Lyburn Farm News 2003.

November 2003
More good news for our three principal cheeses. We have repeated the success of last month, at the British cheese awards. Our Lyburn Gold picking up a Silver and the mature version, Winchester, collecting a Bronze. The Garlic and Nettle has also done well to collect a Bronze. All three cheeses are now being consistantly placed when entered in competitons, which is helping to consolidate our position as having a quality product on offer. The world cheese awards are held at Olympia, in London each year and details can be accessed by clicking on the adjacent picture.

October 2003.

Now into a very intense two weeks of activity. Apart from making cheese this farm grows a number of vegetables. The humble pumpkin is the subject of some substantial activity in the last two weeks of October. Here, outside the farm shop, the contrasts of colour are spectacular. and the shop will be open every day of the last week of October. Pumpkin cheese is not on the the horizon, however. More details on the pumpkin go to www.pumpkin-growers.co.uk

The British cheese awards, held at Blenheim Palace Oxfordshire, provide an opportunity for cheese makers large and small to come together and compete in a number of competitions, that will lead to the best cheese in the UK and Ireland. For us there are two more awards. Particularly pleasing is a Silver for our Lyburn Gold. In the class Modern British, 3/6month, with an entry of 32 in the class, one Gold was presented to Llanboidy Cheesemakers, and 2 Silver, one to Anstey's of Worcester and the second to ourselves.

The second award was a Bronze for our more recently released cheese, Lyburn Mature, now to be re-named Winchester. In recent months we have slowly trickled out these 9 month cheeses, with considersable success. The change in name will inevitably cause some confusion for the time being, but with relatively small numbers available, it should not be too much of a problem. For all the details go to the .www.thecheeseweb.co.uk .

September is proving to be a busy month this year. Celebrated Australian chef Jonathan Smales visits Lyburn Cheese, with his cheese making mother Angie, sister Tahli and cousin Julia. Jonathan, with a great career ahead of him, is checking out the culinary delights of Southern England as well as Germany, Paris and Florence.

More good news for the Garlic and Nettle, it just gets better. The cheese has won it's first major prize at the Frome Cheese Show at the beginning of September. There was a considerable entry in the flavoured cheese class and to come first was no mean feat. The prize confirms the popularity and support it has across a wide range of outlets.

The pumpkin harvest has come early this year. Due to the spell of extremely hot weather the pumpkins, that have had an exellent growing season are now ripening much earlier that usual. The whole crop is now almost completely orange. We have now started to cut them and provided we treat them carefully most of them will survive until halloween.

New product. The older mature version of the Lyburn Gold, as yet un-named, is now becoming available in greater numbers. It has been in the market place for about 4 months and is starting to make its mark. Althought the make is not entirely the same as the Gold, it is similar, and we have chosen to sell it at about 9 months. This cheese has a much fuller flavour and with it a higher dry matter, yet retaining the popular creamy texture of the Lyburn Gold. Numbers are limited at the moment, but will increase with time.

The 10th British Cheese Awards and the Great British Cheese Festival is going be held in 11 acres of parkland landscaped by "Capability" Brown, against a backdrop of Blenheim Palace, one of Britain's most historic sites. Only 12 miles from the M40, 8 miles from Oxford and 10 minutes from the A34, record numbers of visitors are expected this year. For those that would like more detail go to www.thecheeseweb.co.uk . The event will be open to public on Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th September. For those that enjoy their cheese this is not to be missed.

After all the the rain of the winter it has now come dry, not particularly warm, but for the cows an opportunity to get them out to some grass. Only for a few hours a day, as we will need some warm rain to get the grass really growing, there is still plenty of food in the silage pits and a huge clamp of beet, yet to be eaten.

Along with all the other members of the Specialist Cheesemakers, we have now been certified by ADAS, the Food Standards Agency and our local Environmental Health Department.

Having had a very good run up to Christmas, it was clear that we have not enough room and capacity to ripen our cheese. The weather has been awful, so we have had plenty of time to put in a new ripening store. The panels are all secondhand but in good order and fairly easy to erect, another two days and the main body of the store will be finished. This is not the night shift, but thick cloud cover.