It’s no myth that White Stag is new Bellevue cheese
There is a brand new cheese on Arran to savour and enjoy.
White Stag has been created by Calum Chaplin at the Bellevue Creamery in Blackwaterfoot which he describes as a ‘wee love letter to Arran’.
He says its unique taste makes it hard to described. But if he was to try, Calum says it is a cross between a Caerphilly and a Swiss-style cheese - semi-hard but with a sweet nutty taste.
He says it a lovely mild cheese which you can cook with, have it on a sandwich or with oatcakes and it will melt well on pizza, lasagne, jacket potatoes and the like.
Calum said he has wanted to make a white cheddar for a long time and the fact that there is surplus Arran milk at the moment from the island’s only dairy farm at Tigheanfraoch, given the current situation, he wanted to put it to good use.
He has now been perfecting it for two months and it went on sale, for the first time just last week.
Calum told The Banner: ‘There is a lot of work involved. While it is a white cheese, the cultures I am using means there will be a bit of blue and it will pick up a lot of other tastes that makes the cheese the way it is. It is now being waxed to extend its shelf-life.’
The name, is of course, a reference to the rare Arran animal of the same name and the myths and legends which surround it.
Calum added: ‘It is really a wee love letter to Arran, diary farming, and indeed all the farmers on the island who are working incredibly hard to keep us all fed.’
It is the first new cheese produced at Bellevue, which began production in 1996, since the Skinny Blue produced using Arran Dairies semi-skimmed milk. Calum said he hoped to continue producing White Stag when the creamery is back to full production with its other products but he said: ‘It is all down to whether people like it when they try and customers buy it when the cheese shop opens again. As an initial island-only offer The Cheese Shop is selling pieces of just over 200 grams for £4. To order this, or any other of their cheesy bargains, call the shop on 302788 – you can collect or they can deliver.
‘It’s a wee love letter to Arran...and all the farmers on the island.’