This article is excerpted from the Utah Eats newsletter, written by Kolbie Peterson, The Salt Lake Tribune’s food and drink reporter. To get the full newsletter in your inbox every Wednesday, become a subscriber by going to sltrib.com/newsletters.

Hello, Eaters!

I’m all for obscure holidays, and coming up on Monday is National Cheese Lover’s Day. What better way to celebrate this day than by eating a lot of cheese?

Here to give you some ideas on what kinds of cheese to buy from stores like Harmons and Caputo’s are three producers from Utah, with their recommendations for one of their cheeses. (To read about how these cheeses taste, see the Dish of the Week section of the newsletter.)

Beehive Cheese

When friends and brothers-in-law Tim Welsh and Pat Ford started Beehive Cheese in 2005, they didn’t know anything about making cheese, said Britton Welsh, the company’s president and Tim Welsh’s son. So they turned to the cheesemakers at Utah State University, who not only taught them how to make cheese but also gave them the recipe for what would eventually become Beehive Cheese’s award-winning Promontory cheddar.

Today, Beehive Cheese is partnered with Logan-based Gossner Foods, which crafts Beehive’s cheese at its creamery in Idaho’s Magic Valley. Then the cheese is brought to Beehive Cheese’s creamery in South Ogden, where it’s aged and rubbed with ingredients like Earl Gray tea, honey, lavender, sea salt, coffee and Hatch chiles.

Britton Welsh’s cheese pick: Beehive Cheese’s Barely Buzzed, which is Promontory cheddar rubbed with lavender and coffee. It has “big caramel-y robustness,” Welsh said.

Park City Creamery

Park City Creamery owner and cheesemaker Corinne Zinn — originally from Belgium — has been making European-style, soft-ripened “cheese with altitude” in the Wasatch Back since 2018.

The creamery makes four award-winning cheeses, all named for Park City ski runs: Silver Queen, a goat cheese with vegetable ash (“a very old recipe in France,” Zinn said); Treasure, a brie-style cheese; Hidden Treasure, a brie-style cheese with truffles; and Mayflower, a creamy feta-style cheese.

The cow’s milk used in the cheese comes from Heber Valley Artisan Cheese, and the goat’s milk comes from Drake Family Farms in West Jordan. “We process the milk right away when farmers deliver it in the morning, so it’s really, really fresh,” Zinn said.

Corinne Zinn’s cheese pick: Park City Creamery’s Treasure brie-style cheese, which is “very light and not too strong,” she said.

Heber Valley Artisan Cheese

Heber Valley Artisan Cheese has been making cheese since 2011, but it’s been a dairy farm for four generations.

The farm is home to about 100 Holstein cows, which are pampered with mattresses to lie on and back-scratchers to use whenever the mood strikes. Russ Kohler, one of the owners of Heber Valley Artisan Cheese as well as a farmer and a cheesemaker, said, “Anything we can do to pamper these ladies, we want to do it, because we ultimately believe that you can’t make the world’s greatest cheese without the world’s greatest milk, and a big part of that is making sure the cows are … treated right.”

The family makes about 40 flavor varieties of cheese made from their cheddar, Monterey Jack, queso fresco and juustoleipa, which can be browned in a pan without melting.

Russ Kohler’s cheese pick: Heber Valley Artisan Cheese’s Mustard Herb Cheddar, which has “really nice savory notes, a lot of flavor to it, very unique,” he said.

Live deliciously,

Kolbie

Food News

Openings:

• Urban Sailor Coffee, which got its start as an espresso bar on the back of a motorcycle, is opening a new location in Park City in the spring, according to an Instagram post from the business, which has two locations in Salt Lake City. For the new location, Urban Sailor Coffee is updating the building at 1105 Iron House Drive that formerly housed Ritual Chocolate cafe, the post said.

• Fillings & Emulsions, the eclectic Latin-inspired bakery at 1475 S. Main St. in Salt Lake City, has opened a new location in the Granato’s building at 1391 S. 300 West, according to an Instagram post. The opening of this space comes after the bakery closed its West Valley City location in September.

Booze (and Drink!) News

• Mountain West Cider, which makes hard apple cider in the Marmalade District, has released a new line of bottled wines called Capitol Hill Cellars, according to a news release. The line includes sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, merlot, pinot noir, cabernet sauvignon, a red blend, and two dry sparkling wines. To try these wines, stop by the Cider House & Bar at 425 N. 400 West.

Dish of the Week

In order to sample all of the cheeses that the featured cheese producers recommended, I made a charcuterie platter with all of them.

The platter included (clockwise from left) artisan crisps from Rustic Bakery, Mustard and Herb Cheddar from Heber Valley Artisan Cheese, Barely Buzzed from Beehive Cheese, Treasure brie-style cheese from Park City Creamery, and thinly sliced sopressa from Creminelli. In the middle was sour cherry spread from Divina.

The Mustard and Herb Cheddar had a really nice savory and mustard-y notes that paired really nicely with the salami, which was made with garlic and wine.

The Barely Buzzed had big coffee flavor that I enjoyed. It was nice paired with the dried apricots and pistachios in the artisan crisps.

The Treasure brie-style cheese was my favorite, and it changed in texture and taste depending on the part of the wedge I was choosing from. Toward the inner point of the wedge, the cheese was firm, fresh and mild, with a touch of tanginess. Moving outward toward the rind, the cheese got funkier and creamier, and then sharp if I got a bit of the rind itself. This cheese was glorious with the sour cherry spread.