An Oregon Brewery Made a Beer Out of Blue Cheese

Oregon's Crux Fermentation Project teamed up with local cheesemaker Rogue Creamery for a new type of brew

December 18, 2023 11:53 am
top view of tasty pieces cheese with blue mold on black slate background. An Oregon brewery just made a beer out of blue cheese.
Not your typical beer ingredient
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You can make anything into beer: French’s mustard, recycled sewage water, and now, blue cheese.

Oregon brewery Crux Fermentation Project teamed up with Rogue Creamery to create a blue cheese beer (and no, not beer cheese, which is a thing, but a beer made out of cheese). To accomplish this, the yeast and flora of the blue cheese are added to beer wort and aged in oak barrels for nearly two years, according to NPR (which asked the proper follow-up: “Does it go with wings?”). The beer was then aged on the road in a portable tank in a truck. A spokesperson for the cheesemaker has said the cheese flavor in the beer is “not too strong.”

According to a post by Rogue, the brew — Coolship Beer No. 6 — is a limited-edition lambic-style ale brewed with the cheesemaker’s own Rogue River Blue Cheese, a world champion at the 2019/20 World Cheese Awards. The blue cheese spends nine to 11 months in its aging caves, and then each wheel is hand-wrapped in organic, biodynamic Syrah grape leaves that have been soaked in pear spirits.

Crux describes itself as a “brewer-owned and operated community committed to brewing perfection and fermentative experimentation of the highest quality.”

“Beer and cheese are a natural pair, and this Rogue Creamery Crux Coolship made with their iconic blue cheese is no exception,” said Crux brewmaster Larry Sidor in a press release. “The Crux Coolship project is all about experimentation with wild yeasts and unique ingredients — don’t let the blue cheese scare you away from this slightly sweet and oaky lambic ale that is the perfect pair with your holiday roast.”

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