheese get any prettier? This new beauty from Jasper Hill Farm gets top marks for appearance (from me, at least) and extra credit for being made with raw milk. Plus, it’s a mixed-milk blue—half cow, half goat—a rare taste experience. Jasper Hill has already proven its blue expertise with the exquisite Bayley Hazen. Has this Vermont creamery nailed yet another one?

Cheese lovers know Jasper Hill as the source of superb cow’s milk cheeses: Moses Sleeper, Winnimere, Harbison and Willoughby are among my favorites. So what are they doing messing around with goat’s milk?

“We got a goat farm,” explains Zoe Brickley, Jasper Hill’s marketing director. A couple of years ago, Jasper Hill owners Mateo and Andy Kehler—they are brothers—purchased a Vermont goat dairy with a young couple who brought the goat expertise. Ryan Andrus and Annie Rowden had worked for Cypress Grove Chèvre in California (makers of Humboldt Fog), but they wanted to own something. Now, with help from Jasper Hill, they do. Andrus and Rowden bottle most of their goat’s milk, but when there’s extra, Jasper Hill blends it with cow’s milk and makes cheese. Bridgman Blue (pictured above) is one of three new mixed-milk cheeses that Jasper Hill has created with milk from the goat farm.

Goat people: Rowden and Andrus

“We like mixed-milk cheese because you get the body and richness of the cow’s milk,” says Brickley. “The goat’s milk is leaner.” Goat’s milk is also more expensive to produce, so mixing milks brings the cheese cost down.

Bridgman Blue resembles Bayley Hazen but, at 5 pounds, it’s a little smaller. The cultures are different and Bridgman is intentionally more dry, which makes it more stable and less likely to develop a strong “goaty” aroma. It’s released at about three months.

It’s such a handsome cheese, with a thin natural rind that looks like it was dusted with a flour sifter. Inside, the blue veins snake evenly through the paste, a good sign. Aromatically, it reminded me of Bayley Hazen, with the same Saltine cracker scent. The texture is dense and fudgy, a little more crumbly and less creamy than I might like. The flavor is peppery but not pungent. My husband, usually a blue-cheese avoider, connected with this one. His three-word review: “This is lovely.”

I hope Jasper Hill will keep playing with that goat’s milk and someday give us a 100% goat blue. There aren’t many but they can be wonderful. Some I’ve loved: Carr Valley Billy Blue from Wisconsin; Lively Run Cayuga Blue from New York; England’s Harbourne Blue, Italy’s Verde Capra and the irresistible Persillé de Rambouillet from France.

Look for Jasper Hill Bridgman Blue at Bayleaf (Coupleville, WA), Bleu Fox (Chattanooga), Cheese Shop of Des Moines, Eataly (NY, LA, Boston), Houston Dairy Maids, Mill City Cheesemongers (Lowell, MA), Monger’s Provisions (Detroit), Talbott & Arding (Hudson, NY), Taste Place (Waitsfield, VT), The Wine Source (Baltimore) and online at Jasper Hill Farm, Murray’s and Saxelby Cheese.