CheeseFest, Australia’s biggest cheese festival, is celebrating its tenth year of providing the good people of South Australia with an amazing weekend of cheese tasting and delights.
There aren’t many things that we here at The Adelaidian enjoy more than cheese. Put a good plate of cheese in front of us, and we’ll be happy for the whole evening. However, when it comes to Woodside Cheese, we reach a whole other level of blissful existence.
Woodside Monet
Kris Lloyd, director and founder of CheeseFest, is also the artisan behind sophisticated cheese company Woodside Cheese Wrights. Kris Lloyd’s cheese possess such a high level of flavour, perfect texture and quality that’s hard to describe without trying it for yourself. You may have seen their award-winning Monet fresh goats cheese floating around Instagram, as it is insanely delicious and decorated with colourful flowers, like Monet’s Garden.
For the launch of CheeseFest, The Adelaidian was kindly invited to a tasting at Kris Lloyd’s house through Zomato. Here we got to try six of the amazing cheeses on offer from Woodside Cheese, interestingly paired with six beers and ciders from Vale Brewing.
When cheese pairing comes to mind, most often think of cheese with wine. Pairing cheese with beer and cider was a unique concept we were excited to try, and it resulted in perfect pairing. To celebrate the release of Vale Golden, we started the evening sampling this new malt blend of Pilsner. This was paired with the luxuriously creamy Woodside Charleston Brie, which softened the residual bitterness of the beer.
Woodside Monet
To take the palette back to a milder combination, we then tried Dr Pilkington’s Miracle Cider (if it works, it’s a miracle!) with the beautiful aforementioned Woodside Monet. Apple or pear is commonly found on a cheese platter, so pairing cider and cheese is something that went together so well we were left wondering why we hadn’t thought of this before.
Vale Brewing’s interpretation of what a new world craft lager should be is their Vale Lager. The 100% malted grain is almost sweet, and when paired with the Woodside Cave Matured Cheddar would make for a great after meal treat.
Woodside Perisan Fetta
The most well-known of the Vale Brewing family would have to be the Vale Ale. A traditional Australian Pale Ale, the hop flavours and aromas were complimented by a spreadable Persian Fetta which rounded off the final notes of citrus, passionfruit and peaches in the beer.
Our personal favourite Vale Brewing variety would have to be the Vale Amber. The hints of chocolate, coffee and cocoa that balance out the hops in a darker ale are something we can never pass up. The Woodside Old Amsterdam Aged Gouda was needed to match the amber ale with a very heavy and dense taste, and the delicious crystal-like residue of the cheese always welcomed a good wash with the Vale Amber.
Vale Lager
Vale IPA is Australia’s answer to the American IPA, which uses hops from three countries, Australia, New Zealand and the USA. This beer is quite dry, and the Goat Milk Blue cheese complimented with fresh honeycomb and honey encouraged enough salivating to chase the last dry notes away.
CheeseFest runs this weekend on:
Friday 23 October 2015 – 4pm-8pm
Saturday 24 October 2015 – 12pm-7pm
Sunday 25 October 2015 – 11am-5pm
