Ultimate Guide to British Cheese & UK Cheese Alternatives

A sheep's milk cheese made with milk from the flock at Sheaf House Farm just up the road in Gloucestershire. Made only seasonally from late March, Bibury comes to life in Autumn. Classic notes of meadow flowers and hay along with white chocolate and a fondant texture that is very appealing.

 

A scintillating 9-month aged gouda style cheese. 

If there was ever a Goldilocks gouda, then this is it. Just young enough to be supple, buttery, nutty sweet and unbelievably moreish, yet old enough to have developed a slightly weathered earthiness and rich complexity. We reckon this tastes like liberally buttered jacket potato skins. Oh, and finish is a joy to behold, long, sweet and delightful.

To top it off Swift Reserve pairs perfectly with coffee (yes, coffee). Transport yourself to the Med and enjoy a wedge of cheese with your morning caffeine. Keeping you fuller for longer and tasting shockingly good, it'll soon become part of your breakfast routine. Exclusive to cheesegeek.

Look out for the Swift Black coming soon to one of London's most exciting coffee specialists!

Mature, and not in a dull, doesn't like to leave the house way. Quicke's Mature is just fully developed. Quicke's the makers date back to 1540s so they know how to make goooood cheese. Handcrafted using grass-fed cow milk, this well rounded cheddar is typically matured for 12-18 months (hence the name) and brings you a variety of flavours from brothy to buttery to freshly mown grass and baked potato flavours. Always with the characteristic cheddar tang.

A testament to British cheesemaking, and a nod to continental cheesemaking. Washington is a washed rind cheese destined for great things. When slightly younger, the flavours are fresher and crisper, with just a hint of fruitiness. Ripened on, it develops deep, savoury, meaty flavour, a bit like those famous continental pongers like Epoisses. However, the cider wash brings an astonishing fermented fruity funk, balancing the savoury flavours perfectly, all playing out amidst the most tantalising creamy, decadent, luxurious texture. A modern take on history, and a cheese for the ages.

Designed to be eaten as a young cheese, Cornish Blue is a very different product from traditional English blue cheeses. Its flavour is mild and creamy, with a dense texture and buttery richness, instead of the ‘salty tang’ common of other traditional blue cheeses it has a gentle sweetness.

**Just voted 8th best cheese in World** One of the few remaining Red Leicester cheeses made in Leicestershire, Rutland Red is made in a special dedicated cheese room at Long Clawson Stilton makers. This beaut is so buttery and nutty sweet with a finish reminiscent of a creme brulee and a striking deep red colour that is unmistakable on a cheeseboard making it a firm favourite at cheesegeek. We're not the only ones to think so as Rutland Red just won 8th best cheese in the world (over 5,200 entries!) at the most prestigious 2025 World Cheese Awards. Red Leicester is a classic on any cheeseboard and is also one of our top picks to cook with, Cauliflower Cheese we're looking at you!!

From Lynher Dairies, the makers of Cornish Yarg and Garlic Yarg, we welcome Cornish Kern—a stonker of a cheese. This beaut is off the chart with flavour. Encased in black wax, it is made in the style of a Gouda, however, the utilisation of Alpine starter cultures gives the cheese multiple dimensions. It has a real fruity twang, something like from an old sweet shop, except cheesy. Think exotic dried fruits, salted caramel, toasted hazelnuts and almonds, and although savoury, it simply tempts and teases you with a little bit of nutty buttery sweetness. All the flavours just linger beautifully in your mouth for the perfect amount of time. Its crumbly, crisp and slate-like texture simply arouses one's senses to another planet. An absolute worldy cheese....literally.

King Stone Dairy's longest aged, largest cheese. Originally conceived as a way to capture the sweet complexity of Summer pastures, Burford is now made year round and reflects the seasonality of the milk at Manor Farm. Flavours of charcuterie, hazelnut and hints of tropical fruit.

 

A bold soft cheese inspired by the wild beauty and legend of Bodmin Moor. Named after the mystical Dozmary Pool said to be the resting place of King Arthur’s Excalibur, it carries the same sense of drama and heritage.

It has been developed as a richer, more flavourful evolution of the Cornish Camembert, Dozmary is oozy, buttery, and bursting with character.

Crozier Blue is an Irish sheep's milk cheese modelled loosely on a Roquefort, that has a rich, full and well-rounded flavour. It is gently salty with a distinctly rich creamy texture, offset by a touch of spice.

Made at Curlew Dairy by husband and wife Ben & Sam, Yoredale (formerly Old Roan) represents one of the only truly traditional, raw milk Wensleydale cheeses still made in the UK. As well as being a stonker of a Wensleydale, we were rather captured by the Yoredale's journey. The milk travels a whole 5 metres (or 500cm) from milking parlour to processing room. Then, having been matured for 3-4 months it makes its way to you...via us! Unlike block Wensleydale, the manual, handmade, small batch nature of this traditional clothbound Wensleydale results in so much more complexity. It has the tell tale bite in the centre, but carries an incredible stoney, mineral earthiness closer to the rind, where you also start getting the most wonderful breakdown in the cheese. There are more hidden themes here than The Matrix, and it is a great nod to traditional cheesemaking.

