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The Cheese Guide 11 Jacobs & Brichford Everton Premium Reserve took a gold award at the World Cheese Awards. His Briana won a silver award. Briana with Truffles won a second-place award at the American Cheese Society Judging and Competition, and Adair won a Good Food Award. Those awards follow a bronze award for Everton at the 2015 World Cheese Awards, a 2015 Good Food Award for Ameribella and a 2014 Good Award for Everton. "We kind of interpret classic French and Italian cheeses, but like Ameribella, it tastes a lot different than a Taleggio you get in the store. It speaks of the flavors of our farm. I like that aspect of it, developing things that work with our flavors here," he says. "I'm a farmer that makes cheese. We're trying to find cheeses that pair well with our milk, which has a distinctive taste because of the breeding and the feeding program we have here." Today, Brichford and his family operate a farmstead cheese operation in which they milk 85 cows, a composite herd with Normande, Jersey and Tarentaise genetics, chosen for the butterfat and protein they put into their milk and for their traditional association with classic French and Italian alpine cheeses. "Protein is what cheesemaking's all about, and the butterfat adds a lot of flavor," Brichford notes. The Normande breed comprises about 40 percent of the French dairy cow population, and that milk is the traditional milk component of important cheeses like Pont L'Eveque, Livarot and Camembert. Beaufort, the legendary French alpine-style cheese that was the inspiration for Jacobs & Brichford's Everton, is traditionally made from the milk of Tarentaise cows. "The Tarentaise cows have a gene that imparts a particular flavor to their cheese as well," Brichford says. The cattle graze on pasture grasses whenever the weather permits them to be outside, coming for milking to the outdoor dairy parlor that's managed by the oldest of Brichford and Leslie Jacobs' three daughters, Miah Jacobs-Brichford. "Grass farming is hugely important to what we do. I'm an environmentalist farmer. I come from that background," Brichford says. "I farm using organic methods, taking good care of the soil and the animals. It's all part of one big continuum." The cows are milked seasonally, and cheesemaking follows the rhythm of the year to produce about 50,000 pounds of cheese annually. "With a seasonal herd, the milk's different every day," Brichford says. "Standardizing, making the same every time, is not what we do. With the seasonal production, we try to have consistency, but there is going to be some variability anyway. You try to maintain consistency because you have to have product integrity, but you're thrown a curve ball every time.... You're always making guesses about what might happen, based on what you've done with your last batch, but you don't know." Maize Jacobs-Brichford, the couple's middle daughter, is an interior designer in Chicago who uses her vacation days to drive around the countryside selling the family's cheese. The youngest of the three daughters, Eliza Jacobs-Brichford, is completing her PhD in psychology. "She's going to be the one supporting us in our old age," Brichford jokes. The creamery makes nine cheeses. That's more than Brichford wishes he was making, but he's bowed to the demands of the market. There's Everton, which was named after the small town near the farm. Modeled after Beaufort, which Brichford calls his favorite cheese in the world, it's marketed at six to eight months old. Everton Premium Reserve is aged at least 18 months. Briana is a fontina-style semi-firm, smear-ripened cheese aged for a minimum of 90 days. Briana with Truffles is the same cheese with Italian truffles blended into the creamy paste and aged a minimum of 60 days. Ameribella, named after Brichford's great- grandmother, is a soft cheese like a Taleggio with a moist rind and a funk reminiscent of proofing bread dough, and it's currently the creamery's best seller. Adair is a Rebluchon-style cheese, smear-ripened for a thin and soft orange-yellow rind and a paste that's creamy with a slightly lactic taste. Tomme de Fayette is a traditional tomme-type cheese with fruity and grassy flavors and slightly citrus notes, and JQ is a fresh soft-ripened cheese with an earthy flavor that's named after Brichford's great-grandfather, John Quincy, whose picture appears on the label. Phetamias, Jacobs & Brichford's newest cheese, is a cow's milk feta made in Indiana and sold in a package whose label includes a picture of the donkey that runs with the family's small flock of hair sheep. Brichford is toying with the idea that his next cheese might be an Indiana take on a French-style Munster. "The donkey's name is Pete," Brichford says with a chuckle. "Sacrilege on sacrilege is what we do." "We had to do all those because when I started out, I was just making the Brianna, the Everton and the Ameribella," he adds. "They're all raw milk. Ameribella has a short lead, Brianna a little longer and Everton is aged a little longer. Being in the Midwest, some of the cheeses are too strong for some people." With the awards they're bringing home, Jacob's & Brichford's cheeses are generating a premium price that's moving the farmstead towards profitability. "I really like doing it. Marketwise, we'll see how things pan out. Adair is starting to take off. We won a Good Food Award with it," Brichford says. "Things are improving all the time in that regard."

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