This beaut gives you everything a great Cheddar should, but on top of that, another layer of deep burnt butter, nutty happiness. It has an intense moist yet creamy texture, with a delicate and elegant buttery flavour that matches with a lingering clean flavour. There's no denying that this Lincolnshire Red is a promising winner on any cheese board.

Along with Westcombe, Pitchfork, and Montgomery’s, Keen's is one of the last traditional raw milk artisan Somerset Cheddars. This is due to the fact the criteria are so much stricter than those for West Country Farmhouse Cheddars. The production process uses raw untreated milk from their grass-fed herd, with pint starters rather than powder, traditional animal rennet, and a clothbound maturation of at least 12 months.

The result is a strong, tangy cheddar with a mellow depth of flavour, occasionally blueing throughout. A standout traditional cheddar that is keeping its place firmly in the classic cheese world.

Made in Gloucestershire, Rollright is wrapped in spruce imported from the continent, just the same as is used on traditional Vacherin, and it is made with milk from a single herd of rare breed cows that actually feed on grass even through the winter.

It is great baked, equally great spooned, but crucially it will give you everything you've come to know and love about a Vacherin, and arguably more.

The heavyweight of all cheeses, Santa's favourite cheese, and Christmas on a plate... it's Stilton.

After months of blind-taste tests, we settled on Long Clawson as our Stilton of choice. But don't just take our word for it, Long Clawson won Super Gold at the 2021 World Cheese Awards, effectively crowning it the World's Best Stilton.
With it's beautiful blue veins (yes we're calling them beautiful) and bold flavour, we're so glad there's Stil-tons of this cheese in our fridge.

Cornish Yarg (founder's name Gray spelt backwards) is very similar in many ways to Caerphilly. It is relatively hard, but still contains good levels of moisture giving it a pleasantly yielding feel when pressed or bitten. It has a good level of crumble, resulting in a fantastic overall texture. The real star of Yarg that elevates it to new levels is the visually stunning nettles that the cheese is wrapped in. Each cheese is wrapped by hand, with the nettles imparting a truly fantastic mushroomy, earthy flavour into the cheese that simply adds new dimensions to the eating experience. As the cheese matures, these earthy notes get deeper, and the edge of the cheese starts getting slightly gooey. Extracting flavour from a young hard cheese such as this is a large task, but with Yarg the nettles do this effortlessly and with finesse. A truly unique and wonderful British cheese, worthy of a place on any cheeseboard!

Spenwood - known to the family at cheesegeek as 'Spenny', is a barnstorming British take on a classic Pecorino. At 6 months, it is nutty in a more sweet milky way, so care-free and happy go lucky. As it ages, one starts getting a bit more of a toasted caramel style hazelnut nuttiness, as we start moving further from those Pecorino comparisons. Once it gets beyond 9 months, Spenny takes on a different persona entirely. Gone is that fresh-faced, sweet little cheese, and in its place is the slightly moody teen. It brings meaty to the table and a savoury saltiness. It has been described as roast lamb in the past..sure, we can get on board with that. It also gets harder, drier, and has a definite tang. This is when you start getting into 'grate me on some pasta' territory. No matter how you eat it, Spenny is undeniably delicious!

A classic hard cheese with aromatic spiciness and a strong flavour - a true mountain cheese which is also well suited to a creamy fondue.

Like all great Bries, most notably the worlds famous Brie de Meaux, Baron Bigod (pronounced By-God, because it is so damn good!!) has an absolutely perfect balance between rich decadent butter, and smooth earthy mushroom. It is not sharp or salty like some Bries can be, which is crucial because unlike Camembert, the flavours are so much more subtle and can easily be overpowered. Eating Brie should feel like a really extravagant and comforting experience, and Baron Bigod delivers on every level. We think the little 250g Bigod gems are best at around 5-6 weeks as they mature slightly faster than the bigger wheels. And don't forget about the rind...it packs most of the punch!

Made in Newtownards in County Down by the team at Mike's Fancy Cheese, Young Buck is made to a recipe from 1917 with raw milk from a herd of 150 Holstein Friesian cows. A cheese with serious character, it delivers bold, savoury depth and a creamy, crumbly texture, with mellow fruity tones and a hint of spice. 

Cornish Yarg has always been a classic. You know the guy - wrapped in nettles, fresh and creamy? Well Garlic Yarg is its equally gorgeous sister. Swap out the nettles for wild garlic leaves and the rest of the process stays the same. Still six weeks from 'field to finish', however the garlic leaves lays their mark - you're left with a firmer texture with the unmistakable garlic twang. Vampires watch out.

Traditional in style but only brought to us by makers Cashel in 2017, Shepherd’s Store has already picked up a mind-blowing 7 awards. We’re suckers for a seasonal cheese with this semi-hard beauty only being made between February and September and then aged for a minimum of six months. It strikes the perfect balance across the board: firm yet delicately creamy; full yet without an overly strong flavour accompanied with a mix of savoury and sweet notes. Fudge, caramel, butter are all in play.

Vintage - and not in a shabby chic, chalk paint way...Quicke's Vintage is just old. Quicke's the makers date back to 1540 with this being one of their oldest recipes. Then there is this beauty called Vintage itself, which is matured for 24 months. What does this mean for the cheese? For us, it brings huge depth of flavour, with each mouthful taking you on a journey from umami to butter, to salted caramel. With striking flavours of bitter horseradish and vinegary mustard, it comes with just the right amount of crumble - rich, intense and ladened with awards. This is a cheeseboard essential.

The makers of Perl Wen are actually originally Caerphilly experts, but turned their hand to making some other varieties of cheese - thank goodness because White Pearl is a cracker. Getting Geeky for a second...what is fascinating is that this Brie/Camembert style of soft cheese is usually quite earthy, mushroomy and reminiscent of Autumn dampness moisture and decaying leaves. But Perl Wen, on account of the Caerphilly influence, is far fresher. Fresher, than say, a Prince of Bel Air. With a slight citrus twist, Wenny has Summer written all over it.

A distinctive, blockbuster blue from Two Hoots Cheese in Barkham (although we give far more than two hoots for this blue). This cheese is made using a mixture of Guernsey and Jersey milk which delivers the rich, melt-in-the-mouth taste which is why it's likened to a 'blue butter'. Alongside this you get some minerality from the rind and classic saltiness from the blue veining. This is not one to be missed, hence why it has 3 stars from Great Taste.

This is one of our favourites, and we think it has the power to convert even the most devoted goat’s cheese sceptics. It has a strikingly white colour due to the lack of beta carotene in the milk, and could easily be mistaken for a Cheddar - were it not made with goat’s milk. Clothbound and matured for six months, Quicke’s Goat’s Milk Cheese is rich, deep and earthy, with complex notes of almond and a gentle hint of horseradish towards the rind.

Golden Saye is a punchy little powerhouse of a cheese - a hard Guernsey cow’s milk beauty made to the Spenwood recipe, then left to do its thing for four glorious months under a natural rind. The result? A mildly savoury, totally moreish cheese with that “just-one-more-bite” chew, a hint of umami, and a gentle caramel sweetness that sneaks in at the finish. Its rind is a dead ringer for Spenwood too - a soft grey-white coat that makes the golden glow of the paste underneath look even more irresistible.

And the name? That’s a nod to its roots. “Golden” for its sunshine-yellow interior, and “Saye” for Stratfield Saye - where the Duke of Wellington’s Guernsey herd grazed back in the late ’80s. It was there that Anne Wigmore first started playing with Guernsey milk cheesemaking, kicking off the legacy that’s since inspired Village Maid's entire range of Guernsey milk cheeses.

Wilder Engel – a cheese that’s basically a hug in dairy form. Rich, creamy, and just a little bit cheeky, it’s packed with sweet, buttery goodness and a big ol’ umami punch that’ll make your taste buds do a happy dance. Think intense onion-herb vibes that only get bolder with age, perfectly balanced by clouds of cream and butter.

Made with a little extra cream for an outrageously rich, decadent, and totally toothsome texture, this semi-hard mountain cheese from the Canton of St Gallen, Switzerland is the kind of cheese you want to geek out over. Seven months of ageing has given it depth, character, and just enough swagger to make it unforgettable.

Morangie Brie is basically a little round of bliss. With its edible white rind and lusciously creamy centre, this cheese is all about silky-smooth, melt-in-your-mouth goodness. Think subtle mushroomy notes, a hint of fresh grass, and a texture so dreamy it practically sighs when ripe.

Named after the Glen of Tranquility, it’s the perfect companion for a cheese board, or go rogue and bake it in the oven for maximum gooey indulgence. Either way, it’s soft, creamy, and dangerously moreish.

Supreme Champion at the 2014 World Cheese Awards, this Bath Blue Stilton-style cheese shows what value can be added by manual cheesemaking. Made on a small scale, with hand-ladled curds, every cheese is pierced by hand so the 7 cheesemakers can feel the moisture and adapt the piercing accordingly for every individual cheese. Whilst it hits all the classic Stilton notes, some sharp saltiness, balanced by a richness, what stands out is the long, lingering toasted hazelnut melted butter on toast finish.